An Investigation into EFL Students’ Burnout Levels and Their Academic Motivation at the Tertiary Level

While researchers have studied burnout and motivation separately, little attention has been paid to how these factors interact in language learning environments. Understanding the interplay between burnout and motivation in the EFL context is highly relevant in light of the widespread shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study investigates the burnout and academic motivation levels of EFL students in terms of gender and language level variables, focusing on learners’ experiences during the COVID-19 process. The study took place at a foundation university and 66 students from different language levels participated in this study. Data was collected through demographic information form, Academic Motivation Scale (2012) by Karagüven and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Form (2011) by Çapri, Gündüz, and Gökçakan. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, Kruskal Wallis Test, and Pearson Correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicated that students had quite high motivation even though they felt a high level of burnout. There was a significant difference between students’ academic motivation and depersonalization scores by gender variable. Kruskal-Wallis test findings on four language levels revealed that there was not a significant difference regarding academic motivation and burnout scores of the participants. Finally, there was no correlation between students’ academic motivation and burnout levels.