Multidimensional perfectionism and academic burnout in university students: the moderating role of autonomy support

Abstract: The present study aims to explore the relationship between academic burnout, multidimensional perfectionism, and students’ perceived autonomy support from the teacher/instructor, while accounting for sleep. The final sample contained 147 university students with the mean age of 26 years. Three moderation regressions were carried out in the analysis. The results demonstrated that multidimensional perfectionism and the perfectionism dimension evaluative concerns were significant negative predictors for academic burnout. The perfectionism dimension striving was a non-significant predictor for academic burnout, and autonomy support was a significant positive predictor for burnout in all models. Autonomy support was not found to moderate the relationship between academic burnout and multidimensional perfectionism or the two separate dimensions of perfectionism, sleep was found to protect against burnout. These results it indicates that different learning environment might potentially impact students’ perceived autonomy support and that aspects of multidimensional perfectionism may be associated with intrinsic motivation in academia. Future research on academic burnout, autonomy support, and multidimensional perfectionism is needed to improve understanding of the effects of these factors in different environments and further investigate those interactions to understand better preventive measures and ways to protect against them. This study contributes to a growing field of research on factors associated with academic burnout and university students’ well-being and psychological processes.