The measure of classroom stress and burnout among gifted and talented students

Abstract

The development of the Student Stress Inventory (SSI) and the cross-validation of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) are presented. First, gifted student data (n = 311) were subjected to factor analyses for both the SSI and the MBI to assess factorial validity; five stress and three burnout factors were evident. Second, the construct validity of both the stress and burnout constructs was examined in relationship to classroom tedium and the quality of school life. Also, 14 child stress experts assisted in analyzing content validity; the majority of these rated SSI items as being relevant to very relevant to student stress. With respect to SSI reliability, alphas ranged from .63 to .85; similarly, MBI alphas ranged from .63 to .86. Additionally, most of SSI and MBI scales and subscales were moderately to strongly interrelated. Finally, an inspection of the concurrent validity of the stress and burnout constructs revealed significant relationships between stress, burnout, tedium and, to a degree, quality of school life variables.