To enhance faculty understanding of burnout, its causes and mitigation, Dr. M’hammed Abdous has assembled an annotated bibliography of source material that interested faculty might find helpful when reflecting on this critical health concern. At the CFD, we will continue to update and expand this bibliography as part of our 2025-2026 focus on “Banishing Burnout: Flourishing as Faculty.”
Causes of Burnout
Workload and Role Stress
Deep, P. D., Ghosh, N., & Chen, Y. (2025). Faculty Burnout in Higher Education: Effects on Student Engagement, Learning Outcomes, and Artificial Intelligence-Driven Institutional Responses. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 15(1), 28–40.
Faculty burnout creates cascading effects on student outcomes, degrading teaching quality and reducing learning achievement. The authors argue that institutions absorb burnout’s true costs through both diminished educational quality and faculty attrition. The authors suggest that AI-driven automation of administrative and grading tasks represents one strategy for converting technological demands into faculty support rather than additional burden, although this adaptation is debated in other publications.
Gillespie, N. A., Walsh, M., Winefield, A. H., Dua, J., & Stough, C. (2001). Occupational stress in universities: Staff perceptions of causes, consequences and moderators. Work & Stress, 15(1), 53–72.
Qualitative focus groups with 178 staff across 15 Australian universities surfaced three dominant stressors: work overload, inadequate recognition, and minimal consultation in decision-making. Control overwork and supportive supervision proved more protective than individual coping strategies, suggesting organizational interventions outperform personal resilience training.
Gmelch, W. H., Wilke, P. K., & Lovrich, N. P. (1986). Dimensions of stress among university faculty: Factor-analytic results from a national study. Research in Higher Education, 24(3), 266–286.
Drawing on responses from 1,920 faculty across 80 doctorate-granting institutions, factor analysis identified five distinct stress dimensions. Reward and recognition accounted for 55% of common variance, followed by time constraints (12%), departmental influence (7%), professional identity (6%), and student interaction (6%). The study demonstrated how workload pressures and recognition deficits combine to produce strain, pointing to structural interventions around role clarity and resource allocation.
Kinman, G. (2001). Pressure points: A review of research on stressors and strains in UK academics. Educational Psychology, 21(4), 473–492.
This paper reviews research on occupational stress among UK academics, finding that they report lower job satisfaction and poorer psychological health compared to other professionals. The review examines the prevalence, sources, and impacts of stress, alongside potential causes and differences across demographics.
Koster, M., & McHenry, K. (2023). Areas of work-life that contribute to burnout among higher education health science faculty and perception of institutional support. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being, 18(1).
The pandemic intensified existing role strain among health science faculty, with narrative data revealing work-life imbalance, unmet support needs, and erosion of community as central themes. Faculty described disengagement stemming from workload increases and isolation. Institutions can counter these patterns through flexible workload arrangements, demonstrated concern for well-being, and accessible wellness resources.
Padilla, M. A., & Thompson, J. N. (2016). Burning out faculty at doctoral research universities. Stress and Health, 32(5), 551–558.
Among 1,439 faculty at U.S. R1 institutions, burnout correlated most strongly with diminished social support, competing family obligations, and insufficient sleep and leisure. Grantsmanship and service emerged as the activities most closely tied to exhaustion, revealing how the modern research university distributes burnout risk unevenly across faculty responsibilities.
Yang, D., Liu, J., Wang, H., Chen, P., Wang, C., & Metwally, A. H. S. (2025). Technostress among teachers: A systematic literature review and future research agenda. Computers in Human Behavior, 108619.
This synthesis of 54 studies documented how technology integration produces stress through three pathways: technological factors themselves, workplace conditions surrounding implementation, and individual perceptions of competence. The phenomenon consistently undermines both well-being and job performance.
Lack of Institutional Support
Cadena-Povea, H., Hernández-Martínez, M., Bastidas-Amador, G., & Torres-Andrade, H. (2025). What pushes university professors to burnout? A systematic review of sociodemographic and psychosocial determinants. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22(8), 1214.
A review of 60 studies (2019–2024) covering over 43,000 university staff found that burnout is mainly caused by three systemic problems: too much work, poor institutional support, and workplace conflict. Since younger staff and women are more vulnerable, the authors argue that burnout is a structural issue, not just an individual one, and recommend that universities change their policies to fix these root causes.
Fernández-Suárez, I.; García-González, M. A.; Torrano, F.; & García-González, G. (2021). Study of the prevalence of burnout in university professors (2005–2020). Education Research International, 2021, 7810659.
A review of 12 studies (2005–2020) found high levels of burnout in university professors, affecting thousands of faculty. Although estimates of burnout previously varied widely (5%–45%), the consistent high rates confirm an urgent need for preventive programs to address this syndrome and support professors’ professional success and well-being.
Rosser, V. J. (2004). Faculty members’ intentions to leave: A national study on their worklife and satisfaction. Research in Higher Education, 45(3), 285–309.
Faculty decisions to stay or leave are strongly tied to their perception of their work-life quality and institutional support. High-quality work environments and supportive leadership directly predict both job satisfaction and the intent to remain employed. Specifically, burnout acts as a key link: supportive institutions reduce burnout, which in turn helps keep faculty from wanting to leave.
Tytherleigh, M. Y., Webb, C., Cooper, C. L., & Ricketts, C. (2005). Occupational stress in UK higher education institutions: A comparative study of all staff categories. Higher Education Research & Development, 24(1), 41–61.
This study examines how UK university academics report significantly higher levels of occupational stress than other staff, primarily due to job insecurity and high job demands. Sources of pressure are not uniform; the stress profile differs based on the type of institution, where research-focused university generates different pressure points than a teaching-focused one.
Burnout and Performance
Hammoudi Halat, D., Sami, W., Soltani, A., et al. (2024). Mental health interventions affecting university faculty: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health, 24, 3040.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of ten studies confirmed that interventions to improve university faculty mental health are generally effective. The analysis of 891 participants showed a large overall positive effect. However, the results varied widely, suggesting that intervention effectiveness is highly dependent on the region and the specific environment, highlighting the need for tailored programs rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.
Lackritz, J. R. (2004). Exploring burnout among university faculty: Incidence, performance, and demographic issues. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(7), 713–729.
Burnout in faculty is tied to factors like the number of students taught and time spent on various activities, and it also relates to student evaluation scores. Although the overall rate of high-level burnout in faculty (at half the rate of the general workforce) is lower, it manifests differently by gender: women report significantly higher emotional exhaustion, while men show higher depersonalization. In addition, younger faculty experience greater emotional exhaustion than older faculty.
Lei, M., Alam, G. M., & Bashir, K. (2025). The job performance and job burnout relationship: A panel data comparison of four groups of academics’ job performance. Frontiers in Public Health, 12, 1460724.
Analysis of panel data (2020–2023) from 1,113 Chinese university academics confirmed a strong inverse link: high performers showed low burnout, while low performers experienced high burnout. While psychological counseling significantly reduced burnout, it did not improve job performance. This suggests that hiring staff based on their competency and ability to handle stress (prevention) is better than using counseling later (mitigation).
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422.
Burnout is a prolonged reaction to chronic emotional and interpersonal job stress, defined by exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy (reduced efficacy). Recent international research has shifted the focus from the individual’s symptoms to the larger organizational context and has established work engagement as its conceptual opposite, offering new avenues for prevention and intervention.
Watts, J., & Robertson, N. (2011). Burnout in university teaching staff: A systematic literature review. Educational Research, 53(1), 33–50.
A review of studies on university teaching staff confirms that exposure to high numbers of students, especially postgraduates, strongly predicts burnout. Burnout itself involves emotional exhaustion, cynicism (depersonalization), and reduced personal accomplishment. Regarding demographics, men typically score higher on depersonalization, women report greater emotional exhaustion, and younger staff appear more vulnerable to emotional exhaustion.
Zhang, Q., Li, X., & Gamble, J. H. (2022). Teacher burnout and turnover intention in higher education: The mediating role of job satisfaction and the moderating role of proactive personality. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1076277.
Based on data from 296 Chinese university faculty, burnout increases the desire to quit (turnover intention) by diminishing job satisfaction. In this process, a proactive personality acts as a protective shield: for faculty who are naturally more proactive, high job satisfaction has an even stronger effect in preventing them from leaving.
Recovery and Protection
Bennett, A. A., Bakker, A. B., & Field, J. G. (2018). Recovery from work-related effort: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3), 262–275.
A meta-analysis of 54 studies (N=26,592) confirms that after-work recovery activities—psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery, and control—are crucial for well-being. These activities significantly reduce fatigue and enhance vigor, with psychological detachment being the strongest factor for reducing fatigue and control being the strongest for increasing vigor. Recovery acts as a partial mediator, explaining up to 62% more variance in well-being outcomes than just considering job characteristics alone.
Cao, B., Hassan, N. C., & Omar, M. K. (2025). Interventions to Reduce Burnout Among University Lecturers: A Systematic Literature Review. Behavioral Sciences, 15(5), 649.
A Systematic Literature Review of 21 studies (2020–2024) identified seven distinct types of effective interventions for reducing lecturer burnout. Social support was the most commonly studied and empirically validated intervention, followed by training programs (especially those facilitating teaching transitions) and methods encouraging the reevaluation of work demands (like Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy). For sustained burnout reduction, implementing targeted, school-based programs with the backing of policymakers and administrators is considered essenti