Increasing student engagement and reducing exhaustion through the provision of demanding but well-resourced training

Despite the fact that both workplace and training environments can be inherently demanding, these environments sometimes manage to elicit a level of engagement and enthusiasm that is surprising. The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model has been used extensively within the workplace to predict both engagement and burnout. It suggests that high demands lead to burnout, but that appropriately targeted resources mitigate the impact of these demands, and increase engagement. In order to test this model within the university context a survey was developed to assess participants of a short academic skills training programme. The survey measured students’ perception of demands, resources, engagement and burnout immediately following the programme. Evidence suggests that resources were positively related to engagement, and that demands had a positive relationship with exhaustion, but not the other components of burnout. The relationship between the actual demands of the training and exhaustion was mediated by the individual’s emotional or stress related experience of that demand. This research suggests that the JD-R model has value in predicting both engagement and exhaustion for participants in short training programmes.