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The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout: A Two Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach
WILMAR B. SCHAUFELI, MARISA SALANOVA,
VICENTE GONZ ALEZ-ROM A and ARNOLD B. BAKKER
THE MEASUREMENT OF ENGAGEMENT AND BURNOUT:
A TWO SAMPLE CONFIRMATORY FACTOR
ANALYTIC APPROACH
(Received 15 December, 2000; Accepted 5 August, 2001)
619). In addition, the factorial structure
of the Maslach-Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) is assessed and the rela-
tionship between engagement and burnout is examined. Simultaneous confirmatory
factor analyses in both samples confirmed the original three-factor structure of the
MBI-GS (exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy) as well as the hypothesized
three-factor structure of engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption). Contrary to
expectations, a model with two higher-order factors – ‘burnout’ and ‘engagement’ –
did
not
show a superior fit to the data. Instead, our analyses revealed an alterna-
tive model with two latent factors including: (1) exhaustion and cynicism (‘core of
burnout’); (2) all three engagement scales plus efficacy. Both latent factors are neg-
atively related and share between 22% and 38% of their variances in both samples.
Despite the fact that slightly different versions of the MBI-GS and the engagement
questionnaire had to be used in both samples the results were remarkably similar
across samples, which illustrates the robustness of our findings.
314) and employees (
N
=
KEY WORDS: burnout, engagement, measurement, students.
Two trends recently emerged in burnout research which both boil down
to a broadening of the traditional concept and scope (Maslach et al.,
2001). First, the concept of burnout that was initially closely linked
to the human services such as health care, education, and social work
where employees do ‘people’ work of some kind, has been expanded
towards all other professions and occupational groups. Second, burnout
research seems to shift towards its opposite: job engagement. Instead of
looking exclusively to the negative pole, researchers recently extended
their interest to the positive pole of worker’s well-being. Seen from
this perspective, burnout is rephrased as an erosion of engagement
with the job. This development reflects an emerging trend towards a
‘positive psychology’ that focuses on human strengths and optimal
functioning rather than on weaknesses and malfunctioning (Seligman
and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).
Journal of Happiness Studies
3:
71–92, 2002.
© 2002
Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands
.
ABSTRACT. This study examines the factorial structure of a new instrument to
measure engagement, the hypothesized ‘opposite’ of burnout in a sample of univer-
sity students (
N
=
72
WILMAR B. SCHAUFELI ET AL.
Burnout and its Measurement
Originally, burnout as measured with the Maslach-Burnout Inventory
(MBI – Maslach and Jackson, 1981) was defined as a three-dimensional
syndrome of emotional exhaustion (i.e. the draining of emotional
resources because of demanding interpersonal contacts with others),
depersonalization (i.e. a negative, callous, and cynical attitude towards
the recipients of one’s care or services), and lack of personal accom-
plishment (i.e. the tendency to evaluate one’s work with recipients
negatively). Typically, burnout was assumed to occur in individuals
who work with people in some capacity, for instance in health care,
social services, or education. For that very reason, all three original
dimensions of the MBI refer to contacts with other people at the job.
However, nearly a quarter of a century of research and practice has
learned that burnout also exists outside the realm of the human ser-
vices. Therefore, the concept of burnout and its measurement were
broadened to include
all
employees and not only those who do ‘people
work’ (Maslach and Leiter, 1997). Consequently, the original version of
the MBI was adapted for use outside the human services; this new ver-
sion was called MBI-General Survey (MBI-GS: Schaufeli et al., 1996).
The three dimensions of the MBI-GS parallel those of the original MBI,
in the sense that they are more generic and do not refer to other people
one is working with. For instance, the first dimension –
exhaustion
–is
measured by items that tap fatigue but do not make direct reference to
other people as the source of one’s tiredness. The items that measure
cynicism
reflect indifference or a distant attitude towards work in gen-
eral, not necessarily with other people. Finally,
professional efficacy
has a broader focus compared to the parallel MBI-scale encompass-
ing both social and non-social aspects of occupational accomplish-
ments. Psychometric research with the MBI-GS using confirmatory
factor analysis demonstrated that the three-factor structure is invariant
across occupations such as clerical and maintenance employees, tech-
nical staff, nurses, and managers (Leiter and Schaufeli, 1996), software
engineers and university staff (Taris et al., 1999), and blue collar and
white collar workers (Schutte et al., 2000). In addition, in the latter
study the factor-structure of the MBI-GS proved to be cross-nationally
invariant across samples from Sweden, Finland, and The Netherlands.
The first objective of the current study is to replicate the invariance
of the three-factor structure of the MBI-GS across a sample of uni-
versity students and employees, respectively. Previous studies used a
slightly adapted original version of the MBI to measure burnout among
ENGAGEMENT AND BURNOUT
73
university students in which, for instance, ‘instructors’ was substi-
tuted for ‘recipients’ (Ballogu et al., 1995; Gold et al., 1989; Gold and
Michael, 1985; Powers and Gose, 1986). However, a suchlike reword-
ing is not unproblematic because the meaning of an item might change
dramatically. For instance, the item ‘I treat some
instructors
as if they
were impersonal objects’ does not refer to a cynical or indifferent atti-
tude towards the main
activity
of a student (i.e. studying and taking
classes) but to a negative attitude towards another
person
that is, at
least partly based on personal preferences rather than on study-related
experiences. As a matter of fact, this holds for the entire adapted deper-
sonalization scale. Since the MBI-GS is a more generic instrument
that measures burnout without referring to other people, the inher-
ent problems of rewording are avoided. The substitution in the current
investigation of ‘studies’ for ‘work/job’ is unproblematic because the
former refers to the daily activities that are performed by the students
that constitute their very role. Burnout in the student sample therefore
means feeling exhausted because of study demands, having a cynical
and detached attitude towards one’s study, and feeling incompetent as
a student.
Engagement and its Measurement
To date, relatively little attention has been paid to concepts that might be
considered antipodes of burnout. An exception is ‘psychological pres-
ence’ or ‘to be fully there’, a concept that emerged from role theory and
is defined as an experiential state that accompanies ‘personally engag-
ing behaviors’ that involve the channeling of personal energies into
physical, cognitive, and emotional labors (Kahn, 1992). Although Kahn
(1992) presents a comprehensive theoretical model of psychological
presence, he does not propose an operationalization of the construct.
More recently, Maslach and Leiter (1997) assumed that ‘engagement’
is characterized by energy, involvement, and efficacy which are con-
sidered the direct opposites of the three burnout dimensions exhaus-
tion, cynicism, and lack of professional efficacy, respectively. Engaged
employees have a sense of energetic and effective connection with
their work activities and they see themselves as able to deal com-
pletely with the demands of their job. By implication, engagement in
the view of Maslach and Leiter (1997) is assessed by the opposite pat-
tern of scores on the three MBI dimensions. That is, according to these
authors, low scores on exhaustion and cynicism, and high scores on effi-
cacy are indicative for engagement. By using the MBI for measuring
74
WILMAR B. SCHAUFELI ET AL.
engagement, however, it is impossible to study its relationship with
burnout empirically since both concepts are considered to be opposite
poles of a continuum that is covered by one single instrument, the MBI.
We take a different perspective by considering burnout and engage-
ment to be opposite concepts that should be measured indepen-
dently with different instruments. Based on a theoretical analysis
(Schaufeli and Bakker, 2001), two underlying dimensions have been
identified of work-related well-being: (1) activation, ranging from
exhaustion to vigor, and (2) identification, ranging from cynicism to
dedication. Burnout is characterized by a combination of exhaustion
(low activation) and cynicism (low identification), whereas engagement
is characterized by vigor (high activation) and dedication (high identi-
fication). Furthermore, burnout includes reduced professional efficacy,
and engagement includes absorption. In contrast to both the other ele-
ments of burnout and engagement that are direct opposites (exhaustion
vs. vigor and cynicism vs. dedication), reduced efficacy and absorption
are
not
each others direct opposites, rather they are conceptually dis-
tinct aspects that are not the end points of some underlying continuum.
It is noteworthy in this respect that reduced efficacy was added as a
constituting element of burnout on second thoughts after it appeared
as a third factor from a factor-analysis of a preliminary version of the
MBI (Maslach, 1993). In a similar vein, absorption was found to be a
relevant aspect of engagement after some 30 in-depth interviews were
carried out (Schaufeli et al., 2001). Hence, engagement is defined as a
positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by
vigor, dedication, and absorption. Rather than a momentary and specific
state, engagement refers to a more persistent and pervasive affective-
cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, indi-
vidual, or behavior.
Vigor
is characterized by high levels of energy and
mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s
work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties.
Dedication
is char-
acterized by a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and
challenge. Instead of involvement we prefer to use the term dedication.
Although, involvement – like dedication (see above) – is usually defined
in terms of psychological identification with one’s work or one’s job
(Kanungo, 1982; Lawler and Hall, 1970), whereby the latter goes one
step beyond, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively. In a qualitative
sense, dedication refers to a particularly strong involvement that goes
one step further than the usual level of identification. In a qualitative
sense, dedication has a wider scope by not only referring to a particular
ENGAGEMENT AND BURNOUT
75
cognitive or belief state but including the affective dimension as well.
The final dimension of engagement,
absorption
, is characterized by
being fully concentrated and deeply engrossed in one’s work, whereby
time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself
from work. Being fully absorbed in one’s work comes close to what
has been called ‘flow’, a state of optimal experience that is character-
ized by focused attention, clear mind, mind and body unison, effortless
concentration, complete control, loss of self-consciousness, distortion
of time, and intrinsic enjoyment (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). However,
typically, flow is a more complex concept that includes many aspects
and refers to rather particular, short-term ‘peak’ experiences instead
of a more pervasive and persistent state of mind, as is the case with
engagement.
Thus, contrary to Maslach and Leiter (1997) we do
not
feel that
engagement is adequately measured by the opposite profile of MBI
scores. Although we concur that, conceptually speaking, engagement
is the positive antithesis of burnout, we acknowledge that the measure-
ment of both concepts, and hence its structure, differs. As a conse-
quence, engagement is operationalized in its own right. It is the second
aim of our paper to investigate some psychometric features of our self-
constructed engagement inventory that consists of the three dimensions
mentioned above: vigor, dedication, and absorption. More specifically,
the internal consistencies of the three scales as well as their factorial
validity will be studied.
Engagement and Burnout
In addition to the psychometric qualities of the engagement and burnout
inventories, the relationship between both concepts will be researched.
Since engagement is defined as the opposite experience of burnout, it is
expected that all burnout and engagement scales are negatively related
(i.e. when efficacy is reversibly scored as
reduced
efficacy). A negative
correlation is particularly expected between exhaustion and vigor, and
between cynicism and dedication since they represent opposite poles of
the activation and identification dimensions, respectively (see above).
Moreover, since burnout and engagement are both multidimensional
constructs it is expected that a model that takes this higher-order struc-
ture into consideration fits best to the data. In other words, we predict
that the fit of a model that assumes two second-order factors (‘burnout’
and ‘engagement’) on which all three burnout scales and all three
engagement scales load, respectively, shows a superior fit compared to
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