Resilience, Psychological Distress, and Academic Burnout among Accounting Students*

This study's objective is to examine the role of resilience in the dynamic between academic burnout and psychological distress using a sample of US undergraduate accounting majors. It extends prior research—that is, García-Izquierdo et al. (2018), who examine these relationships using a sample of Spanish nursing students. For this study, a survey instrument was concurrently administered to 443 accounting majors at four geographically dispersed universities. Two alternative models are tested. The first model positions resilience as an exogenous predictor, and dimensions of academic burnout antecedent to psychological distress. The results indicate a significant negative association between resilience, psychological distress, and each of the three academic burnout dimensions. In addition, emotional exhaustion and academic inefficacy have a significant positive association with psychological distress. The alternative model positions psychological distress antecedent to each of the academic burnout dimensions. The results indicate that resilience has a significant negative association with psychological distress, cynicism, and academic inefficacy, but not emotional exhaustion. Moreover, psychological distress has significant positive associations with each academic burnout dimension. In the alternative model specification, resilience is also found to moderate the association between psychological distress and academic inefficacy. This single moderating effect notwithstanding, the findings suggest that the primary role of resilience is that of a compensatory mechanism by acting as an independent exogenous predictor of distress and burnout.