Neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness towards academic burnout in Malaysia

Some studies show a strong relationship between personality traits and burnout, especially among educators in the higher education sector. The study aims to investigate the role of neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness personality traits in job burnout in academicians at a public university in Malaysia. The Big Five Personality Traits and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory were used in the study to measure personality traits and job burnout. The quantitative approach used to distribute the questionnaire was by using online and offline surveys to academicians in a public university. This cross-sectional survey study involved 152 respondents. The data were analysed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings show that the personality traits of neuroticism and extraversion strongly influenced academicians’ job burnout. The limitation of this study is that only three personality traits were selected for the study. Thus, the researchers recommended including other constructs of personality traits in future research.