Coach and Athlete Burnout - West Virginia University

commitment, low commitment, and entrapment. Entrapped coaches reported higher
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levels of burnout than the less committed or attracted coaches. The authors gave further
support for the use of a commitment-based model in understanding burnout.
Burnout Assessment
Maslach and Jackson (1981) composed a burnout inventory that has been
recognized as the most widely used and accepted measure (Dale and Weinberg, 1990;
Fender, 1989). The authors used interview and questionnaire data previously collected to
construct preliminary items assessing hypothesized aspects of burnout. The preliminary
items were presented in a Hassles scale and administered to 420 individuals in helping
occupations. From their factor analysis of the results and items, three factors emerged
that were eventually retained for the final measure known as the Maslach Burnout
Inventory (MBI).
The MBI measures the intensity and frequency of three dimensions believed to be
associated with burnout: emotional exhaustion (feelings of being overextended and
emotionally exhausted), depersonalization (an impersonal response towards the
beneficiary of one’s services), and personal accomplishment (feeling of competence and
achievement with people in one’s employment). These subscales have nine, five, and
eight items, respectively. It should be noted that higher scores on the emotional
exhaustion and depersonalization scales denote a higher degree of experienced burnout.
Lower scores on the personal accomplishment scales signify a higher burnout level.
Reliability was demonstrated for the inventory as a whole (Maslach and Jackson,
1981). Cronbach’s coefficient alpha scores of .83 and .84 for frequency and intensity,
respectively. Acceptable reliability was also found for emotional exhaustion’s frequency