Passion and motivation for studying: Predicting academic engagement and burnout in university students

Research on the dualistic model of passion (Vallerand et al., 2003) has investigated harmonious and obsessive passion in many domains. However, few studies have investigated passion for studying and the role passion for studying plays in student engagement and well-being. The present study investigated the relationships between harmonious and obsessive passion for studying and academic engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption) and burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy) in 105 university students, controlling for the effects of autonomous and controlled motivation. Both harmonious and obsessive passion explained variance in academic engagement and burnout beyond autonomous and controlled motivation: harmonious passion predicted higher dedication and lower cynicism, obsessive passion predicted higher absorption, and both harmonious and obsessive passion predicted higher vigor and lower inefficacy. The findings suggest that passion for studying explains individual differences in students’ academic engagement and burnout beyond autonomous and controlled motivation and thus deserves more attention from educational psychology.