Teacher Resilience and Burnout in Higher Education: A Systematic Review from the Job Demands–Resources Perspective

Authors

1 Faculty of Business, Information and Human Sciences, Kuala Lumpur University of Science & Technology, Kajang, Malaysia 43000
Corresponding author: 243925318@s.klust.edu.my

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.63646/ZAIB1282

Keywords:

Teacher resilience, Academic burnout, Job Demands–Resources model, Higher education, Academic staff well-being, Work engagement, Organisational support

Abstract

Higher education depends on academics who sustain teaching, research, service, and student relationships, yet their work is increasingly shaped by heavy workloads, competing roles, metric pressure, digital intensification, and employment uncertainty. This systematic narrative review integrates teacher resilience and burnout in higher education through the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) perspective. Searches of scholarly indexes, publisher records, and citation networks covered peer-reviewed work published from 2000 to November 2025. The retained higher-education corpus comprised 22 records: 16 empirical studies and six systematic, narrative, or conceptual syntheses. Records were coded for design, demands, resources, personal resources, burnout dimensions, resilience conceptualisation, and intervention implications. Heterogeneous measures and designs precluded defensible meta-analysis. Workload and time pressure were the dominant demands, followed by role conflict, performance pressure, organisational change or precarity, work–family spillover, emotional demands, and digital intensification. Recurrent resources included collegial support, autonomy, supportive leadership, meaningful work, fair recognition, role clarity, infrastructure, and career security. Resilience was best understood as a dynamic process arising from interactions between personal resources and work conditions, not as a stable capacity to tolerate unlimited demands. Emotional exhaustion was the most consistent burnout outcome, whereas cynicism and reduced efficacy were measured less often. Intervention evidence remained limited and did not justify resilience training as a stand-alone solution. The review proposes a multilevel JD–R model in which work design, resource accessibility, and recovery opportunities determine whether demanding work supports engagement or erodes health. Universities should therefore prioritise workload governance, role clarity, fair leadership, collegial infrastructure, career security, and protected recovery, while treating individual resilience development as complementary.

How to Cite

Li, M., & Alias, N. (2026). Teacher Resilience and Burnout in Higher Education: A Systematic Review from the Job Demands–Resources Perspective. Trends and Reviews of Technological Engineering in Education, 2(3), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.63646/ZAIB1282

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