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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Sport Psychology

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1653243

This article is part of the Research TopicPsychological Factors in Physical Education and Sport - Volume VIView all 30 articles

Effects of Physical Activity on Academic Burnout Among Rural Left-Behind Children in China: The Chain-Mediated Roles of Loneliness and General Self-Efficacy

Provisionally accepted
Chunxia  LuChunxia Lu1Jiaxi  ChenJiaxi Chen1Jiaqi  XieJiaqi Xie1Yang  QianYang Qian1Ziping  FanZiping Fan1Dianhui  PengDianhui Peng1Yujuan  WangYujuan Wang2*Weixin  DongWeixin Dong1*
  • 1Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China
  • 2Hunan University of Finance and Economics, Changsha, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Purpose: To explore the impact of physical activity on academic burnout among rural left-behind children. Methods: In total, 195 rural left-behind children of Furen Primary School in Yongzhou City by combining stratified and cluster sampling methods. Participants completed the Physical Activity Scale, the Academic Burnout Scale, the Loneliness Scale, and the General Self-efficacy Scale. Results: (1) Empirical evidence indicates alarming rates of academic burnout among rural left-behind children in China. (2) Physical activity was significantly associated with reduced academic burnout. Our serial mediation model showed that physical activity had a significant direct effect on academic burnout (β = -0.231, 95% CI = [-0.308, -0.154]) in addition to significant chain-mediated effects on academic burnout via loneliness and general self-efficacy (β = -0.051, 95% CI = [-0.093, -0.018]); the more exercise participation, the lower the academic burnout among rural left-behind children. (3) These findings suggest that physical activity is an important interventional target when aiming to reduce academic burnout. Conclusions: Physical activity can affect rural left-behind children' academic burnout both directly and through mediating effects. Loneliness and general self-efficacy partially mediate the impact of physical activity and academic burnout.

Keywords: physical activity, Academic burnout, Loneliness, general self-efficacy, rural left-behind children

Received: 24 Jun 2025; Accepted: 02 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Lu, Chen, Xie, Qian, Fan, Peng, Wang and Dong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence:
Yujuan Wang, wangyujuan@hufe.edu.cn
Weixin Dong, luchunxia@hunnu.edu.cn

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