Burnout levels and personality traits the case of turkish architectural students

The aim of this research has been to investigate the relationship between personality traits and burnout levels of architectural undergraduate students. Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI) and Five Factor Model were used to collect related data. Analysis of the collected data showed variations in personality traits and burnout levels of students from first to fourth year and revealed that education process was an important role player in personality development and burnout levels of students. Architectural students tended to be more “open to experience” and “extraverted” as they proceeded from the first year to final year without having high levels of “emotional exhaustion”. “Emotional exhaustion” was observed together with “neurotic” personality traits of students. Thus, one of the key recommendations of this research is that university counselors should plan and organize guidance programmes by focusing on individual requirements caused by both the student's personality traits and demands of the university education which may vary between both years and departments. Future work of this research will thus focus on civil engineering and computer engineering students in order to determine the effect of departmental differences on burnout levels of students and guide counseling programmes within the University accordingly