Raedeke (1997) conceptualized athlete burnout as the enduring existence of three dimensions: physical and emotional exhaustion, sport devaluation, and reduced sense of athletic accomplishment. The purpose of this study was to assess the extent to which Raedeke’s conceptualization is efficacious within the context of junior tennis in the United Kingdom by exploring burned out players’ perceptions of key symptoms and consequences associated with each dimension. Six former national junior tennis players who were identified as burned out underwent a structured interview exploring their experiences of burnout. Content analysis identified symptoms and consequences specific to each burnout dimension, but also considerable overlap and interrelationships among dimensions. In more severe cases of burnout, consequences continued after departure from the sport and were salient in non-athletic domains. Considerable significance was attached to reduced sense of athletic accomplishment, diverging from work-related literature where this burnout dimension is considered of limited importance (Cox, Tisserand, & Taris, 2005).

Athlete burnout has been postulated to manifest as physical and emotional exhaustion, reduced accomplishment and sport devaluation (Raedeke & Smith, 2001). Qualitative evidence has recently been presented indicating that this multidimensional conceptualization appropriately characterizes the experience of athlete burnout among professional New Zealand rugby players (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006c). The purpose of this study was to extend the work of Cresswell and Eklund (2006c) to ascertain the extent to which this conceptualization of burnout and associated attributions were representative of professional rugby players from a different environment and organizational culture. Overall, the findings supported the contention that while situational and environmental demands leading to athlete burnout may vary, the characteristics of the resulting chronic negative experiential state are robust across settings (Cresswell & Eklund, 2006a; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Some of the differences in rugby players’ attributions for their negative experiences were interpreted as reflecting differences in competition structures and organizational culture.

The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the process of burning out in endurance athletes. The experiences of three elite cross-country skiers who left their sport due to burnout were explored. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and inductively analyzed. The Athlete Burnout Questionnaire and training logs were used to validate the interviews and to enrich the analysis. The burnout process was found to evolve with different severity and time perspectives in the three cases. Athletic identity and achievement strivings to validate self-esteem were found to be important driving forces in the burnout process. Also, chronic lack of mental and physical recovery as well as early skiing success leading to high expectations comprised common themes in the burnout process.

The purpose of this study was to examine Coakley’s (1992) perspective on athlete burnout among adolescents, which posits that a narrow identity and restricted opportunity to exert control over one’s sport experience contributes to athlete burnout. Senior-level swimmers (N = 182), ages 13 to 22 years (M = 16.0, SD = 1.6), completed reliable and valid swimming-specific measures of athlete burnout dimensions, perceived stress, athletic identity, and perceived control. Athlete training and swimming performance data were also acquired. Results of hierarchical regression analyses partially supported Coakley’s perspective. Athletic identity exclusivity and perceived control over swimming participation contributed 3% to 13% explained variance in burnout dimensions over-and-above performance and stress indices. However, they did not moderate the relationship between perceived stress and burnout dimensions. The direction of identity exclusivity findings were opposite expectations, potentially a result of the cross-sectional study design. Overall, the results suggest additional youth athlete burnout research targeting identity and control is warranted.

Athletes who feel autonomous, competent, and related to significant others in sport should experience lower levels of burnout than athletes whose basic psychological needs are being neglected (Ryan & Deci, 2002). Moreover, based on recent research by Sheldon and Niemiec (2006), lower levels of athlete burnout should also be observed when the three psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, and relatedness) are simultaneously satisfied (i.e., a balance in need satisfaction) in sport. The present study tested these two hypotheses with 259 high school student-athletes attending a sports school. Results indicated that the satisfaction of each of the three basic psychological needs as well as the balance of need satisfaction was correlated negatively with athlete burnout. Regression analyses further demonstrated that the balance of need satisfaction made a significant contribution to prediction of athlete burnout over and above the significant contribution of each of the three needs. The present results are discussed in line with basic needs theory (Ryan & Deci, 2002) as well as the measurement of balance of need satisfaction.

Organizational psychologists have proposed that promoting employee engagement may be an effective way to prevent burnout. Researchers have identified vigor, dedication, efficacy, and absorption as potential employee engagement dimensions (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). However, no research has investigated athlete engagement (AE). This study is the first in a series and was designed to ascertain whether or not elite athletes experience engagement and, if so, to identify common AE dimensions. Following interviews with fifteen elite New Zealand athletes, AE was defined as a persistent, positive, cognitive-affective experience in sport, characterized by confidence, dedication, and vigor. Confidence represented ‘belief in one’s ability to attain a high level of performance and achieve desired goals’. Dedication was defined as ‘a desire to invest effort and time towards achieving goals one views as important’. Vigor was defined as ‘physical, mental, and emotional energy or liveliness’. Results indicated that AE was relevant to elite athletes and it is hoped that the findings of this study will lead to research into the promotion of positive sport environments.

Building from our qualitative investigation of elite New Zealand athletes (Lonsdale, Hodge, & Raedeke, 2007), this project had three purposes: (a) to develop a measure of core athlete engagement (AE) dimensions (confidence, dedication, and vigor), (b) to investigate the possibility that preoccupation and enjoyment are also core AE dimensions, and (c) to provide nomological validity evidence by examining associations with athlete burnout scores. Three studies were conducted with elite athletes from New Zealand (n = 382 and 343) and Canada (n = 201). In Study 1, analyses indicated that enjoyment was strongly related to AE. However, contrary to conclusions from our earlier qualitative inquiry, enjoyment items were not subsumed by the vigor factor. Rather, scores derived from the items intended to represent enjoyment and excitement formed a separate factor which was labeled ‘enthusiasm’. This four-factor Athlete Engagement Questionnaire (AEQ) with subscales intended to measure confidence, dedication, vigor, and enthusiasm appeared to fit the data in Study 1 best. The factorial validity of scores derived from the AEQ was also supported in Studies 2 and 3. In Study 3, the nomological validity of the AEQ scores was supported by negative correlations between athlete burnout and AE.