Promoting Psychological Resilience Against Academic Burnout: A JD-R Framework Analysis of Self-Compassion as a Mental Health Resource for Diverse Student Populations

Background/Objectives: Mental health challenges among university students represent a growing public health concern, underscoring the need to understand how psychological resources shape students’ responses to academic stress. Grounded in the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) framework, this study examined how academic demands (time pressure, college life stress, and social comparison) and a key resource (social support) relate to academic burnout and whether these relationships are moderated by self-compassion. Methods: Participants were 323 Korean undergraduates, including 187 traditional students and 136 adult learners. A moderated moderation analysis was conducted using PROCESS Model 3 to examine the interactive effects of learner type, self-compassion, and academic demands/resources on academic burnout. Results: College life stress and social comparison showed robust positive associations with academic burnout, whereas time pressure showed a weaker association. Social support was not directly associated with lower burnout; instead, its protective role emerged only at moderate to high levels of self-compassion. Self-compassion also demonstrated a differentiated moderating effect across learner groups. Among traditional students, higher self-compassion weakened the association between social comparison and burnout. Among adult learners, the relationship between social support and burnout varied according to levels of self-compassion. Conclusions: Self-compassion emerged as a developmentally relevant personal resource associated with differences in how academic demands and resources relate to burnout. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of external resources may depend on individuals’ capacity to interpret and utilize them, highlighting the importance of self-compassion in both theoretical models of academic burnout and targeted mental health interventions in higher education.