Date of Award

2025-08-01

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Clinical Psychology

Advisor(s)

Craig A. Field

Abstract

This study examined whether ADHD symptom severity and motivational orientations moderate relationships between academic burnout and stimulant outcomes in college students with ADHD symptoms. Using a cross-sectional survey design, 180 undergraduate students who screened positive for ADHD symptoms completed measures assessing academic burnout, motivation orientations, ADHD symptomatology, and prescription stimulant misuse behaviors and expectancies. Testing these moderation hypotheses addresses important gaps in understanding risk and protective factors that may influence stimulant misuse risk. Negative binomial regression was employed for stimulant misuse analyses using the full sample (N = 180), while linear regression examined expectancies across all participants. Results revealed one significant finding and consistent null effects across moderation analyses. Academic burnout did not directly predict either prescription stimulant misuse or positive expectancies about stimulants, contradicting self-medication models. None of the hypothesized moderation effects were supported, suggesting that relationships between academic stress and stimulant outcomes operate universally rather than conditionally across individual characteristics. The single significant finding provided important support for self-determination theory: extrinsic motivation significantly predicted positive stimulant expectancies (β = .181, p = .013), accounting for 4.73% of variance. Students driven by external rewards and approval developed more favorable beliefs about prescription stimulants' potential benefits. However, given the multiple hypotheses tested (eight total), this finding requires replication to rule out Type 1 error. These findings indicate that academic burnout and prescription stimulant misuse represent independent psychological processes requiring separate explanatory frameworks rather than overlapping self-medication phenomena. The consistent null moderation findings suggest that relationships between academic motivation, ADHD symptoms, and stimulant-related outcomes are more stable and universal than current theoretical models propose. The strong correlational relationships between burnout and motivational variables suggest that future research should examine sequential pathways to better understand underlying mechanisms. Practically, addressing academic burnout and prescription stimulant misuse requires distinct intervention approaches. Campus interventions should focus on creating autonomy-supportive educational environments while providing separate, targeted prevention programs for stimulant misuse. The study's theoretical implications highlight the need for replication studies examining mediation pathways to better understand the mechanisms underlying prescription stimulant phenomena in academic contexts.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

119 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Joshua Matthew Villanos

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