Expert System for Detecting Academic Burnout Levels among University Students Using the Certainty Factor Method

Abstract

Academic burnout is a condition of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion resulting from prolonged academic demands and may negatively affect students' learning and well-being. This study aimed to develop a web-based expert system to support the preliminary identification of academic burnout among university students using the Certainty Factor method. The system knowledge was constructed through a literature review and a structured knowledge acquisition process involving a psychology expert before being represented in the knowledge base. The system was developed using the Waterfall model with PHP, the CodeIgniter framework, and MySQL. Functional evaluation using black-box testing showed that all system features operated as expected. In addition, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) involving 102 students of Universitas Muria Kudus achieved an overall acceptance score of 83.92%, indicating a Very Good level of user acceptance. The developed system was able to classify consultation results into mild, moderate, and severe academic burnout categories based on the implemented Certainty Factor inference process. Therefore, the proposed expert system may serve as a supporting tool for the preliminary identification of academic burnout. Further validation using standardized psychological instruments or professional psychological assessments is recommended in future studies.