Teacher Emotional Support and Adolescent Student Burnout: A Moderated Mediation Model of Family Cohesion and Meaning in Life

(1) Background: Student burnout, widely regarded as a form of “hidden dropout” among adolescents, is associated with lower educational quality and mental health. Grounded in the Study Demands–Resources (SD–R) and Conservation of Resources (COR) theories, this study investigates the relationship between school-based resources, family dynamics, and personal resources by examining how teacher emotional support is associated with burnout through family cohesion and meaning in life; (2) Methods: a moderated mediation model was tested using a sample of 1224 adolescents (Mage = 14.27, SD = 1.72; 48% female); (3) Results: Analysis revealed that: 1. Teacher emotional support significantly and negatively predicted student burnout (β = −0.28, p < 0.001). 2. Family cohesion partially mediated this relationship, accounting for 36% of the total effect. 3. Meaning in life significantly moderated both the direct path and the second half of the mediation pathway (family cohesion → burnout). Notably, meaning in life was associated with a stronger negative association between teacher emotional support and student burnout, but a weaker negative association between family cohesion and student burnout, a pattern consistent with differential resource utilization; (4) Conclusions: These findings suggest a differentiated pattern of resource interplay: school-based emotional resources may connect to family-based relational resources, and the protective role of each external resource may be further moderated by adolescents’ internal meaning systems. These findings highlight the agentic role of adolescents in resource management and point to the value of multi-system interventions.