Significance of Repetitive Learning Exhaustion Among Students

Abstract

Repetitive practice is foundational to skill acquisition in professional training within higher education. However, sustained engagement in unvaried, institutionally imposed repetition may produce Repetitive Learning Exhaustion (RLE), a multidimensional state of cognitive, emotional, and vocational depletion. Using constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) and reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), this study examined the lived experiences of eight higher education students (N = 8) at the final stage of a postgraduate professional training programme. Analysis generated seven superordinate themes and a provisional six-stage grounded model of RLE. The study introduces several novel constructs, with ‘maladaptive automaticity’ the paradox through which over-rehearsal of relational professional acts produces scripted performance that displaces authentic engagement as its central theoretical contribution. The discipline-motivation dissociation, semantic satiation of professional communication, and the locus-of-initiation moderator are also introduced, collectively constituting a fundamental critique of deliberate practice frameworks as applied to relational professional training in higher education.