Introduction <p>Amid growing expectations for English majors, senior students at independent colleges face substantial pressure from graduation and career development, making learning burnout an increasingly salient concern. This study aims to investigate the levels of academic motivation, self-efficacy, and learning burnout among these students, and explore the predictive effects of motivation and self-efficacy on burnout, to inform targeted interventions for reducing burnout and promoting sustainable learning.</p> Methods <p>Adopting an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, this study collected questionnaire data from 64 senior English majors using three validated scales. Data were analyzed via descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and hierarchical regression. Five students were then interviewed to explain unexpected quantitative results and explore underlying psychological mechanisms.</p> Results <p>Participants exhibited moderately high academic motivation dominated by extrinsic motivation and low amotivation, moderately high self-efficacy and learning burnout. Academic motivation negatively predicted burnout, while amotivation and self-efficacy were positive predictors, with amotivation showing a stronger effect. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were not significantly associated with burnout. Interviews revealed heterogeneous effects of intrinsic motivation, the structural role of extrinsic motivation, and a paradoxical positive link between self-efficacy and burnout due to complacency and procrastination.</p> Conclusions <p>This study identifies the unique motivational, self-efficacy, and burnout profiles of senior English majors at independent colleges. Amotivation and self-efficacy positively predict learning burnout, with amotivation as the stronger predictor. These context-dependent findings offer practical implications for alleviating learning burnout among language learners under sustained academic pressure.</p>