Teacher Burnout

Burnout is frequently cited as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism occurring among human services professionals. In a paper presented to the Midwestern Psychological association, the five most frequently cited causes of teacher burnout were: lack of administrative support, lack of parental and community support, workload, low student motivation, and discipline problems. Developing a positive relationship with the administration, decreasing workload, and receiving more parental and community support along with disciplinary procedures were the most frequently suggested strategies for decreasing burnout.

A study presented to The American Educational Research Association in 1989 explored the elements in the school environment which predict beginning teacher burnout at the end of the first year of teaching. Factors measured, which were derived from research, included frequency of interaction with other teachers and administrators, role ambiguity, and classroom environment. Rewards obtained from student progress and teacher and administrator recognition were found to have a significant influence as predictors of end of the year burnout.

In a two-part program on teacher burnout aired on national public radio, the major conclusion was that teachers need to engage in strict self management in order to tolerate stress.

Even though teachers were expressing their concerns regarding the profession and demonstrating high attrition rates, little was being done to investigate burnout with them. In 1979, Willard McGuire, president of the National Education Association (NEA), did refer to the emergence of burnout with teachers. He wrote that, 'a major new malady has afflicted the teaching profession and threatens to reach epidemic proportions if it isn't checked soon' (p. 5). During the same year, the NEA made teacher burnout the central theme of its convention.

In the early 1980s there was a plethora of literature on teacher burnout as interest in this area increased. 'Burnout' became a commonly used term for teachers to describe everything from inability to handle intimidating administrators to discouragement over disruptive students. In fact the term was misused and often related to a person's description of their stress symptoms. The result was a confusion between stress and burnout, with many individuals using the terms synonymously. Even the professional literature, however, does not provide a clear distinction.

Little was known about teacher burnout until empirical studies began to describe the progressive course of burnout. The majority of these studies used the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

In 1984, Gold used the MBI with a sample of 462 elementary and junior high school California teachers to provide further evidence of the construct validity of the MBI for a sample of teachers from a different population. It was concluded that the two scoring systems of frequency and intensity could be expected to yield comparable factor structures and equivalent constructs. In fact, it appeared that either scoring system would suffice in identifying teachers who are becoming burned out in terms of self-perceptions (Gold, 1984). These studies made important contributions toward identifying teachers who are becoming burned out and led to the following information regarding teacher burnout.

Studies on teacher burnout indicate that teachers with higher self-concepts were more resistive to stress and more likely to maintain a sense of personal accomplishment while working under pressure. This was also found to be similar for practice teachers as measured by the Dimensions of Self-Concept and correlated with the MBI. Substantial evidence was present that those practice teachers who scored high on the positive self-concept scale tended to register low scores on the burnout behaviors. A great deal of confusion exists regarding the differences and relationship between stress and burnout. This has been especially true in the literature on teacher burnout, where these two states, burnout and stress, have been used interchangeably.