Teachers’ Burnout: Indicators of Burnout and Investigation of the Indicators in terms of Different Variables

Abstract

Burnout is characterized by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Since teaching profession is excessively demanding, requires effective communication, and leads one to suffer from emotional burnout, it is acknowledged as one of the professions with a great likelihood of burnout.

The purpose of the present study was to analyze teacher burnout in reference to certain variables. Relational model was used in this study. A total of 163 teachers from various cities participated.

Two different data collection tools were used in this study, namely "Personal Information Form" and "Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)". The first one was used to identify the demographics of the participants. The second data collection instrument, MBI, was used to reveal the degree of burnout experienced by participants. The inventory divided into three sub-dimensions: namely emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization.

Results indicated that different variables contributed to teachers’ burnout scores in terms of being on high and low groups. For example, while "education level" variable contributed to emotional exhaustion subscale, the variable of socio-economic status of the region where the school is located contributed to depersonalization subscale.

Furthermore, there were higher mean ranks for those teachers who worked as an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) teacher. While expressing their views, the ICT teachers focused on their unhappiness resulting from what they had been experiencing in their discipline.

It is evident that the use of technology plays a key role in effective learning at school. ICT teachers can make contributions in this respect. They can guide both other teachers and students for using technology in an effective way. Thus it is worth to bring attention to the fact that preventing burnout of ICT teachers is a precondition for improving the quality of education in schools.