Romanian teachers burnout and psychological and professional difficulties

Lecturer Ovidiu GAVRILOVICI, Ph.D.

Summary

Burnout syndrome has three components emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced professional efficacy. The authors investigated this syndrome on 178 teachers in primary, secondary, and high schools and special schools in Iasi County, during 2007-2009. The authors adapted Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and showed that teachers indicate higher scores of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, compared to studies in other European countries. The instrument proves to have psychometric qualities to be used in epidemiological studies for professionals in educational field.

Contents 1. Introduction 2. Method

2.1. Sampling and data collection 2.2. Data analysis 2.3. Results 2.4. Discussion

1. Introduction

In the literature search we found that the teachers difficulties associates with a syndrome of emotional fatigue, chronical fatigue that can reduce the satisfaction working with students (Instrand, 2002). Teachers tend to be less emotionally involved in their activity, and also show lower self image and lower self esteem. That is why, initially, there was a tendency to consider Jackson and Maslach model underlines the physical symptoms, while in fact, the psychological symptoms are present, too.

Schaufeli and colleagues (2003) considered that the best approach to the phenomenon of teachers difficulties is characterized in three dimensions, that is, a physical dimension related to exhaustion as an external symptom, a mental distancing from didactic regular teacher activities, and a third dimension, related to the perception of a reduced professional efficacy.

The study of burnout was recently done with more refined methodology and instruments. The complex relationships between organizational factors and the three burnout factors requested structural equation modeling. This approach permitted researchers to examine the contribution of several potential influences and several consequences in the same time, separating the unique factors of the redundant ones in the development of the burnout concept.

Some longitudinal studies started to reveal the relationships between a work environment at a certain time, and the individual attitudes and feelings. Beyond the statement of the basic premise that burnout is a consequence of the interaction between the individual and the workplace, longitudinal studies are important to determine the impact of the interventions aimed at preventing or reducing burnout.

Teachers tend to be described in many studies as having one of the most stressing occupations (Yong and Yue, 2007, Gold and Roth, 1993, Dunham, 1992, and Kyriacou,

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1987). Teachers burnout affect the schooling climate, decrease workplace motivation and increases the probability of personnel turnover.

Hiebert (1988),. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define workplace stress as reactions of people who perceive external requests as over passing their resistance and result in physiological, psychological and behavioral changes (Young and Yu, 2007, p. 79).

Freudenberger proposed the concept of burnout in 1974 to describe mental and physical exhaustion determined by the excessive hours of work, high load of tasks, or exaggerated work intensity. Later, Maslach (1982) describes the three components of the burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and the perceived low professional efficacy.

Emotional exhaustion (EE) is expressed as lack of enthusiasm and the feeling of emotional draining by others. Depersonalization (DEP) is the emotionally dry, detached, manner of relating to others, in teachers case, relating to students, mainly. Loosing the feeling of success is defined as perceived reduced professional efficacy (RPE), that is, reporting serialization feelings relative to professional life.

2. Method 2.1. Sampling and data collection

The first stage of the study comprised of a qualitative research of teachers difficulties in Iasi County roundtables with experts from the Iasi County Center for Psycho-educational Assistance and the Iasi County School Inspectorate along with the university research team members recommended the use of a stratified sample of public schools and special schools. All the teachers in the selected schools were invited to participate in the study.

A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 176 were used for the quantitative analysis, a 88% response rate. As a result of the qualitative study and the recommendations of the experts the authors added and adapted version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), with 22 items (Maslach and Johnson, 1981).

The instrument. The original MBI instrument with 22 items was back-and-forth

translated. The differences of items were negotiated by a team of two psychologists knowledgeable in English. Differences were consensually resolved. The study sample comprised of teachers with an age mean of 40.6 (SD=11.4 years) with an average seniority of 17 years on the job (SD=11.7 years), with a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 42 years of experience on the job. Over 56% of the sample has an experience in teaching starting after the Revolution in 1989. That means that in our public education system there are more professionals hired after 1989 than teachers with a didactic experience from the communist regime, before 1989. There was no significant statistical difference of the average of length of work history, on genders. Work history and age are directly correlated (Pearson r = 0.89, p

A third of the teachers work in schools with grades 5-12 and a quarter work in primary schools. Most of the teachers (52%) have university degrees (BA), 20.5% of them have MA level postgraduate studies and 20.5% have only high school level education. Almost half of the teachers graduated higher education from the major Iasi County university, Alexandru Ioan Cuza in Iasi City. 2.2. Data analysis

Internal consistency of the Romanian version of MBI proved to be close to the original instrument and similar adaptations in other languages. A principal component analysis was performed on each MBI subscale. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis using varimax rotation was performed. The original structure of the MBI was preserved on all three subscales. Among some of the tested relationships the authors performed independent sample t-tests to test for mean differences among groups and Pearson correlation among selected variables. Table: Reliability measures (Alpha-Cronbach) for MBI subscales Studies Total MBI Emotional

exhaustion Depersonali

zation Reduced

professional efficacy

Gavrilovici (2008) 0,82 0,79 0,62 0,78 Kokkinos (2006) 0,74 0,85 0,63 0,79 Maslach (2001) - 0,90 0,79 0,71 Dorz et al. (2003) - 0,86 0,65 0,73 2.3. Results

The average total emotional exhaustion score of teachers with work experience since the communist regime (work history higher than 17 years) is higher (M=31) than teachers with less work experience (M=27) (t(133)=2.5, p

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2.4. Discussion

The literature review indicate contradictory findings relating to the relationship of the marital status and the MBI subscales. Woodside et al. (2008) reports the lack of buffering effect of marital status against stressors. We consider that, even if included in previous studies, the marital status is not a relevant variable in a protective model. The marital satisfaction and the marital or relational conflict levels may more relevant variables which future studies could use.

Brenninkmeijer, V. and VanY. Peren, N. (2006) recommend considering as having burnout those people from non-clinical population who have a score over the median of a normative group for emotional exhaustion, and in the same time, a score over the median on depersonalization subscale, or a score under the median on the perceived low professional efficacy subscale. This is called the criterion exhaustion +1. This would be an one-dimensional estimate of the percentage of people who indicate burnout, in a certain sample.

There are more critiques relative to the reductionism of the tridimensional scores of burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and perceived low professional efficacy) to only one dimension (such as a general burnout score). Using an one-dimensional measure of burnout we would loose from sight that MBI was designed to describe the syndrome of three rather orthogonal factors. Other critiques are related to the process stages of burnout phenomenon. Each of the subscale would describe in a different way the experiencing of burnout, in its different phases, over time (Brenninkmeijer, V. and VanY. Peren 2006).

On the other hand, there are studies which indicate that emotional exhaustions the most robust descriptor of burnout. High EE scores associated with DEP or low RPE would mean an experience of burnout. Table Average scores and standard deviations (SD) in studies which used MBI

Emotional exhaustion

Depersonalization

Perceived low professional efficacy

Studies

Average SD Average SD Average SD CNCSIS1480 (2008) 28,34 9,33 9,30 4,34 22,45 7,71 Kokkinos, (2006) 27,37 10,91 4,42 4,23 38,13 6,94 Maslach, et al. (2001) 21,25 11,01 11,0 6,19 33,54 6,89 Romi (2007) 20,27 11,49 5,96 6,95 23,50 13,13 Dorz et al. (2003) 17,8 11,9 4,8 5,3 35,9 8,5

In the literature review there are some studies which suggests the use of score ranges for each subscale to define three levels of burnout (low, moderate and high) (Maslach, 1981; Rosenberg and Pace, 2006):

Table: suggested score ranges for each subscale indicative of burnout Low Moderate high Emotional exhaustion

=< 13 14 20 >= 20

Depersonalization =< 4 5 7 >= 8 Perceived low professional efficacy

>= 34 33 29 =< 28

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In the present study we did not use these score ranges to qualify the level of burnout of teachers. A larger study on a representative sample of teachers should identify the scores ranges for the teachers in Romania.

The final analysis took into consideration an aggregated score of seven items suggested by the participants in the qualitative phase of the research defining a proxy variable for importance of some factors relevant to the didactic performance (an empirical operationalization of didactic efficacy). The belief in the relationship between the difficulty of didactic activity and health status correlate with the total score on Emotional Exhaustion (Pearson r = 0.44, p0,05) nor with the total score on perceived reduced professional efficacy (Pearson r = -0,04, p>0,05). It is apparent that teachers who report higher scores on emotional exhaustion indicate also significant associations with more of the risk factors identified in the qualitative component of the research.

The cross-sectional research does not permit the identification of causal relationships (Guglielmi and Tatrow, 1998). There is a need to use longitudinal designs systematically to be able to capture the causal factors and the stages in which the burnout symptoms interact and evolve. Other future studies could also take into consideration the measurement of variables relative to marital or relational stress and its interaction with professional stress, such as a measure of burnout.

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