Thesis Abstract and Dissertation Abstracts
Personality Correlates Of Burnout Among Primary And Secondary Level Teachers
Abstract Category: Education
Course / Degree: M.ED
Institution / University: Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidhalya,Khanpur kalan,Sonepat, India
Published in: 2012
The phenomenon of Burnout began to emerge in the 1970’s. This construct was first explained by Herbert Freudenberg (1974) who described Burnout as a state of physical and emotional depletion that results due to work. Freudenberg provided the first definition of Burnout; however, in the 1980’s Burnout quickly became a popular topic and a number of authors wrote about this syndrome (Cherniss, 1980; Forney, Wallace-Schutzman, and Wiggers, 1982; Maslach and Goldberg, 1998; Maslach and Jackson, 1981). During this period several slightly different definitions emerged and Burnout became a popular term to describe exhaustion and difficulties with work. Maslach and Jackson’s (1984) definition, one of the most often cited in the literature, states that Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity. It is important to note that the experience of Burnout has been thought to be most prevalent among those who have a great deal of personal contact with others, such as people working in the helping professions.
A dictionary definition provided by Mosby (2005) stated that Burnout was a popular term used to describe the condition of mental or physical energy depletion following a period of chronic unrelieved job-related stress characterized sometimes by physical illness. Another related definition was provided by Hall, Gardner, Perl, Stickney, and Pfefferbaum (1979), who described Burnout as “failing, wearing-out, or becoming exhausted by making excessive demands on energy, strength, or resources”. Due to how commonly the syndrome of Burnout among professionals occurs in service-related fields, particularly helping professionals, and it having the potential to affect both workers and those they serve, the focus of research became identifying factors that related to Burnout in various occupations. The study addressed Burnout and Personality factors (e.g., Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to experience), and demographic factors. Authors also attempted to differentiate tedium and stress from the Burnout. That is, burnout related to a job or occupation was described as more pervasive, and affecting an individual’s life in an all-encompassing fashion (Lloyd, King and Chenoweth, 2002). Burnout has also been discussed as a multidimensional problem (Maslach and Goldberg, 1998). In this context, Burnout was defined as a social and psychological syndrome that occurs as a consequence of a variety of factors (e.g., work setting, demographics, and personality) and resulting in physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion; reduced personal accomplishment; depersonalization; and a general lack of interest and enthusiasm for work and life (Maslach and Jackson, 1984; Pines and Aronson, 1981).
DIMENSIONS OF BURNOUT:Burnout is comprised of three core dimensions namely-Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Reduced personal accomplishment.
1) Emotional Exhaustion: is the main component of Burnout and involves feelings of being emotionally overextended as well as a belief that one does not have adequate emotional resources to cope with and to function in the work environment. This is the stress dimension of Burnout (Maslach and Jackson, 1984).
2) Depersonalization: is characterized by a detached response to other people, including a loss of idealism. This may be a development due to emotional exhaustion. The depersonalization component of Burnout is the interpersonal or social dimension of burnout (Maslach and Jackson, 1984).
3) Reduced personal accomplishment: is a decline in an individual’s feeling of competence and productivity within the work environment. This has been linked to depression and an inability to cope with the demands of the job. This component also relates to the self-evaluation dimension of Burnout (Maslach and Jackson, 1984).Paine (1984) and Freudenberg (1974) discussed several physical, intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences that may occur as a result of Burnout.
Physical consequences include cardiovascular difficulties, fatigue, sleep disorders, muscular pain, stomach problems, immune system deficiencies, impaired intellectual functioning, and difficulty concentrating. Intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences include loss or transformation of spiritual values, reduced social and interpersonal functioning, social isolation, marital or familial difficulty, absenteeism, dysfunctional work relationships, lower quality and quantity of work, increased risk of accidents, decreased self-esteem, job dissatisfaction, and possibly termination or quitting one’s job. The syndrome of Burnout has been researched commonly in professions described as “high touch” professions (Naisbitt, 1984, as cited in Skovholt ; Grier, and Hanson,2001).These include medical professionals, mental health professionals, and teachers (Kushnir, Cohen, and Kitai, 2000; Leiter, 1992; Sava, 2002; Vinje and Mittelmark, 2006). Each of the high touch professions has in common the belief that human contact is essential to the health and well-being of individuals throughout their development. Individuals in these high touch professions choose this type of work because they perceive it to be of great value (Skovholt, Grier, and Hanson, 2001). Maslach and Jackson (1984) suggested that Burnout is rooted in people-oriented, helping professions. Since the introduction of the term Burnout there have been hundreds of publications written that focused attention on the syndrome. These publications primarily focused on three separate groups of high touch professions: teaching, medical, and mental health professionals. A search of the literature using the internet database Psycho Info and keywords “Burn out,” “Burn-out,” and “Burnout” yielded over 4042 results from between the years of 1974-2009. To enhance specificity related to the current study, this term was used in conjunction with the keywords including “counseling,” “counselors,” “mental health,” “high touch,” “teacher,” and “medical” while searching within the abstract and content of the articles. The number of articles found using this search method yielded 348 results, which is greatly lower than what was found in the initial search. The following is a summary of the literature pertaining to Burnout for each of the three groups described above using these search terms. Burnout has been recognized as a serious threat, particularly for employees who work with people (Van Dierendonck, Schaufeli and Buunk, 1993). Burnout is conceptualized as a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals who do “people work” of some kind (Maslach and Jackson, 1981). It is the end result of consistently unsuccessful attempts at mediating stressors in the environment on the part of the individual (Levert, Lucas and Ortlepp, 2000). Burnout is generally viewed as a syndrome consisting of three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach and Jackson, 1986).Research over the past two decades has shown that Burnout is not only related to negative outcomes for the individual –including depression, a sense of failure, fatigue and loss of motivation – but also to negative outcomes for the organization, Including absenteeism, turnover rates and lowered productivity(Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998). According to Levert et al. (2000),Burned-out workers show a lack of commitment and are less capable of providing adequate services, especially along dimensions of decision making and initiating involvement with clients (Maslach, 1982). According to Sammut (1997), Burned out workers are also too depleted to give of themselves in a creative, co-operative fashion. In the literature, high levels of Burnout are associated within effective coping strategies (Rowe, 1997) and low degrees of Burnout with more constructive coping strategies (Maslach and Jackson, 1982). Rowe (1997) also demonstrated the importance of teaching individuals with limited coping skills to alter the way in which they currently address problems. Also of, Al-Heeti and Alwashli (2000) found a significant correlation between the ways of coping and Burnout, while De Rijk. Le Blanc and Schaufeli (1998) argue that utilizing active coping strategies buffers the effects of Job stressors on negative job related outcomes like Burnout. On the presumption that personality traits are related to coping strategies and burnout, the five-factor model (FFM) of personality traits is used as theoretical framework in this study. Research has found that five factors provide a useful typology or taxonomy for classifying them and are labeled “the Big Five” (McCrae and Costa, 1987; McCrae and John, 1992). The five-factor personality traits include Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness (McCrae and Costa, 1987).
SYMPTOMS OF BURNOUT:
According to spickard et al., (2002) the symptoms and signs of Burnout include emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and perceived clinical ineffectiveness, and a sense of depersonalization in relationships with coworkers, patients, or both. Burnout has been associated with impaired job performance and poor health, including headaches, sleep disturbances, irritability, marital difficulties, fatigue, hypertension, anxiety ,depression myocardial infarction, and may contribute to alcoholism and drug addiction. The irony of Burnout is that it happens to the same person who previously was enthusiastic and brining over with energy and ideas when first involved in a job or a new situation. This type of person has a generally has a very high expectation of what can be accomplished. As all goes by all the goals aren’t achieved, the enthusiasm dies and a sort of listlessness sets in. Instead of lowering objectives or accepting reality, frustration is bottled up and the individual tries even harder. The result is Burnout. According to Henry Neils (2008) following are the early warning signs of burnout:
1. Chronic fatigue-exhaustion, tiredness, a sense of being physically run down.
2. Anger at those making demands.
3. Self –criticism for putting up with the demands.
4. Cynicism, negativity, and irritability.
5. A sense of being besieged.
6. Exploding easily at seemingly inconsequential things.
7. Frequent headaches and gastrointestinal disturbances.
8. Weight loss or gain.
9. Sleeplessness and depression.
10. Shortness of breath.
11. Suspiciousness
12. Feeling of helplessness.
13. Increased degree of risk taking.
STAGES OF BURNOUT:
According to Robert l. Veninga and spreadley (2007), Burnout develops in five distinct stages Honeymoon Stage is marked by high job satisfaction, creativity, commitment and energy. The professional begins to develop coping strategies to handle the stress that begins to arrive. If the strategies are positive and adaptive, the professional should stay in stage-1. Stage 2 is also known as the ‘Balancing Act’. In this stage, some days seem easier than other. There is a marked increase in job this satisfaction, work inefficiency, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and the use of escapist activities. Stage -3 or the “Chronic Symptoms Stage” is marked by increased intensity of stage 2 symptoms, as well as chronic exhaustion, physical illness, anger and depressions.Stage-4, also known as “Crisis Stage”, when the symptoms become critical. In this stage, physical symptoms intensify and increase in number , the professionals begin to obsess about work frustration, pessimism and self-doubt dominate thinking, and the professional begins to develop escapist mentality .This final stage is known as the “Enmeshment Stage”. In this stage, the symptoms of Burnout are so embedded in the professional’s life that they are likely to Labled as having a significant physical or emotional problem.
CONSEQUENCES OF BURNOUT:
The consequences of Burnout are diverse. The following paragraphs describe the impact of Burnout on employees and organizations. Psychosomatic complaints, such as headache, sleep disturbances, irritability, fatigue, hypertension, dizziness are some of the major symptoms and signs of Burnout (Christensen, 2008).Looking at the components of the Burnout construct, emotional exhaustion and depersonalization specifically have been associated with psychological and psychological strain and helplessness (Lee and Ashforth, 1990).Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter (2001) explain that emotional exhaustion is a better predictor of stress related health consequences than the other two components and that the psychological consequences parallel those found with other indices of prolonged stress. Further examination of the separate components of Burnout reveals that exhaustion is strongly related to future diseases of the circulatory system, while cynicism shows substantial correlations with future diseases of the digestive system (Toppinen- Tanner, Ojajavri, Vaanen, Kalimo and Jappinen, 2005). Burnout‘s impact on job satisfaction has been shown empirically in populations including sales persons (low, cravens, grant and moncrief,2001; sand and miyazaki.2000),accountants (Forgarty et al.,2000), student support services personnel (Brewer and Clippard,2002),librarians (Tsigilis et al.,2004).looking specifically at the components of the burnout construct, high levels of emotional exhaustion are correlated with low levels of job satisfaction, and feelings of personal accomplishment are positively correlated with job satisfaction. Burnout is a serious concern whether or not workers leave their jobs, since the performance of those who choose to stay the despite the Burnout may suffer (Glisson and Durick,1988).Researchers speculate that many of the consequences discussed above ultimately results in decreased performance(low et al.,2001; Maslach et al.,;2001;Wright and Hobfall,2004). For example, in order to cope with Burnout, employees tend to mitigate the loss of their remaining resources by “lowering their morale reducing their commitment to their organization their performance efforts”(Wright and Hobfall,2004). The findings of several studies support the notion that Burnout negatively impacts performance(parker and Kulik,1995; Wright and cropanzano,1998), as exhaustion may diminish the energy available to put into work and can entrap employees in a negative spiral in which they do not seek help or try to improve their situation(Bakker, Demerouti and Verbeke,2004). However, one of the biggest questions remaining in the research of burnout is about this relationship between Burnout and performance. Some studies that measured all three components of Burnout found no relationship between performance and depersonalization or diminished personal accomplishment (Parker and Kulik, 1995; Wright and Bonet,1997), while others revealed surprising relationship between Burnout and Performance (Lazaro, Shinn, and Robinson,1985;Randall and Scott,1988).
INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE BURNOUT:
Over the years, various interventions have been recommended to combat burnout, both at individual and the organizational level, and from various theoretical prospective. The two primary approaches to intervention programs have been either changing individual employees or changing the organizations (Schaufeli and Buunek, 2002). The former type of program has been most prominent in research and in practice, and the generally seeks to develop coping skills to assist individual workers in dealing with the stress that has resulted in burnout, (Halbeslseben and Buckely, 2004).Furthermore, research indicates that it is preferable to combine the individual treatment with intervention at the organizational level when complaints are shared by others (e.g., Van Ypern and Snijeres, 2000). Employees can be provided training in the areas of time management and as assertiveness. In today’s world, not only does a person need good self-organizational skills, but he or she must also be able to say “No” in a constructive manner (Spooner, 2007). Researchers found that sometimes boredom, if not Burnout, occurs from having “been there, done that” too many times. In such condition employees should encourage himself to upgrade skills on an ongoing basis, experiment with new roles and responsibilities and backup with cross-training (Elizabeth Cooley, 2008) Lane et al., (2007) suggested six ‘F’s for transforming loss and change.1. Let go of a familiar past (or at least certain significant components that are keeping you stuck).2. Confront an uncertain future fraught with anxiety.3. Grapple with some loss of face or blows to one’s self-esteem.4. Acknowledge feelings of rage and sadness to achieve a renewed state of focused anger: “I don’t like that have happened, but how can I make the best of it?”5. Seek objective, knowledgeable and trustworthy feedback to gain a new perspective ,and6. Have faith------if you’ve taken these steps, no matter what the outcome of this transition trial, you will get out from this grief process.
CONCEPTUAL ISSUES:
Till date, the Maslach burnout inventory (MBI; Maslach and Jackson, 1981, 1986; Maslach et al., 1996) is almost universally used as the instrument to assess burnout (Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1988). There are now three versions of the MBI designed for use with different occupations, which reflects the developing interest in this phenomenon. The original version of the MBI (now known as the MBI-HSS) was designed for use with people working with human services (including health care).However, MBI-GS still suffers from the same problem as the original version of the MBI, namely that the items in each subscale are all phrased in the same directions; that is, all exhaustion and cynicism items are phrased negatively, whereas all professional efficacy items are phrased positively. From a psychometric point of view, such one-sided scales are inferior to scales that include both positively and negatively worded items (Guilford, 1954), because this will increase acquiescence tendencies and thus can lead to artificial factor solutions to which positively and negatively worded items are likely to cluster (Doty and Demerouti and Nachreiner, 1996; Lee and Ashforth, 1990).
BURNOUT IN TEACHERS: -“A teacher is compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge and wisdom in the pupils.” Ever Garrision “In teaching one cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, may be for twenty years.”- Jacques BarzumAs shown in the quotes above, teaching is difficult often underappreciated career. A teacher in general education classroom must assume the responsibility of imparting knowledge in a variety of content areas acting as a model both morally and socially motivating the students to learn while maintaining enthusiasm and working in conjunction with parents among many other duties (Heyman,Berstan,2004)people in all careers experience stress at one time or another. Some bear so much stress that it eventually leads to burnout. Unfortunately, teaching is profession, in which the risk of bu rnout is much higher (Winona.edu, march20, 2008).Teaching is not only a pure cognitive act but also a social, affective and emotional work where emotions are involved in the work atmosphere (Gendron, 2008) Teaching occupation is often perceived as semi-professional with relatively low social prestige and income. Educational reforms have tried to make teaching is more professional occupation by increasing teacher’s commitment and accountability to their jobs (Helsby, 1999; Lieberman & Miller, 1999). Even so teachers have a strong inclination to leave their occupation and exit the labor permanently or temporarily in order to change their occupation altogether (Bobbitt, Leich, Whitener and Lynch, 1994). Only a few plan to make it a lifelong career (Ackeer, 1994, Peske, Lieu, Johnson, Kauffman, and Kardos, 2001). This is not surprising, because in each cohort of students who graduated from teacher’s training programs, about 25% do not enter the occupation and another 25% leave teaching during the first years of employment. Recent data published by the ISRAEL Bureau of Statistics (2003) shows that 8-10% of the teachers leave the profession each year. In other studies on teachers, commitment or their intentions of leaving the profession, a relatively high percentage of teachers reported that they planned to leave teaching in the future ( Arnon & Bar-Zohar,1994; Fresco, Kfir, and Nasser,1997; Rosenblatt et al.,1999 ; Zak and Horowitz,1985).
CAUSES OF TEACHERS BURNOUT:
According to Holstein (2008), many different integral aspect of the teaching professions are exactly what causes stress and may eventually lead to Burnout .one such aspect of teaching is the fact that many people go into teaching are people who have high ideals of service to others. Burnout arises from worker that their hopes and aspirations for the career they have chosen and work to enter were not realistic or will not be realized (Freudenberger and Richelson, 2005), Judge et al. (2000) have found a direct relationship between Personality and satisfaction, suggesting that the influence of personality may lie in job selection. Emotional stability is positively related with job proficiency across occupational Groupings, Salgodo (2002). Thoresen et al., (2003) concluded that extraversion and emotional stability are positively correlated with Job satisfaction and Organizational Commitment, and negatively with job change and Burnout. Personality characteristics play a role in determining to what degree individual experiences interferences between work and Job satisfaction .job person misfit occurs when there is a mismatch between the requirements of the job and people’s personal principles, (Jodd et al., 2004). In some cases, people might feel constrained by the job to do things that are unethical and not in accordance with their own values. People become vulnerable to burnout when they experiences incongruity between personal and organizational values (Leiter and Harvic, 1997). Sometimes, these crises are the result of people realizing that they entered an occupation with mistaken expectations. Often, human services professionals encounter a collapse of the professional mystique in their first job (Cherniss, 1980; Leiter, 1991).
PERSONALITY:
Personality psychology became an identifiable discipline in the social sciences in the 1930s.During that decade a number of separate lines of enquiry came together, culminating in highly integrative programmes for the field generated by Allport (1937), Murray (1938), Lewin (1935), The journal aimed to join German studies of individual differences in persons incorporating case studies, correlational surveys, experiments and theoretical discussions. Mcdougall (1937) wrote the lead article, exploring various meaning of the term ‘character’ and personality. Early contributors included Adler, Jung, Spearman, and Frenkel-Brunswik, Rosenweing and Mckinon. The publication of Alloprt’s(1937) personality: a psychological interpretations marked the formal advent of personality as a potent field of investigations. Although textbooks on Mental Hygiene, Abnormal Psychology, and Personality had appeared in early years (e.g. Bagby, 1928 ;Bruce,1908; Jastrow,1935; Roback,1927), Allport was the first to articulate a grand vision for the field of personality and to place it with the context of historical and contemporary scientific scholarship. Allport viewed personality psychology as the study of the individual person. He defined personality as, “the dynamic organization that determines his unique adjustment to the environment.” Allport (1961) later changed “unique adjustment to the environment” to “characteristics behavior and thought” According to Allport (1961) ‘A Personality trait is than, a Neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide equivalent (meaningfully consistent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.’
DEFINITIONS OF PERSONALITY:
A definition of personality must take in to account of three factors. First, individuals are unique in the sense that no two people are exactly alike in terms of temperament, behaviour or preference. Second, individuals do not behave in identical ways in all the situations. Third, although individuals are unique and are not completely consistent across situations, there is considerable commonality in human behaviour (Murphy and Davidshofer; 1991).Allport (1962) “personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psycho-physical environment systems that determine his characteristics thoughts and behaviour”.Eysenck (1957) “defined personality, as the more or less stable and enduring organization of a person’s character, temperament which determines his unique adjustment to the environment”.According to Cattle (1957) “Personality is “that which permits a predication of what a person will do in a given situation.”
RATIONALE OF THE STUDY:
Burnout is at a very high rate in India, especially in the female population of employees .Burnout is a significant problem in education as well. A number of studies have been carried out to investigate Burnout in relation to various antecedents. Research findings have indicated gaps in findings. Keeping these gaps in view the present study has been designed to understand more systematically the complex and multifaceted nature of burnout and its relationship with personality. This study also attempts to pinpoint which factors of personality differentially contribute to the burnout among teachers of primary and secondary schools. Burnout amongst teachers does not affect themselves alone but their student as well. So, now a day’s teacher burnout has become an area of interest among researchers and practitioners. The researchers have investigated personality, source of stress burnout, organizational behavior, and emotional intelligence of the educators who appear to be experiencing burnout to a greater extent than their colleagues. Hopefully, the results from this study will be utilized to help both school administrators and teachers alleviate stress and avoid burnout.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: A study of personality correlates of burnout among primary and secondary school teachers.
OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS OF TERMS USED: BURNOUT:
Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest or motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. Burnout reduces your productivity and saps your energy, leaving you feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful. Eventually, you may feel like you have nothing more to give. Maslach and Jackson (1981) defined Burnout as “a syndrome encompassing emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment”.Allport (1962) defined “Personality as the dynamic organization within the individual of those psycho-physical environment systems that determine his characteristics thoughts and behaviour.
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:
- To study the extent of Burnout in Govt. Primary and Govt. Secondary School Teachers.
- To find out the significance of difference between the mean scores of Burnout of Primary and Secondary School Teachers.
- To find out the significance of difference between the mean scores of personality factors of Primary and Secondary School Teachers.
- To examine the relationship between measures of Personality and Burnout among both Primary and Secondary School Teachers.
Dissertation Keywords/Search Tags:
Personality,Burnout,Correlates,Primary,Secondary schools
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Submission Details: Dissertation Abstract submitted by UPASNA CHHABRA from India on 18-Oct-2012 19:18.
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