Book Description

The issue of burnout in the teaching profession has recently received much attention. Despite the interest in this topic, research in teacher burnout is limited. This study was designed to empirically examine teacher burnout and its relationship to the organizational stress variables of role conflict and ambiguity.This exploratory study had two purposes. The first was to examine if teachers differ with respect to select background variables in their perceptions of role conflict, role ambiguity and burnout. The second was to examine the relationship among the organizational stress variables of role conflict and role ambiguity and teacher burnout when controlling for the effect of select teacher background variables. The select teacher background variables of age, sex, marital status, grade level taught, years of experience, degrees held, and size of community taught in were drawn from literature as possibly effecting teacher's perception of role conflict, role ambiguity and burnout. Although some writers have hypothesized that role conflict and ambiguity may be related to burnout, no prior empirical studies have been conducted to examine this relationship. The sample of classroom teachers for this study (N = 469) was randomly selected from the active membership list of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Teachers responded to a four part Teachers' Stress Survey. The first and fourth parts elicited demographic and personal information. The second section contained the Maslach Burnout Inventory, developed to assess the frequency and intensity of burnout in the helping professions. The Maslach Burnout Inventory has 3 subscales: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment. Part three of the Teachers' Stress Survey contained a Role Questionnaire developed by Rizzo, House & Lirtzman (1970) to measure respondents' perceptions of role conflict and role ambiguity in their organization. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to assess differences in teachers perceptions of role conflict, role ambiguity and burnout when grouped by select background factors. Multiple regression was used to examine the relationship among role conflict, role ambiguity and teacher burnout when controlling for selected background variables. The significant findings were as follows: (1) When teachers were grouped according to the background variables of age and number of years taught, they differed in perceptions of role conflict and ambiguity. (2) When teachers were grouped according to sex, they differed in perceptions of burnout on the Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment subscales of burnout. (3) When teachers were grouped according to grade level taught, they differed on the Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment subscales of burnout. (4) When teachers were grouped according to age, they differed in perceptions on the Emotional Exhaustion subscale of burnout. (5) Role conflict and role ambiguity each explained a significant amount of variance in the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales of burnout. (6) Role conflict explained the most variance in the Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization subscales. (7) Role ambiguity explained a significant amount of variance in the Personal Accomplishment subscale while role conflict did not. (8) In combination, role conflict and role ambiguity explained approximately 23% of the variance on the Emotional Exhaustion subscale, approximately 10% on the Depersonalization subscale and approximately 5% on the Personal Accomplishment subscale.