Teacher burnout - an evaluation according to demographic, organizational and personal variables

Professional burnout, which is encountered especially in human service professions where human interaction is at its most, is a psychological syndrome which will lead professionals into some physical, emotional, behavioral, interpersonal, and attitudinal problems such as; migraine, gastrointestinal diseases, being cynical or critical at work, a general negative attitude towards colleagues or clients, loss of motivation, exhaustion and unfortunately quitting the job. Former researches reveal that teachers being an important part of human service professionals, also experience burnout in various levels. In this study teacher burnout is investigated by scanning model. Researches attained for the last twenty years were analysed under three main headings. Demographic variables (gender, age, seniority and length of service, marital status, having kids, level of education, branch), organizational factors (kind/type of school, educational level of school, appreciation from principals, workload, school's location and work environment) and personal factors (choosing and doing teaching profession willingly, job satisfaction, stress) were taken into account in order to define which sub factors were effective in teacher burnout. After analysing former studies, eventually, it was concluded that among the demographic variables there was no significant difference in gender, age, marital status and having kids but there was significant difference in seniority, length of service and branch. For organizational and personal factors there was significant correlation in nearly all the sub factors. As a conclusion studies indicate a strong relationship between school principal's attitudes towards teachers, workload, workplace or job satisfaction, stress, seniority and teacher burnout. Generally all the previous studies suggest there is low or average level of burnout in teachers.