Psychological Wellbeing Among Secondary Teachers: Role of Mindfulness And Burnout

Teachers have been at the centre of attention in the present times. Not only do they teach, but also train, facilitate, mentor and guide the students towards their welfare. They play an important role in the lives of children. In addition to facilitating learning, teachers are the key agents of socialization, helping students reach their highest potential and develop into responsible citizens. But, over the past years, teaching has become increasingly stressful. Today, teaching is one of the most stressful occupations in India. Teacher's stress impacts their health and well-being, work attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction) and turnover. Not only that, teacher's stress is also linked to teaching performance and student academic outcomes. Numerous research studies have indicated towards such findings. High stress levels are causing teachers to leave their profession, which causes instability among students and the community. In this highly stressful world, teachers need a well-balanced mind to perform well and encourage students to perform well academically. Mindfulness has been considered as a successful way of life and has been found to come to the rescue of many. The present study focuses on the role of mindfulness and burnout on the psychological wellbeing of secondary teachers in the schools of Mumbai. The study was conducted on a sample of 311 secondary school teachers. The study adopted the descriptive method of the correlational type. The results of data analysis exhibit that there is a high relationship between psychological wellbeing of teachers with mindfulness. Also, there is a moderate negative relationship of psychological wellbeing with burnout. Thus, higher the psychological wellbeing, higher will be the level of mindfulness and it is likely that the burnout of teachers will be lower. The study also ascertains the differences between psychological wellbeing, mindfulness and burnout among secondary teachers on the basis of their gender and teaching experience.