Predicting intraindividual changes in teacher burnout: The role of perceived school environment and motivational factors
Highlights
► This study underscores intraindividual changes in teacher burnout over a school year. ► Work environment and motivational factors are correlates of change in burnout. ► Burnout is not prompted solely by a particular set of school environment factors. ► Autonomous motivation and self-efficacy play an active role in the burnout process.
Introduction
Job burnout is an affective reaction due to prolonged exposure to job stress (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). Although the lack of validated cut-off points in most countries makes it difficult to determine the prevalence of burnout, two broad findings emerge from the research: 1) teachers are more vulnerable than other workers to burnout symptoms (see de Heus and Diekstra, 1999, Schaufeli and Enzmann, 1998), and 2) burnout affects teachers around the world (Byrne, 1999, Rudow, 1999).
In Canada, and more particularly, in the province of Quebec (where this study was conducted), current data suggest that from 12% to 20% of teachers report burnout symptoms at least once a week (Fernet, 2003, Houlfort and Sauvé, 2010). Presumably, the relational nature of teaching puts teachers at high risk for emotional drainage, which could explain their vulnerability to burnout. The need to better understand teacher burnout is evidenced in, among others, the relationship between burnout and other significant consequences for individuals (e.g., teachers’ ill-being; Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2006), organizations (e.g., turnover and absenteeism; Cherniss, 1980, Jackson et al., 1986), and school missions (e.g., quality of teaching; Cherniss, 1980).
To prevent teacher burnout, researchers have investigated a variety of causes. So far, the work environment has been considered the main determinant of burnout (Maslach et al., 2001). For instance, the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al., 2001, Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004) emphasizes two sets of workplace factors: job demands and resources. At school, job demands include several aspects such as work overload, role problems, deficient equipment, school policies and climate, interpersonal conflicts, and students’ behavioral problems. Job resources include administrative leadership, flexible schedules, decision latitude, skill utilization, participation in decision-making, recognition, professional development, coaching, and support from colleagues, among others (see Byrne, 1999 and Rudow, 1999). The literature has provided consistent support for the JD-R model and the primary role of job demands and resources in burnout (see Fernet, Austin, Trépanier, & Dussault, in press, for a recent review). For example, Hakanen et al. (2006) found that burnout is predicted by teachers’ perceptions of job demands (overload, students’ behaviors, and physical environment) and the absence of job resources (job control, information, supervisory support, and innovative and social climate).
Although the JD-R model has been proven useful in predicting burnout, it has been restricted mainly to the study of work environment factors. As a result, motivational factors—which may be important underlying mechanisms in the burnout process—have been neglected. Yet, some studies have revealed that individual factors, such as self-efficacy, optimism, and organizational-based self-esteem (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007) as well as self-esteem (Byrne, 1999) mediate the relationships between workplace factors and burnout. Other research has evidenced that self-efficacy (Brouwers and Tomic, 2000, Skaalvik and Skaalvik, 2010), and autonomous motivation (Fernet, Senécal, Guay, Marsh, & Dowson, 2008) are negatively related to teacher burnout. Building on self-determination theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan, 1985, Deci and Ryan, 2002), our study proposes and tests a motivational model of intraindividual changes in teacher burnout. The model posits that changes in teachers’ perceptions of the school environment are likely to predict changes in burnout through changes in motivational factors.
This study contributes to the research on burnout in three ways. First, in line with Maslach’s conceptualization (1982), we evaluate changes in burnout components over time. More precisely, we focus on intraindividual changes to better understand its correlates and the reason for increased (or decreased) teacher burnout. Second, in contrast to the previous research, we do not focus on global inferences about the work environment or motivational factors, but rather on specific inferences. We examine the role of particular interpersonal (students’ behavior and principal’s leadership) and organizational factors (overload and decision latitude) as well as motivational factors (autonomous motivation and self-efficacy) that stem from the classroom environment. Third, based on a well-known theoretical framework (SDT), this study provides valuable insights into current burnout models, such as the JD-R model (Demerouti et al., 2001, Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004). In the sections below, we present issues about changes in burnout and content domain specificity to address the limitations of the previous research. We then present an overview of SDT along with supporting evidence for the proposed model.
Burnout is an ongoing process that emerges gradually over time. It is characterized by three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1982). Emotional exhaustion in teachers refers to the depletion of energy resources. Depersonalization refers to a detached attitude that teachers adopt toward the job itself or the people associated with it. Reduced personal accomplishment refers to a decrease in teachers’ feelings of achievement and competence at work. Although emotional exhaustion is the acknowledged hallmark of burnout, we focus on each component separately in order to capture critical aspects of the burnout syndrome (Schaufeli & Taris, 2005).
Despite the fact that burnout components are expected to evolve, few studies have used a longitudinal design to investigate them. Moreover, existing longitudinal studies have failed to reproduce the effects observed in cross-sectional studies (Schaufeli, 2003). In addition, based on correlations over time, many researchers have concluded that burnout components are stable for most people regardless of intraindividual changes (i.e., within-person stability and change) over time. Although this approach provides important information on between-person groups, it obscures individual differences in stability and change. For example, perceptions of burnout may be stable for some individuals, whereas they might fluctuate for others. Thus, patterns of change across individuals, which capture the notion of interindividual differences in intraindividual change, are difficult to assess with stability coefficients. We believe that a more complete understanding of burnout and its correlates requires a greater appreciation of intraindividual changes. To our knowledge, these concerns were investigated in only one study (Burisch, 2002), based on a three-year panel of data spanning seven time points. Results showed no association between intraindividual changes in burnout and dispositional or workplace factors. In light of these unexpected findings, Burisch has called for “novel approaches to make the study of intraindividual change a more promising endeavor” (p.16).
Accordingly, we used a latent variable approach to investigate intraindividual change (Steyer, Partchev, & Shanahan, 2000). This approach was used by Otis, Grouzet, and Pelletier (2005) to examine the impact of motivational changes on students’ educational outcomes (dropout intentions, absenteeism, homework frequency, and educational aspirations). Among other things, it allows investigating the relationships between different patterns of change. For instance, is increased teacher burnout during the school year predicted by increasingly deleterious environmental factors and/or decreased motivational factors? Assuming that these change patterns are related, we sought to provide a more comprehensive understanding of burnout as a dynamic phenomenon rather than the outcome of a static set of more or less stress-related predictors. For example, burnout components might evolve not only because teachers begin to doubt their professional abilities at the beginning of the school year, but also because their perceptions erode drastically over time.
Most burnout studies have used generic measures to assess potential causes of burnout (Van der Doef & Maes, 2002). Such measures assess global job stressors regardless of the occupation’s particularities. Although this approach enables comparisons between professions, it neglects to evaluate the critical sources of stress in a specific occupation. For example, a teacher might find class management or teaching stressful, but not administrative or complementary tasks. More importantly, generic measures do not take into account the complexity and variation of self-perceptions in a particular domain—perceptions that may impair the understanding and prediction of behavior (Marsh & Yeung, 1998). Based on previous research, we decided to assess motivational and workplace variables that stem from the classroom environment—an environment reported to be particularly stressful for teachers (Friedman, 2003). For instance, in a study in 5426 Canadian and American teachers and administrators, 63% reported that students’ disruptive behavior was the most stressful factor in the school environment (Kuzsman & Schnall, 1987). More recently, in a sample of 416 Australian high school teachers, McCormick and Barnett (2011) investigated the link between burnout and teachers’ perceptions of job stress in specific domains (personal, classroom, school, and external). They concluded that the most salient stress for burnout was student disruptive behavior. Without denying other sources of stress related to tasks (e.g., administrative paperwork), the school (e.g., sense of community), and the larger school system (e.g., reforms), our model focuses on the classroom. Classroom work primarily involves teaching and class management (Friedman, 2003). Teaching comprises classroom instruction, including presenting lessons, answering questions, and responding to students’ needs. Class management refers to disciplinary practices, including handling disciplinary issues and problems, applying rules, and preventing and/or managing interruptions and conflicts. Therefore, instead of regrouping the variables under general headings (e.g., job demands and resources, motivational factors, burnout), we consider relationships between distinct aspects of the school environment (teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behavior, classroom overload, decision latitude, and principal’s leadership behaviors). This approach is justified by research that has shown that burnout is differentially related to distinct work environment factors (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). More importantly, it can provide new perspectives and a deeper understanding of the classroom antecedents of teacher burnout.
SDT (Deci and Ryan, 1985, Deci and Ryan, 2002) is an approach to human motivation in which autonomous motivation is deemed essential for optimal functioning. Autonomous motivation refers to the experience of choice in initiating behavior. Teachers are autonomously motivated when they perform their job for the intrinsic value of achieving meaningful and interesting goals or because they personally grasp the value of their work activities. SDT distinguishes between intrinsic motivation (doing something for its own sake) and extrinsic motivation (doing something for an instrumental reason). The theory also proposes that extrinsic motivation can be internalized, meaning that by acquiring and accepting new values or goals, people become autonomously motivated to engage in behavior that expresses these values and goals. Thus, internalization can give rise to different forms of extrinsic motivation that may be aligned on a continuum, with external regulation at the low end, followed by introjected and identified regulation. External regulation occurs when behavior is regulated to obtain a reward or avoid a constraint. Introjected regulation is the process whereby an external demand becomes an internal representation. Individuals put pressure on themselves through internal coercion (e.g., anxiety, guilt, or shame) to ensure that they behave in a certain way. Finally, identified regulation is defined as behavior that individuals choose to engage in because they value it. Instead of succumbing to external or internal pressures, individuals experience choice while performing the activity, even if the activity is not interesting. Given that identified behavior is accepted as one’s own, it is regarded as autonomously regulated.
Research in the workplace has evidenced that employees who show more autonomous than controlled motivation display greater well-being (see Ryan & Deci, 2000, for a review). A recent study on teacher motivation indicated that autonomous types of motivation (intrinsic motivation and identified regulation) toward work activities are negatively related to burnout, whereas controlled types of motivation (introjected and external regulation) are positively associated with burnout (Fernet et al., 2008). These findings suggest that work motivation is influential in explaining burnout.
Another central SDT concept is perceived competence, or confidence that one can succeed at optimally challenging tasks and attain desired outcomes (White, 1959). To illustrate, teachers who are confident in their abilities to teach and deal with disruptive students perceive themselves as being competent in the classroom. Perceived competence is similar to self-efficacy, defined by Bandura (1997) as “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p.3). Although SDT views perceived competence as an innate propensity (Ryan & Deci, 2000), the operationalized definition of self-efficacy and perceived competence are theoretically related (Deci, 1992). Past studies have shown that self-efficacy is a key variable in predicting burnout (Brouwers and Tomic, 2000, Salanova et al., 2002). We therefore use a measure of teachers’ perceived efficacy to assess this motivational factor, and accordingly, the term self-efficacy is used for the remainder of this article.
Recent research has acknowledged the importance of assessing teachers’ efficacy with respect to domain specificity (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998, for a review). In line with this, Friedman (2003) found that, in the classroom and the school as a whole, a teacher’s capacity to positively influence others (called interpersonal efficacy) is negatively correlated to burnout. Similarly, studies have revealed that teachers’ classroom efficacy is negatively associated with burnout (Brouwers & Tomic, 2000).
At the heart of SDT is the assumption that environmental factors are critical because they can facilitate or thwart motivational factors, which in turn influence individual psychological functioning. SDT-based research has thus devoted considerable attention on the workplace factors that can affect employee motivation (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Different aspects of the school or classroom environment may be considered as either autonomy-supportive or controlling (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Autonomy-supportive conditions allow teachers to make certain choices and decisions about their work and develop a meaningful rationale. They also minimize pressure, provide competence feedback, and acknowledge teachers’ feelings and views (Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994). These conditions parallel job resources, because they are thought to be functional in achieving work goals (Demerouti et al., 2001, Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004) and they allow the satisfaction of basic psychological needs such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Conversely, controlling factors—such as imposed goals, time restraints, or contingent rewards—constrain and pressure how teachers think, feel, and behave. Such conditions preclude energy investment and may become job stressors.
It is important to recognize that these assumptions share some similarities with the JD-R model. Also relying on environmental factors, this model posits that burnout is mainly the result of deleterious working conditions. The main proposition is that job demands and resources imply two distinct processes that may result in burnout. First, there is the energetic process, in which demanding aspects of the job drain the employee’s energy, leading to exhaustion. Second, there is a motivational process whereby a lack of job resources hampers employee motivation and contributes to depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment (Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2003). Despite growing evidence in support of this model, some studies also suggest that job resources are involved in the energetic process and job demands in the motivational process (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). For instance, in a subsample of health care employees, Bakker et al. (2003) found that job resources were related to emotional exhaustion in addition to depersonalization and personal accomplishment. Results also showed that job demands were related to personal accomplishment. In addition, Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, and Lens (2008) demonstrated that psychological needs satisfaction—as indexed by competence, autonomy, and relatedness—plays a partial mediating role between job demands and emotional exhaustion and acts as a full mediator between job resources and exhaustion. Other studies have shown that both job demands and resources are related to energy depletion (e.g., Crawford et al., 2010, Hakanen et al., 2006). This suggests that employee motivation factors are affected not only by the availability of job resources, but also by demanding aspects of the job. Based on SDT assumptions, we argue that it is difficult to completely differentiate these processes, because they may have the same underlying motives (autonomous motivation and self-efficacy). Thus, burnout may be precipitated by demanding aspects of the job that weaken employee autonomous motivation and self-efficacy. For instance, teachers who perceive that they have insufficient time to accomplish their work may feel exhausted, not only due to the demands of their job, but also, and more particularly, due to a lack of autonomous motivation. Similarly, teachers’ perceptions of students’ disruptive behavior may provoke burnout, because it erodes their sense of effectiveness (self-efficacy).
In this study, we focused on specific demanding and resource-based aspects of the job content (decision latitude and classroom overload) and interpersonal relationships (student behavior and principal’s leadership behaviors). We assessed two types of job demands: classroom overload and students’ disruptive behavior, both of which have been considered as important determinants of teacher burnout (Hakanen et al., 2006). Classroom overload involves too many demands and not enough time to meet them (Byrne, 1999). Students’ disruptive behavior refers to the negative attitude of some students, which is typically part of the classroom experience (Hastings & Bham, 2003). Although we focused on teachers’ perceptions of students’ disrespectful behaviors, other negative attitudes in the classroom, such inattentiveness and unsociability (Friedman, 1995) and student distrust (Goddard et al., 2001, Van Houtte, 2006) have been connected to job dissatisfaction and burnout in teachers. We also considered two job resources: teachers’ perception of decision latitude in the classroom and the school principal’s leadership style. Decision latitude refers to the extent to which an occupation or activity provides opportunities to make decisions and exercise control over the tasks to be accomplished (Karasek, 1985). This job resource contrasts with autonomous motivation, which concerns the degree to which an employee engages in work activities out of choice and interest. Some studies have provided support for the crucial role of decision latitude in reducing burnout (Taris, Stoffelsen, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Van Dierendonck, 2005). There is also considerable evidence that interpersonal support at work, especially from the school principal, plays a major role in alleviating job stress and burnout in teachers (Leithwood, Menzies, Jantzi, & Leithwood, 1996). School principals can help teachers accomplish their work in different ways. For example, they can allocate minor administrative paperwork and assignments to other staff members, thereby freeing up teachers to focus on their main tasks. They can also provide instrumental support such as pedagogical resources. Most importantly, the manner in which school principals express their support (e.g., autonomy-supportive vs. controlling) may affect teachers’ functioning. Deci, Connell, and Ryan (1989) showed that employees whose supervisors reportedly adopted autonomy-supportive behaviors presented much greater trust in the organization, felt less pressure, and expressed greater satisfaction with their job. These findings are consistent with increasing findings in education that teachers’ perceptions of trust in different sources, such as principals, colleagues, parents, and students, produce favorable educational outcomes (e.g., Goddard et al., 2001, Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 1998).
Empirical evidence has also provided support for the relationships between job resources and motivational factors. Some studies have found that decision latitude is positively associated with employees’ perceived efficacy at work (e.g., Salanova et al., 2002). Similarly, studies have found that managerial autonomy support and leadership behaviors (e.g., providing opportunities for choice or encouraging self-initiative) are important correlates of employee motivation (e.g., Deci et al., 1989). Moreover, in a study conducted in Gabonese teachers, Lévesque, Blais, and Hess (2004) found that teachers’ perceptions of autonomy-support by their principal are related to autonomous motivation, which in turn is positively related to job satisfaction and negatively to burnout.
The findings of studies that investigated links between job demands and motivational factors are less consistent. Some found a negative association between job demands and motivational factors, such as autonomous motivation (Fernet, Guay, & Senécal, 2004), learning motivation (Taris, Kompier, DeLange, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2003), and work engagement (Hakanen et al., 2006). Others found no evidence of a relationship between job demands and intrinsic motivation (Van Yperen & Hagedoorn, 2003), or between job demands and perceived efficacy (Salanova et al., 2002). Nevertheless, it is important to note that the lack of significant relationships found in studies does not necessarily imply a true absence of relationship between job demands and motivational factors. In fact, the absence of significant relationship could be explained by several factors, including the number of participants, the magnitude of the effect size, variance heterogeneity, the operationalization of constructs, and the presence of moderating variables. Regarding operationalization, Crawford et al. (2010) showed in their meta-analysis that the link between job demands and employee motivation depends on the nature of the demands (hindrances vs. challenges). Demands that employees perceived as hindrances (e.g., time pressure, overload) were negatively associated with work engagement, and demands perceived as challenges (e.g., responsibility, workload) were positively associated with engagement.
The proposed model is presented in Fig. 1. The model suggests that intraindividual changes over the school year in teachers’ perceptions of demanding aspects (classroom overload and students’ disruptive behavior) and resource-based aspects (classroom decision latitude and principal’s leadership behaviors) will predict intraindividual changes in burnout components (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) through intraindividual changes in motivational factors (autonomous motivation and self-efficacy).
Section snippets
Procedure and participants
The data were collected as part of a research project on the work-related well-being of school teachers in the province of Quebec, Canada. Quebec’s education system consists mainly of public French-language schools. In this study, only elementary (grades 1–6) and high school (grades 7–11) teachers are considered, although the system also includes colleges and universities. We first approached the administrations of two school boards containing a total of 103 schools: 84 elementary and 19 high
Preliminary analysis
Descriptive statistics and correlations among study variables are presented in Table 1. Correlations were estimated using confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA), which provides satisfactory data fit (χ2(1035) = 15,719.808, CFI = .94, SRMR = .05, RMSEA = .036 [CI = .033, .038]). As can be seen in Table 1, all correlations between latent variables at T1 are significant and in the expected direction. Note that negative correlations between latent change variables (η2 − η1) are due to the fact that η
Discussion
In recent decades, the burnout research has identified a number of potential work environment and motivational determinants of teacher burnout. Still, little is known about how the correlates change over time or how patterns of change predict changes in teacher burnout. Using a latent intraindividual change approach, we developed and tested a motivational model of teacher burnout. This model posits that, over the school year, changes in teachers’ perceptions of the school environment (demands
Acknowledgments
This article was prepared with the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (C.F.), the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (C.F.), and the Canada Research Chair program (F.G.). We are thankful to Denis Talbot for statistical assistance.
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