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BURNOUT AMONG NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS: A STUDY ON A PRIMARY SCHOOL IN SEMPORNA, SABAH
NORHIDAYU BINTI ROSMAN Sekolah Kebangsaan Bugaya, Peti Surat 299, 91308 Semporna, Sabah
Article history: Received:10 March 2019 Received in revised form: 26 August 2019 Accepted: 31 November 2019 Published online:
31 Dec. 2019
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ABSTRACT
This study investigates different levels of burnout occurred among novice and experienced teachers in a primary school located in Semporna, Sabah. This study also studied the relationship between years of teaching experiences with the burnout levels among teachers. This study is descriptive in nature with the adoption of 5-point likert scale survey questionnaire. 30 teachers were chosen as respondents for this study. The findings showed two respondents faced high level of burnout, six respondents faced moderate level of burnout and the remaining 22 respondents faced low level of burnout.
Generally, the highest mean score was recorded among the novice teachers with mean score M=0.49 in the aspect of Emotional Exhaustion. Meanwhile, mean score M=0.38 was equally recorded for both aspects of Physical Exhaustion and Satisfaction for experienced teachers. Thus, teaching experiences influenced the level of burnout among the teachers in Primary School A.
Keywords: burnout, novice teachers, emotional exhaustion
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INTRODUCTION
Teaching is one of the hardest professions in the world. Even though teaching is a noble job, dealing with the reality in teaching field might be stressful. As teachers’ professional competency contributes to their effectiveness, being emotionally and psychologically balanced in this job settings are important too. One of the major problems occurred among teachers is being burnout. The term burnout was first introduced by Freudenberger (1974) once he noticed that social workers have the tendency to become depressed after a few years. However, this term was developed further by Maslach (in Mukundan, et. al, 2015), who posits that burnout is a kind of emotional and physical fatigue. It is then being possessed by individuals which then will developed negative outlook towards their jobs, loses their empathy for their clients or colleagues, and also
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create a declined of professional self-concept. In the context of teaching, this term normally occurred among novice teachers who tend to be given continuous tasks without considering their emotional needs and how they perceived the works given.
Burnout is said as a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with other people in some capacity (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996). Among teachers, this issue is an important thing to be taken care of since it might come from various factors such as the students’ behaviour as well as the environment in the school. Plus, it will affect the teachers’ performances in teaching and learning, reduced the quality of teaching and level of socialisation with the colleagues. Even though job burnout has emerged as an important concept in the 1970s, these days, it even captured a pretty critical issue related to the people’s experiences with their works (Schaufeli, Leiter &
Maslach, 2009). Some people are not yet experienced enough to accept multiple tasks and positions at the same time. Considering situations faced by them enabled the workloads to be balanced for both novice and experienced teachers.
In relation to burnout, Maslach, Jackson and Leiter (1996) has classified it into three major categories which are named as Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalisation (DP) and also reduced Personal Accomplishment (PA). Emotional Exhaustion is a situation where emotional resources are depleted, when the workers feel like they are no longer be able to give themselves in the psychological level context.
Depersonalisation on the other hand, refers to some negative or cynical attitudes and feelings about one’s clients which related to emotional exhaustion. The third category is reduced personal accomplishment which refers to the tendency to evaluate oneself negatively, particularly with regard to one’s work with clients. These three dimensions of burnout have a relationship with psychological symptoms such as tension and also depression.
Over the years, many teachers and fretting about lots of responsibilities and more burdens which lead further to stress. These teachers also faced lack of motivation and find it hard to cope well with all the demands and expectation of the teaching profession throughout the years, especially as new policies being introduced. As a result, it caused the teachers to feel stressed out which then affect the students’ education and the teachers’ well-being. So, how far the teachers feel stressed and burnout? This needs to be ascertained further throughout this study.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
One of the problems that that the researcher observed in Primary School A is related to the imbalance workloads and administrative tasks among the novice and experienced teachers. From self-experience as a novice teacher throughout 2016 to 2019,the researcher found out that the teachers who have been in service around less than five
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years are the ones who being given lots of administrative tasks. Plus, informal interviews with the colleagues, some of the them who have been holding the same position for the past ten years did not being replace a new one. For instance, once you are assigned with that specific position or tasks, you will hold the same positions until you move out from that particular school. This is because the administrative believed that these particular people are the ones who can do work better than the others.
Besides, some novice teachers who have the talents and extra knowledge in other fields such as in Information, Computer and Technology (ICT) will be assigned to hold the same tasks throughout their years of teaching in Primary School A. The researcher seen this as an issue since some of the teachers talked about being stressed out with too many work and sudden tasks being given out of the blue. Thus, in this study, the researcher focused on the levels of burnout occurred among the experienced teachers and novice teachers based on their period of services. This eventually lead to comparisons between levels of burnout among the experienced and novice teachers in Primary School A.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The objectives of the study were to investigate the novice and experienced teachers’
burnout levels in Primary School A. Moreover, the study made an attempt to identify the relationship of teaching experiences and the risk of burnout among the teachers in Primary School A. The research question was:
1) What are the levels of burnout among the novice and experienced teachers in Primary School A?
2) Do the years of teaching experiences of the teachers in Primary School A influence the risk of burnout?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
There are numerous researches and arguments related to burnout among teachers all over the world. Sunbul (in Mousavy, et. al, 2012) believed that there are relations between years of teaching experiences with the age of the teachers. Experienced teachers with more years of teaching tend to have higher emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. However, this was against by Ozdemir (in Mousavy, et. al,, 2012) who suggested that burnout tend to appear among teachers at the beginning and late of the teaching career. He also stated that mid-career teachers normally tend to cope up well with the skills and showed less burnout as compared to beginning and educators of more than 24 years. Additionally, Byrne (in Mousavy et. al, 2012) explained that higher score
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in the Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (MBI) for teachers between 0 to 10 years of experiences as compared to those who have more than 10 years of teaching experiences.
Compacted field of teaching also one of the factors that could cause stress among teachers. As the teachers make interactions with their colleagues, they tend to talk about learners which is quite limited. As a result, they did not have the chances to interact much with anyone who understand them better outside of the teaching field. This is the risk of burnout to elevate as the teachers tend to be isolated from their own colleagues and other teachers (Mukundan et. al, 2015).
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
The completion of this study was referred to other various researches related to burnout in Malaysia and worldwide. A framework (Figure 1) is drawn to show a flow or blueprint of the study which is referred as follows:
At the beginning of the study, the researcher identified the issue aroused among the teachers in Primary School A through observations and informal interviews, which happened to be burnout cases. After that, the researcher study and make plenty of readings related to burnout cases among the teachers in Malaysia as well as in other countries. By making it formal, the data is legit and reliable was collected through a proper survey with some teachers in Primary School A. This was done so that the researcher could identify the causes and how often the stress level occurred. After that, pilot test is made to made some adjustment with the context of study The researcher adapted some items and also added new ones to incorporate with the situation in Primary School A. Then, the researcher did pilot test the instrument to few teachers and after the feedback, the researcher made some improvements towards the instrument.
Choosing the sample for the study is made after that by using random sampling through a name list provided. After choosing the accurate number of respondents, the instruments are distributed and answered at that particular time. After the session of collecting data is done, the researcher analysed it using descriptive statistics (frequency and mean scores) to answer Research Question 1 and 2. Through the given findings, the researcher was able to make proper conclusion which led to reflection as well as suggestions for further study.
42 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Method and Design
This quantitative study was carried out in a primary school in Semporna, Sabah. 30 teachers are chosen as the respondents of this study. This quantitative study used survey as its research method. Two different questionnaires were administered to collect the require data. A demographic section is in the Section A to gather the information on respondents. Meanwhile, the second one was a questionnaire in the form of 5-Point Likert Scale. The fill-in questionnaire was named as Section A (Demographic Questions) while Section B was for the 5-Point Likert Scale questionnaire.
Figure 1: Framework of the Study
Instrumentation
Data collection methods consisted of several instruments. Biddix (2015) stated that, instrument in the context of action research is the generic term that researchers use for a measurement device (survey, test, questionnaire, etc). There are two main categories of instrument which are researcher-completed and subject-completed. These categories distinguished by the instruments that the researchers administer versus those that are completed by the respondents. Researchers chose the type of instrument, or instruments, to use based on the research question (Biddix, 2015). Instruments are needed in order to elicit the data collected from the study. Data collection method that being used for this study was survey. Meanwhile, instruments used in this research were a demographic section for the first research question and a 5-Point Likert Scale questionnaire is used to cater the second research question.
Identify issues or problems in Primary School
A
Planning and study about the issue identified
Make informal discussions with teachers
Adapt and construct items
in the instruments
Pilot Test the instrument Making further
improvements Choosing
respondents for the study Distribute the
instruments to the respondents
Collecting Data Analysis and Interpretation
Findings and Conclusion
Reflection and Suggestions
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Since the 5-point Likert Scale questionnaire is adapted from Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (1996), the researcher added some relevant items to help in providing better results based on the research questions. In the questionnaire, the items are divided into five different categories with respective number of items: Emotional Exhaustion (five items), Physical Exhaustion (four items), Depersonalisation (five items), Reduced Personal Accomplishment (six items), and Satisfaction (three items). This led to the total number of 23 items in the questionnaire.
Sample and Sampling Method
The population for this study is 80 teachers from Primary School A in Semporna, Sabah.
From the population, samples are randomly picked which involved 30 teachers from different period of services (novice - between 1 to 5 years, experienced – more than 5 years). Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011) stated that random sampling involves selecting at random from a list of the population the required number of respondents from the sample. In adhering to this technique of choosing samples, the researcher took the list names and picked the numbers randomly for 30 respondents. The teachers chosen as respondents were aged between 24 to 51 years old.
Reliability and Validity
Since the Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (1996) has been used world-wide for decades in order to measure levels of burnout among workers, reliability coefficients were based on samples that were not use in the items selections to avoid any improper inflation towards the reliability that being estimated. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha (n=1316) showed the estimation of the internal consistency. Meanwhile, the reliability coefficients for the categories were as follows: Emotional Exhaustion =.90, Depersonalisation = .79, Personal Accomplishment = .71). Standard error of measurement for each category is recorded as follows: 3.80 for Emotional Exhaustion, 3.16 for Depersonalisation and 3.73 for Personal Accomplishment (Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996).
Two types of validity which were convergent validity and discriminant validity showed the evidence related to the validation of Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (Maslach, Leiter &
Jackson, 1996). Several researches were carried out to help in validation evidence that comes from this inventory. Confirmation of hypotheses through the data from research related to relationships between various characteristics of jobs and burnout experiences also among the methods to validate the evidences used in this inventory.
44 Statistical Measures and Analysis Note
To analyse the data obtained, descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and mean. All the data analysed will be presented in the table form. The category of novice teachers are ranged between 1 to 5 years of teaching experiences meanwhile for experienced teachers ranged from more than 5 years of teaching experiences. An overview of demographic data related to the gender of the respondents are provided in each instrument. 30 respondents are chosen with 12 of them are males and the remaining 18 are female. Table 1 below presented the percentages of the respondents of this study which are 40% for males and 60% for female respectively.
Table 1
Frequencies and Percentages for Gender
gender Frequency Percentage (%)
male 12 40
female 18 60
Frequencies and percentage for years of experience are presented in Table 2, where it involved 30 respondents for this study. Small proportions of respondents which is 8 (26.7%) had less than 5 years of teaching experiences and large proportions of the respondents which is 22 (73.3%) had more than 5 years of teaching experiences.
Table 2
Frequencies and Percentages for Years of Teaching Experience
Years of Teaching Experience Frequency Percentage (%)
Novice (less than 5 years) 8 26.7
Experienced (more than 5 years)
22 73.3
There are three types of burnout that were identified based on the results of the study : low, moderate and high. Score ranges for each of the subscale to define the level of burnout was referred to Chris (2013) which indicated that the aspects (Emotional Exhaustion, Physical Exhaustion, Depersonalisation, Reduced Personal Accomplishment) that reach higher scores indicated greater burnout. Meanwhile, for Satisfaction aspect, the higher the score, it indicated less satisfaction of being a teacher.
Table 3 below shows overall comparisons of results of between the aspects in the burnout levels.
45 Table 3
Individual Scores for Aspects of Burnout Participant Teaching
Experience
EE (25)
PE (20)
DP (25)
RPA (30)
S (15)
Burnout Level
1 11 years 21 12 18 25 11 High
2 15 years 19 12 15 21 8 Moderate
3 4 years 11 6 12 13 7 Moderate
4 3 years 14 15 18 20 7 Moderate
5 4 years 12 14 13 18 9 Moderate
6 1 year 23 13 18 15 12 High
7 18 years 17 15 9 12 7 Moderate
8 18 years 17 14 18 19 11 Moderate
9 25 years 8 8 9 10 5 Low
10 22 years 11 6 5 9 7 Low
11 27 years 12 10 9 10 5 Low
12 24 years 11 7 6 12 5 Low
13 29 years 9 4 5 7 3 Low
14 27 years 8 4 5 14 7 Low
15 30 years 9 7 6 6 6 Low
16 27 years 8 5 7 9 3 Low
17 8 years 8 4 6 7 3 Low
18 9 years 9 4 5 7 3 Low
19 4 years 6 4 5 6 3 Low
20 3 years 12 13 9 10 3 Low
21 3 years 9 4 5 7 3 Low
22 1 year 11 5 5 6 3 Low
23 7 years 16 9 5 6 7 Low
24 7 years 8 7 9 11 7 Low
25 9 years 9 4 5 7 3 Low
26 17 years 12 8 9 9 7 Low
27 16 years 10 6 8 9 5 Low
28 13 years 11 9 8 13 4 Low
29 23 years 8 6 7 8 5 Low
30 18 years 9 6 7 9 4 Low
Table 3 showed the scores between all the respondents in relation to their years of teaching experiences. The scale is seen through the higher scores that the respondents obtained throughout the survey conducted. The maximum total scores for EE is 25, PE is 20, DP is 25, RPA is 30 and S is 15. Thus, from this total score, the researcher able to see through how high the burnout level for each respondent.
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Figure 2: Different Levels of Burnout Among Teachers
To simplify Table 3, Figure 2 showed the comparisons of different levels of burnout among teachers based on their period of teaching experiences in School A. For teachers who have been taught between 1 to 5 years, 4 teachers showed low level of burnout, 3 teachers faced moderate level of burnout while 1 teacher faced high level of burnout. As referred back to Table 3, for this particular teacher (Respondent 6), the highest number is shown on the Emotional Exhaustion aspect and also Satisfaction aspect. Probably, Respondent 6 dealt with some hard times to balance workloads since it has been only a year that Respondent 6 worked.
For the teaching experienced ranged from 6 to 10 years, 5 respondents showed low burnout level. Besides that, for teachers who have been worked between 11 to 15 years, one teacher fitted in each level of burnout. One respondent faced low burnout level, one respondent faced moderate burnout level and one respondent faced high burnout level.
For teachers who have experienced in teaching between 16 to 20 years, three respondents faced low burnout level and two respondents faced moderate burnout level.
Lastly, for teachers who have been teaching between 21 to 30 years, the findings showed that the remaining nine respondents faced low level of burnout.
As correlated with Table 3, the findings’ scores showed that the longer the respondents worked, the less burnout that they would have felt. It depended on the other external factors that could cause them towards stress.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 - 5 years 6 - 10 years 11 - 15 years 16 - 20 years 21 - 30 years
Different Levels of Burnout Among Teachers
Low Moderate High
47 Table 4
Overall Mean Scores for Aspects of Burnout
Mean Scores
Aspects Experienced
Teachers
Novice Teachers
Emotional Exhaustion (EE) 0.35 0.49
Physical Exhaustion (PE) 0.38 0.46
Depersonalisation (DP) 0.33 0.43
Reduced Personal Accomplishment (RPA) 0.36 0.40
Satisfaction (S) 0.38 0.39
Table 4 shows mean scores for each aspect of burnout. From this, it showed that novice teachers scored the highest mean score M=0.49 in the aspect of Emotional Exhaustion.
Novice teachers are teachers who experienced in teaching for about one to five years.
This indicated that novice teachers tend to feel exhausted in terms of emotional through the workloads they had every day. Most of the novice teachers chose ‘Very often’ for the item “I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day on the job.” This showed that they are not emotionally prepared in terms of working.
Meanwhile, experienced teachers scored the highest of mean score M=0.38 equally in the aspects of Physical Exhaustion and Satisfaction. Experienced teachers are teachers who have been teaching for more than five years. It showed that they have the tendency to feel exhausted in terms of physical which may be due to their ages. In terms of satisfaction, they might felt give up towards the teaching career since there are few of the respondents who chose ‘Very Often’ for the items “I think of giving up teaching for another career” and “I reflect on the satisfaction I get from being a teacher.”
In comparisons to the lowest mean scores for both categories of teachers, novice teachers displayed mean score M=0.39 for the aspect of Satisfaction, while experienced teacher displayed mean score M=0.33 for the aspect of Depersonalisation. Since the novice teachers just started to build their career, they did not have the tendency to give up which can be seen through the lowest mean score in that term. Most of the novice teachers’ respondents chose ‘Rarely’ or ‘Never’ for the item of “I regret my decision to have become a teacher.” Meanwhile, experienced teachers showed lowest mean score in terms of Depersonalisation with most of them chose ‘Rarely’ and ‘Never’ for the items
“I experience a sense of failure and self-doubt” as well as “I lost motivation in doing my work.”
From these findings, it showed that novice teachers showed moderate level of burnout while experienced teachers showed low level of burnout in Primary School A. this statement answered the Research Question 1 well. For Research Question 2, from the findings, it can be seen that years of teaching experiences in Primary School A does influence the risk of burnout. This is because these findings showed that, the longer the period of service of the teachers, the lower the risk of burnout among the teachers in Primary School A.
48 CONCLUSION
Findings shown in Figure 1 showed that there were vivid differences between the burnout level between the novice and experienced teachers. Based on the findings, 22 respondents which came from the experienced teachers showed that they tend to feel exhausted physically and needed more feeling of satisfaction. As compared to the 8 respondents who represented the novice teachers, they tend to feel emotionally exhausted towards their work field as teachers. Though so, the differences between mean scores which can be seen in the Table 4 for each aspect for both categories of teachers showed minimal margins of +0.1 and -0.1. This indicated that these respondents have minor differences in dealing with their jobs even though they scored differently in each aspect. In a nutshell, this study was able to identify the level of burnout among both experienced and novice teachers. Plus, this study able to foresee the influence of years of teaching experiences towards different levels of burnout among teachers especially in Primary School A.
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