Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

1411

Date

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Major

Counseling

Committee Chair

Chloe Lancaster

Committee Member

Richard James

Committee Member

Y. Jade Xu

Committee Member

Cathy Meredith

Abstract

The incidence of teacher stress and burnout has been researched for many years in various geographic areas and populations. In more recent years, wellness has been proposed as a mitigating factor in reducing the incidence of burnout in the education profession. Wellness involves a holistic approach in determining the positive coping skills and practices that an individual utilizes across all life areas. Research to determine if there is a relationship between burnout and specific wellness practices may provide educational leaders with methods to assist teachers in lowering the occurrence of burnout. The professional school counselor is one educational leader who may assist teachers in reducing burnout and increasing wellness through primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. For this study, 107 teachers in a small district in West Tennessee completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES; dependent variable), the Five-Factor Wellness Inventory (5F-WEL; independent variable), and a demographic survey (control variables). The MBI-ES measures burnout across three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization. Results of the survey indicated that on average, teachers reported a moderate amount of emotional exhaustion, low levels of reduced personal accomplishment, and low occurrence of depersonalization. The 5F-WEL provides a score for total wellness which is comprised of subscales: creative self, coping self, social self, essential self, physical self, context, and life satisfaction. For this study, total wellness was found to have a significant influence on two burnout dimensions: emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The control variables (age, years in educational field, and grade level taught) did not have a significant relationship with any of the burnout dimensions. In examining the specific wellness factors related to burnout, the physical self was negatively related to emotional exhaustion, and the creative self was positively related to personal accomplishment. Furthermore, these results are discussed regarding the implications for teachers, school counselors, other stakeholders, and suggested future research.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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