PhD R.K. Makhmutova¹
Dr.Sc.Psych., Professor A.A. Baranov¹
Dr.Hab., Professor V.P. Ovechkin^1
1Udmurt State University, Izhevsk

Keywords: social/ psychological adaptation, mental/ emotional burnout, teacher’s mastery level, professional maladjustment.

Background. The increasingly diagnosed syndromes of profession-specific mental burnout in many education specialists including burnout, exhaustion; dehumanization, depersonalization; negative self-perception in the professional domain and other negative effects – are commonly acknowledged as indicative of the growing need for studies of the reasons, origins and ways to prevent mental burnouts in teachers of different subjects [2, 3].

Objective of the study was to explore the specifics of mental burnouts in the context of personality development of the physic education specialists versus their professional competency levels.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was based on the hypothesis that mental burnouts of high-ranking teachers are due to a variety of factors dominated by the profession-specific institutional and operational ones including: dissatisfaction with the assets and equipment; unhappiness with the educational process accomplishments versus the high energy costs; need for partner teachers to have social support and help carry the workloads; and big stress associated with being highly focused on success and at the same time sensitive to high health risks for the trainees at Physical Education lessons.

The theoretical and practical basis for the study included the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) by K. Maslach and S. Jackson; educational process and teacher’s personality theory by L.M. Mitina and the key provisions of the stress-tolerance theory by A.A. Baranov [1, 4].

Subject to the study were 64 Physical Education teachers from general education schools split up into a Study Group of 37 high-ranking (qualified with the top and first category) school teachers and a Reference Group of 27 low-ranking school teachers having no professional qualifications. The study applied the relevant questionnaire forms designed to: rate the secondary school teacher’s social and psychological adaptation by the R.K. Ismailov’s test; diagnoze maladjustment indications using the O.N. Rodina’s test; apply the V.A. Rozanova’s Job Satisfaction Survey; and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) adapted by N.E. Vodopianova; and obtain the Cattel’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire (Form C of 105 questions) survey data [5].

The school teacher’s social and psychological adaptation test by R.K. Ismailov was designed to rate the professional aspects of the subjects including their individual adaptation to the professional responsibilities and job conditions, obtain job satisfaction rates; and assess the socio-psychological aspects including the teacher’s adaptation to the social settings of the job (including relations with the colleagues, students, school principal etc.). Overall, the test showed every of the tested subjects being unsatisfied with the labour conditions.

Study results and discussion. The Student’s t-criteria applied to analyze the mean group data were indicative of the significant positive attitudes of the high-ranking teachers to the educational establishment (t=2.15; р≤0/05); low rates of satisfaction with the job (t=2.01; р≤0.01) and their own status in the school team (t=4.30; р≤0.001): see Table 1 hereunder. The low-ranking teachers showed higher rates of satisfaction with their own status in the team (t=3.17; р≤0.001) and more positive attitudes to the job, management and team members (t=1.43-4.13; р≤0.05).

The subjects’ testing by the job/ profession satisfaction rating tests found more significant differences in the high- and low-ranking teachers' attitudes. The top- and high-ranking teachers were found to be more satisfied with their jobs, as the mean job satisfaction rates for the high- and low-ranking teachers were estimated at =48.,3 and =33.2, respectively (t=1.46; р≤ 5%).

Table 1. Statistically significant differences in the attitudes of high- and low-ranking teachers

We applied the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to rate the mental burnout of the subject teachers. Having processed the burnout test rates, we concluded that all the Physical Education teachers were prone to dissatisfaction with their own selves, diminishing the importance of the job, negativism in assessment of their own personalities; and were rated high on the personal achievements downgrading scale (=32.3). The statistically processed test data were interpreted as indicative of emotional overstress, exhaustion, fatigue and drained emotional resources in the high-ranking teachers (on the exhaustion scale) (t=2.90; р≤0.01).

Having analyzed the test data generated by the O.N. Rodina’s maladjustment rating test, we found the job-specific emotional disorders (=13), sleeping disorders (=8.4) and low motivations (=4.8). The mean statistical data for the skill groups of teachers showed many significant differences in the high- and low-ranking teachers' test rates. The high-ranking teachers were tested with the significantly higher professional maladjustment rates (t=1.46; р≤0.05) with the following specific rates: high fatigue rates (t=2.47; р≤0.01) and sleeping disorders (t=2.6; р≤0.05).

Furthermore, the tests found the low-ranking teachers showing higher rates (versus the high-ranking ones) on the attention/ memory deterioration scale (t=2.05; р≤0.01) and the general activity sagging scale (t=2.47; р≤0.01) that may be indicative of the young teachers being more prone to mental burnouts on the physiological level. This finding is also supported by the fact that the low-ranking teachers' group showed neither social interaction disorders nor motivational sags. 

The above data give the reasons to conclude that the emotional burnout of teachers depends on both the professional competency level and the specific factors of labour process and environment, including the following:

•   Institutional factor that implies the physical and technological provisions for the sporting activity at schools and the relevant sanitary and hygienic conditions; and
•  Role factor that mostly refers to the loneliness of school Physical Education teachers: they seldom meet other teachers being too busy with the equipment or gym management works in between the lessons.
• We applied the Cattel’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire to profile the personality traits of potential impacts on the professional maladjustment process. The statistically processed test data showed higher rates for the high-ranking teachers on the following test scales:
•  Scale В data were indicative of the general intellectual development level, with the mean arithmetic value of the high-ranking teachers estimated at 4.86 stens versus 3.85 stens for the low-ranking ones (t=1.46; р≤0,05);
•  Scale C data were indicative of the emotional instability of the subjects, with the mean arithmetic value of the high-ranking teachers amounting to 5.2 stens versus 3.46 stens for the low-ranking ones (t=3.07; р≤0.05); and
•  Scale N was indicative of the subjects’ practicality, with the mean arithmetic value of the high-ranking teachers making up 4.76 stens versus 3.27 stens for the low-ranking ones t=2.03; р≤0.01).

Generally, the higher intellectual potential, practicality and prognostic potential of the high-ranking teachers were found to correlate with their lower satisfaction with the labour conditions. And the emotional overstress, feelings of fatigue and exhaustion and the high general maladjustment levels tested in the high-ranking teachers were found to correlate with emotional instability.

Conclusion. The high-ranking Physical Education teachers were tested with high dissatisfaction with their own status in the school team, proneness to negativism in the attitudes to the job and management; the job satisfaction rates of the low-ranking Physical Education teachers were notably higher than in the high-ranking teachers' group; and every subject Physical Education teacher showed dissatisfaction with his own self, proneness to degrading the importance of the job, and a critical attitude to his own personality. The high-ranking teachers were found more inclined to emotional overstress, feelings for exhaustion, fatigue and drained emotional resource; whilst the low-ranking Physical Education teachers showed higher rates on the memory deterioration scale and general activity sagging scale. The general intellectual development level was tested higher in the high-ranking Physical Education teachers' group, whilst the low-ranking Physical Education teachers were tested with the lower practicality and insight rates.

The study found that it is the highly professional teachers having the highest practical experience that are the most prone to the mental burnouts. The special social and professional role of the high-ranking teachers that implies higher responsibility for the labour results and, hence, the higher job-specific stresses, contribute to their emotional exhaustion. Therefore, the initiatives to prevent mental burnouts in Physical Education specialists will be designed with a special emphasis on the individual resource and personality development issues and improvements in the labour conditions.

References

1. Baranov A.A., Merzlyakova D.R. Professionalnoe «vygoranie» pedagoga i razvitie lichnosti shkolnika [Teacher's professional "burnout" and pupil's personality development]. Germany: LAPLAMBERT Academic Publ., 2015, 153 p.
2. Baranov A.A. Strategii psikhozashchitnogo povedeniya pedagogov s raznymi urovnyami emotsionalnogo vygoraniya [Strategy of psychological defence behavior of teachers with different burnout levels]. Vestnik RGU im. I. Kanta, no. 11. Kaliningrad: I. Kant RSU pub. h-se, 2010, pp. 28-34.
3. Mitina L.M. Psikhologiya truda i professionalnogo razvitiya uchitelya [Psychology of teacher's work and professional development]. Moscow: Akademiya publ., 2004, 320 p.
4. Rudakov A.L. Stress, stressoustoychivost i sanogennaya refleksiya v sporte [Stress, stress tolerance and sanogenous reflection in sport]. Krasnoyarsk, 2011, 190 p.
5. Fetiskin N.P., Kozlov V.V., Manuylov G.M. Sotsialno-psikhologicheskaya diagnostika razvitiya lichnosti i malykh grupp [Socio-psychological diagnostics of personality and small group development]. Moscow, 2002, 490 p.

Corresponding author: marocach@mail.ru

Abstract

The article gives findings of a practical study of the general education school Physical Education teacher’s mental burnouts versus their professional competency levels. The study applied the relevant questionnaire forms designed to: rate the teacher’s social and psychological adaptation; diagnoze maladjustment indications using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) by K. Maslach and S. Jackson; and obtain the Cattel’s 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire survey data. The study found that it is the highly professional teachers having the highest practical experience that are the most prone to mental burnouts. The following factors were found to contribute to the high-ranking teachers’ burnouts: dissatisfaction with the facilities and equipment in their sport gyms; unhappiness with the educational process accomplishments versus the high energy costs; need for partner teachers to help carry the workloads; and the high stresses associated with high health risks for the trainees. These factors were found to give rise to the personality fulfilment deficiencies including dissatisfactions with their own selves, spiritual bankruptcy, fatigue, emotional shifts etc.