Burnout in the Context of Elementary Physical Education

Burnout in the Context of Elementary Physical Education

The purpose of the study was to identify teacher’s professional identity and how this identity has relation to burnout for beginning elementary school physical education teachers. Job-related burnout inventory was administered to thirty one teachers in the early stage of the study. Seven teachers who got highest score in job-related burnout inventory were assigned to ‘burnout group’ and other seven teachers who got lowest score were assigned to ‘non-burnout group’. The rest of the teachers were eliminated from the research for the convenient contrast between ‘burnout group’ and ‘non-burnout group’. Participants were not aware of which group they belonged to. Both groups had personal and focus group interviews. Semi-structured interviews were designed based on the research purpose. The interview questions were based on six factors (value, commitment, self-efficacy, emotions, knowledge-skills-belief, and micro-politics) which were identified by Flectcher (2012). The teachers in two groups were asked to record reflective log every weekday during the period of research. Research findings indicated that burnout was caused by the interaction between individual characteristics and organizational factors. Unfulfilled commitment, lack of efficacy, unsupporting administrators, beliefs emphasizing teachers’ heavy responsibilities, and even negative attitude toward physical activity were main factors for emotional burnout for burnout teachers. Emotions seem to play a key role in their professional identity and school lives for the teachers who were burned out due to class management and discipline issues.