Katja Depolli Steiner

Slovenia

A Qualitative Analysis of Primary School Teachers’

Burnout Patterns
DOI: 10.15804/tner.2017.48.2.14

Abstract
The aim of this study was to propose a classification of teachers’ burnout
patterns. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis of different burnout patterns
shown in a sample of Slovenian primary school teachers was performed.
Respondents’ burnout scores were obtained via the MBI-ES. Eight distinct
burnout profiles emerged from the analysis, indicating that the territory
between the positive and negative endpoints of teacher burnout is complex.
The findings of the study could be used as a framework for future research
regarding teacher burnout and for designing interventions for its amelioration.

Keywords: primary school teachers, teacher burnout, burnout patterns, burnout

profiles

Introduction

Burnout is a job-related syndrome that has been observed in a variety of human

service professions that require an individual’s intense involvement with other
people. It is defined as a crisis in one’s relationships with people at work. Burnout
manifests itself in three dimensions. The first, emotional exhaustion, refers to
the feeling of being emotionally overextended and depleted of one’s emotional
resources. Teachers experiencing burnout thus find that they chronically suffer
from a lack of emotional energy, resulting in a decline in their ability to commit
themselves to students. The second dimension, depersonalization, is manifested as
180 Katja Depolli Steiner

an individual’s psychological withdrawal from other people. In teachers, it can be

seen as a negative, callous, or excessively detached response to students. The third
dimension, reduced personal accomplishment, refers to a decline in one’s feelings
of competence and achievement, particularly with regard to one’s work with cli-
ents. Teachers experiencing burnout can thus feel that they no longer contribute to
their students’ development and eventually experience profound disappointment
(Maslach, 1993; Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1996; Maslach & Leiter, 1997).
While the concept of burnout was initially restricted to the human service
professions, it was later conceptualized in slightly broader terms to include the
occupations that are not so clearly people-oriented. In occupations without direct
personal contact with service recipients or with only casual contact with people,
burnout is defined as a crisis in one’s relationship with work. Therefore, different
labels for the three burnout dimensions are used when describing burnout in these
occupations: exhaustion (in place of emotional exhaustion), cynicism (in place
of depersonalization) and inefficacy (in place of reduced personal accomplish-
ment). Exhaustion refers to a depletion of one’s emotional and physical resources,
cynicism reflects indifference or a distant attitude towards work, and inefficacy
includes an individual’s dissatisfaction with past and present accomplishments
as well as one’s expectations of continued effectiveness at work (Maslach et al.,
1996; Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001). The same labels for the three burnout
dimensions are usually used when discussing burnout in general, regardless of
one’s occupation.
Most research on burnout uses the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to assess
the three dimensions. The MBI has three versions: MBI-Human Services Survey
(MBI-HSS) for use with professionals in the human services, MBI-Educators
Survey (MBI-ES) for use with educators, and MBI-General Survey (MBI-GS) for
use with workers in other occupations. The scores for each subscale are considered
separately and are not combined into a single, total score. Thus, three scores are
computed for every respondent (Maslach et al., 1996).
In the last two decades, burnout has often been conceptualized as one of
two endpoints on a continuum in the relationship people establish with their
work. Burnout represents the negative endpoint, which is described as a state of
exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy. The positive endpoint has been labelled as
job engagement, and it describes a positive experience with work: energy, involve-
ment and efficacy, which are the direct opposites of the three burnout dimensions
(Maslach et al., 2001; Leiter & Maslach, 2016). However, the territory between these
two endpoints has not yet been clearly described. Exhaustion is often considered
the first sign of the shift from the positive state of engagement toward the negative
A Qualitative Analysis of Primary School Teachers’ 181

state of burnout. Most of the research on burnout has also revealed the existence
of the sequential link from exhaustion to cynicism. However, the development of
inefficiency seems to be less clear, with some theories suggesting it is the last factor
to emerge, while others state it has a simultaneous development in parallel with
exhaustion and cynicism (Maslach et al., 2001).
More recently, some research attention has focused on the assumption that
people could experience different patterns of burnout. Leiter and Maslach (2016)
used the MBI-GS on two large datasets of healthcare employees and identified
five distinct latent burnout profiles: two endpoint profiles of Burnout (high on
all three dimensions) and Engagement (low on all three dimensions), and three
intermediate “one high dimension” profiles of Overextended (high on exhaustion
only), Disengaged (high on cynicism only) and Ineffective (high on inefficacy
only).

Research problem

In the case of teachers, the territory between the negative state of burnout
(defined as high emotional exhaustion, high depersonalization, and low personal
accomplishment) and the positive state of job engagement (defined as low emo-
tional exhaustion, low depersonalization, and high personal accomplishment)
remains almost unexplored. Research evidence has thus far suggested that
teacher burnout typically starts with the development of emotional exhaustion.
Emotional exhaustion is also supposed to be the core feature of teacher burnout
and is believed to directly cause the development of depersonalization. It seems
that emotional exhaustion also leads to diminished personal accomplishment;
this is theorized to happen both directly and indirectly, through depersonaliza-
tion (Byrne, 1999; Genoud, Brodard & Reicherts, 2009). However, some research
evidence suggests that teachers do not burn out in a homogenous manner; a study
of macro-paths of burnout in teachers of different subjects revealed that only some
teachers follow such a path (Brudnik, 2010).
Thus far, research on teacher burnout patterns has been limited; to the best of
our knowledge, there have been only four studies on teacher burnout typologies,
providing minor insights into teacher burnout patterns. In the first study, Farber
(2000) described three types of burnout among teachers (“Worn-out”, “Classic”
and “Under-challenged”), observed through qualitative analysis. The other three
studies used cluster analyses of teachers’ burnout scores. Mojsa-Kaja, Golonka and
Marek (2015), using the MBI-GS, identified three groups of teachers (“Burnout”,
182 Katja Depolli Steiner

“Engagement” and “Inefficacy”). At the same time, a study by Jin, Noh, Shin
and Lee (2015), using the MBI-ES, identified three similar groups of teachers
(“Well-adjusted”, “Distressed” and “Laissez-faire”). Finally, Guidetti, Viotti, Gil-
Monte and Converso (2017), identified four teacher burnout profiles (“Enthu-
siastic”, “Exhausted”, “Exhausted-Indifferent” and “Exhausted-Guilty”). However,
the comparison of this study with other studies is limited, as it was based on an
alternative model of burnout, which adds a fourth dimension to the burnout
concept (i.e., feelings of guilt, which can appear because of the negative attitudes
developed and expressed on the job).
The purpose of the present study was a qualitative analysis of burnout patterns
among primary school teachers. We used data that was originally collected as
a part of a broader study on teacher burnout and educational beliefs in primary
school teachers (Depolli Steiner, 2014). Our aim was to propose a classification of
these patterns that could be used as a framework for future research on teacher
burnout.

Method

Participants
A total of 230 schoolteachers from fourteen nine-year primary schools in urban
and rural areas in Slovenia participated in the study; 84% were women, and 16%
were men; their ages ranged from 24 to 62 years, with the majority of the respond-
ents being under 45 (75%). Half of the participants taught in lower grades (Grades
1 to 5 and/or after school programs), and the other half taught in higher grades
(Grades 6 to 9). Participation was voluntary and anonymous.

Measures
Burnout was measured with the use of the Slovene translation of the Maslach
Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES; Maslach et al., 1996), with 22 items,
which are written in the form of statements about personal feelings or attitudes.
The items are divided into three subscales: emotional exhaustion (EE; 9 items),
depersonalization (DP; 5 items), and personal accomplishment (PA; 8 items). The
emotional exhaustion subscale assesses the teacher’s feelings of being emotionally
overextended and exhausted by work, the depersonalization subscale assesses his/
her impersonal, unfeeling response towards students, while the personal accom-
plishment subscale measures his/her feelings of competence and achievement
in work with students. Teachers score items on a seven-point Likert scale (from
A Qualitative Analysis of Primary School Teachers’ 183

“never” to “always”). Scores on the three subscales are considered separately and are
not combined into a single, total score. It is assumed that teachers will suffer from
burnout when their scores on EE and DP are high, and the scores on PA are low.
The three-factor structure of the Slovenian translation of MBI-ES was confirmed
with principal component analysis. Reliability of the instrument was measured by
Cronbach’s alpha, which was .88 for EE, .84 for DP and .54 for PA (Depolli Steiner,
2014).

Results and discussion

In our sample, the teachers’ scores on the three burnout dimensions were
already assessed as low, average or high, using the cut-off points proposed by the
MBI-ES authors (Maslach et al., 1996). This enabled us to place the teachers in
groups with the same patterns of burnout scores (e.g., high-high-low, representing
a high score on EE, a high score on DP and a low score on PA). As shown in Table
1, there are 27 possible patterns of burnout scores and only four of them were not
present in our research sample.

Table 1. Possible patterns of burnout scores and their frequency in our sample
Patterns of burnout scores
f %
(EE-DP-PA)
low-low-low 52 22.6%
average-low-low 31 13.5%
low-low-average 24 10.4%
average-low-average 22 9.6%
high-low-average 16 7.0%
high-low-low 11 4.8%
low-low-high 8 3.5%
high-high-high 8 3.5%
high-average-average 8 3.5%
average-low-high 7 3.0%
high-low-high 7 3.0%
low-average-average 5 2.2%
low-average-low 5 2.2%
average-average-average 5 2.2%
high-average-high 4 1.7%
184 Katja Depolli Steiner

Patterns of burnout scores

f %
(EE-DP-PA)
average-average-low 3 1.3%
high-high-average 3 1.3%
high-average-low 3 1.3%
high-high-low 3 1.3%
low-average-high 2 0.9%
low-high-high 1 0.4%
average-average-high 1 0.4%
average-high-low 1 0.4%
average-high-high / /
low-high-average / /
low-high-low / /
average-high-average / /

Note: The patterns are ordered by their frequency in our sample

We proceeded by evaluating the burnout scores as favorable, unfavorable or

highly unfavorable. The term favorable score depicts the teachers’ positive feelings,
i.e., low EE (their emotional energy is still at a high level), low DP (their attitudes
toward others are positive, they see their students as persons) or high PA (they
are confident that they are contributing to their students’ achievement). The term
unfavorable score depicts a moderate degradation in these feelings, i.e., a beginning
of EE, a beginning of DP or a decrease in PA. The term highly unfavorable score
depicts the teachers’ highly negative experienced feelings, i.e., high EE (they feel
emotionally drained), high DP (they feel callousness toward their students) or low
PA (they feel ineffective and incompetent in their work with students). This eval-
uation of burnout scores enabled us to group together similar burnout patterns
(those with negative feelings on the same dimension/dimensions, regardless of the
intensity of these feelings), thus reducing 27 burnout patterns into eight burnout
profiles:
– Profile 1: no unfavorable/highly unfavorable scores
– Profile 2: unfavorable/highly unfavorable score on EE
– Profile 3: unfavorable/highly unfavorable score on DP
– Profile 4: unfavorable/highly unfavorable score on PA
– Profile 5: unfavorable/highly unfavorable scores on EE and DP
– Profile 6: unfavorable/highly unfavorable scores on EE and PA
– Profile 7: unfavorable/highly unfavorable scores on DP and PA
– Profile 8: all scores unfavorable/highly unfavorable
A Qualitative Analysis of Primary School Teachers’ 185

Profiles 1 and 8 represent the positive and negative endpoints of the burnout
process, respectively, while the other profiles depict the six possible intermediate
states that might occur between the endpoints. As can be seen, three of these
intermediate profiles have an unfavorable or highly unfavorable score only on one
burnout dimension, while the other three have an unfavorable or highly unfavora-
ble score on two burnout dimensions.
As shown in Figure 1, all the eight burnout profiles are represented in our
sample. Two profiles, Profile 6 (EE and PA) and Profile 4 (PA), with roughly equal
shares, emerged as the most prevalent and comprise a total of 68% of the sample.
The third most prevalent profile is Profile 8 (all unfavorable), which is present in
11% of the sample. Other five profiles are less frequent and make up the remaining
21%, all with relatively low shares of the sample.

Figure 1. Prevalence of the eight burnout profiles

Profile 8 (all scores unfavorable) 11%

Profile 7 (DP and PA) 4%

Burnout profiles

Profile 6 (EE and PA) 35%

Profile 5 (EE and DP) 6%

Profile 4 (PA) 33%

Profile 3 (DP) 1%

Profile 2 (EE) 6%

Profile 1 (no unfavorable scores) 4%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Share of teachers

Another finding that can be derived from Figure 1 is that almost all the teachers
in this study were experiencing at least one unfavorable or highly unfavorable
burnout dimension, specifically predominantly diminished PA (83%) and/or
increased EE (58%), while only a small share of the teachers (22%) experienced
increased DP.
A large share of the teachers experiencing increased EE is expected and in
concordance with the models of teacher burnout and other research evidence
that considers EE to be the primary element of burnout (Byrne, 1999; Genoud et
al., 2009). However, the large share of the teachers experiencing diminished PA
is surprising, because the diminished PA is supposed to be the last of the three
186 Katja Depolli Steiner

burnout dimensions to develop according to the models of teacher burnout. One

possible explanation for this can be based on Leiter and Maslach’s (2016) view
of the intermediate profiles: in some teachers, a diminished PA could be a sign
that some positive change from a more severe level of burnout has occurred over
time, meaning that their current burnout profile reflects an improvement, e.g.,
from Profile 8 to Profile 6 (or even Profile 4). Another possible explanation is that
some teachers do not show diminished PA because of their work, i.e., as a result
of their stressful work experience, but already prior to work, as a result of a low
self-assessment of their teaching competences even before they actually start their
teaching career.
It is possible that when entering the work situation, some teachers already expe-
rience a low PA, meaning that they do not expect to make a significant contribution
to their students’ development. This kind of low professional self-efficacy, when
present in in-service teachers, could interact with the stressful work conditions in
such a way as to create a self-perpetuating cycle. For instance, if feeling low self-ef-
ficacy leads the teacher to self-assess poor performance of his/her work tasks and
simultaneously his/her students, for reasons unbeknown to him/her, do not work
hard enough (i.e., because of a lack of motivation that has nothing to do with this
teacher), the students consequently do not show enough progress for the teacher
to feel successful, and the cycle continues. For this reason, it is very important
to support teachers in such a way as to help them develop positive self-efficacy,
both during their pre-service education and in-service training. Nonetheless, in
order to obtain a better picture of teachers’ PA and its development in relation
to teachers’ work experience, it would be advisable for future research to include
additional variables, such as teacher self-efficacy and teachers’ assessment of their
professional competences.
The relatively small share of the teachers experiencing DP is also unexpected
since, according to the models of teacher burnout, this burnout dimension should
be the second one to appear. As these models consider DP to be a forerunner of
diminished PA, it should also be present in a much larger share than diminished
PA. One possible explanation for the described prevalence of the three burnout
dimensions in our research sample is that burnout in teachers typically begins
with diminished PA, which is followed by increased EE, while DP seems to be the
last one to appear. However, this explanation is only a suggestion that should be
confirmed in future research. Since our study is cross-sectional, no definite answer
about the possible existence of sequential links between the eight burnout profiles
can be made at this time. A longitudinal study would be required to examine the
possible changes in individuals’ burnout profiles over time as well as on paths that
A Qualitative Analysis of Primary School Teachers’ 187

lead to a full-blown experience of burnout. However, despite this limitation, we can

argue that the prevalence of the identified burnout profiles depicts the territory
between the positive and negative endpoints of burnout, which is unexpected in
regard to what is already known about teacher burnout.
First, according to the models of teacher burnout (Byrne, 1999; Genoud et al.,
2009), only four of the eight burnout profiles are supposed to emerge, namely the
profiles that depict: (1) the positive endpoint of job engagement (Profile 1), (2) the
initial stage of burnout with increased EE (Profile 2), (3) the advanced stage at
which increased EE is joined by increased DP (Profile 5), and (4) the negative
endpoint of burnout at which the increased EE and DP are also accompanied by
diminished PA (Profile 8). However, these four profiles comprise only 27% of the
sample, while the larger part of the sample remains uncovered.
Second, our results show that teachers should be sorted in more than just three
groups that vary in their experience of the three burnout dimensions, as proposed
by previous studies (Farber, 2000; Mojsa-Kaja et al., 2015; Jin et al., 2015).
Third, our results are also not in accordance with Leiter and Maslach’s recent
proposition of five latent burnout profiles (Leiter & Maslach, 2016). Even though
their five profiles, Burnout (equal to Profile 8), Engagement (equal to Profile 1),
Overextended (equal to Profile 2), Disengaged (equal to Profile 3) and Ineffective
(equal to Profile 4) seem to cover our results better than the previously described
four profiles, which are theorized from the models of teacher burnout, they still
include only 55% of our sample, leaving almost half of the sample uncovered.
Therefore, our proposed classification offers a better description of differences
in teachers’ burnout patterns in our sample and is thus sufficiently functional to
warrant its use.
Based on our findings, we can conclude that the territory between the positive
and negative endpoints of teacher burnout is quite complex, with the presence of
several burnout profiles. However, the proposed classification needs to be further
confirmed. We can provide two recommendations for future studies of teacher
burnout patterns. First, a large sample of teachers would be needed to allow for the
use of appropriate quantitative data analysis (e.g., latent profile analysis). Second,
a longitudinal study would be desirable, as it would enable researchers to make
informed inferences about the stability of profiles and also about the path(s) from
job engagement to burnout. Leiter and Maslach (2016) have already suggested
that at least two of their intermediate profiles (Disengaged and Overextended;
possibly also Ineffective) could be interpreted in two ways, either as steps to or
away from a full-blown experience of burnout on three dimensions (the negative
endpoint). They argue that these profiles could be an earlier, less negative fore-
188 Katja Depolli Steiner

runner of burnout, or an improvement, in which things are getting better, but one
aspect of burnout is still problematic. The same could be suggested for teachers’
intermediate profiles in our sample.
Our findings can also be helpful in educational practice in schools, if considered
as a basis for developing interventions that are customized for different groups of
teachers. Interventions that take account of teachers’ burnout profiles would be
more effective than general interventions offering the same solution regardless of
individuals’ unique burnout experience.

Conclusions

The relevance of this study is that it represents a step forward in the research into
teacher burnout. The study has succeeded in attaining its objective by proposing
a workable classification of teacher burnout profiles, thus providing a framework
for describing the territory between job engagement and burnout, which could
be used in future research on teacher burnout. Even more, the identified burnout
profiles also provide some direction for educational practice in schools. They
could be used as a basis for designing more customized interventions for burnout
for different groups of teachers.
However, our research is not without limitations. First, participation in the study
was both voluntary and anonymous. We do not know which teachers and for what
reasons chose not to participate in this study; therefore, our sample might not be
representative of the overall population of primary school teachers in Slovenia.
Second, a much larger sample of teachers would be desirable, enabling us to use
quantitative methods of data analysis in addition to a qualitative one.
Despite these limitations, the study has succeeded in providing some novel
insights into teacher burnout, which can be used in designing future studies. It
has also shown that subsequent research into this area, especially regarding the
development of teacher burnout profiles over time, would be a much welcome
addition to the understanding of teacher burnout.

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