An Empirical Study Of Relationship Among Job Burnout, Exercise Behavior, And Perceived Health Condition For College Teachers In Taiwan

In the past decades, exercise has become a social phenomenon of great importance and complexity. Despite the positive relationships between exercise and the physiological and psychological benefits have been evidenced, a small percentage of people participate in regular physical activities. Regular exercise is thought necessary for health promotion and disease prevention. Numerous prior studies have provided evidence that both physical and mental health benefits can be gained from moderate regular exercise. Therefore, the "Department of Health and Human Services' publication Healthy People 2010" recommends moderate physical activity regularly, preferably daily, for a minimum of thirty minutes per day. Despite of the positive relationships between exercise and physiological and psychological benefits have been evidenced, a small percentage of people participate in regular physical activities, especially the group of high educated people.The pressure and burnout generated from job may be an obstacle to individual's exercise behavior. While many studies have examined the relationship between job burnout and job performance of individuals, few have investigate the influence on job burnout and individual's daily behaviors such as exercise. To this end, this study suggests a more sophisticated theoretical description of the relations among the job burnout, health, and exercise behavior of university and college teacher is needed. This study aims to examine the role of job burnout and its influence on exercise intention, exercise behavior and perceived health condition of university and colleage teachers. The proposed model is extented from Ajzen's (1985) theory of planned behavior (TPB) to understanding how univisity and college teachers behave in reality regarding exercise, job burnout, and health conditions to gain deep understanding about the relationship among job, exercise behavior and health conditions.This study applied a mail survey method with self-reported exercise behavior from 236 university and college teachers in Taiwan. Data was collected during June to Augest 2005. Structure equition model (SEM) was used for path analysis and the results largely supported the TPB but also suggest theory refinements. The results are summarized as following:1. Male's attitudes toward exercise were more positive than female. The teachers of public school had higher perceived behavior control than the teachers of private school have.2. Male's perceived health condition was higher than female's. Teachers in management school had higher exercise intenion and exercise behavior than teachers in science schools. The number of children a teacher owned negatively related to his/her exercise behavior.3. Both age and marrage-status correlated negatively with job burnout. The results also show the "number of children" correlated negatively with regular exercise behavior.4. A large part of the results confirms to the prior TPB studies. Intention predicted teachers' exercise behaviors whereas perceived behavioral control do not. Perceived behavioral control and subject norms predicted exercise intention whereas attitudes toward exercise behaviors do not.5. Job burnout had significant direct effects on both exercise behavior and perceived health condition but not on exercise intention. The extent of perceived health condition was affected by the degree of exercise taken by university and college teachers.