Personality, organizational, and individual characteristics: Key predictors of burnout among teachers

Dedicated teachers across the United States suffer from professional burnout which in turn makes them either ineffective professionals or leave their teaching career. This correlational study was designed to investigate personality, organizational, coping, and individual characteristics as promising predictors of burnout among school teachers. Two hundred forty elementary, middle, and high school teachers drawn from 19 schools in three districts in Western North Carolina were surveyed. Individual scores from four surveys - the Maslach Burnout Inventory---Educators Survey (MBI-ES; Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & Macro, 1992), a modified survey instrument from Cook's (2006) study, and a coping strategies survey instrument created for the present study - were used. Results were analyzed in terms of relationships among burnout levels and personality, coping, and organizational characteristics. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization negatively related to extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness and positively to neuroticism. Personal accomplishment positively related to extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness and negatively to neuroticism. Qualitative work overload, role conflict, and organizational politics positively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and negatively to personal accomplishment. Job autonomy, job security, supervisor understands one's job, being valued for contributions, feeling respected and stimulated at work, and having reasonable promotion negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and positively to personal accomplishment. Participants' age negatively related to depersonalization and positively to personal accomplishment. Teaching special subjects and teaching at the higher school level positively related to depersonalization and negatively to personal accomplishment. Communicating with one's supervisor negatively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and positively to personal accomplishment. Planning to change one's career positively related to emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and negatively to personal accomplishment. The present study's results provided evidence that preventing, detecting, and true understanding of an ongoing process of burnout development must incorporate the examination of personality, coping, organizational, and individual characteristics.