227
British Journal of Educational Psychology (2002), 72, 227–243
2002 The British Psychological Society
www.bps.org.uk
Burnout and self-efficacy: A study on teachers’
beliefs when implementing an innovative
educational system in the Netherlands
Will J. G. Evers, André Brouwers and Welko Tomic*
Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Heerlen, The Netherlands
Background. In the Netherlands, secondary education has seen radical changes that
originated with the national authorities, including the Study-home system, a pupilcentred approach in which teachers help develop pupils’ independent working and
creative thinking in order to get them to take responsibility for their own academic
achievements. As educational innovations are more often than not accompanied by
stress, the present study focuses on the onset of burnout among teachers who
recently implemented this innovative system in the Netherlands.
Aims. To test hypotheses that the extent to which teachers have a negative attitude
towards the new instructional practices relates positively to their level of burnout, and
that their self-efficacy beliefs regarding implementation of the practices and coping with
stress involved in this relate negatively to their burnout levels.
Sample. A random sample of 490 teachers employed in the Study-home system
participated in this study.
Methods. Three questionnaires were used. The Dutch version of the Maslach
Burnout Inventory for teachers (Schaufeli & Van Horn, 1995) was used to assess the
teachers’ burnout level. Second, a specially developed self-efficacy questionnaire
relating to the domains of: (1) guiding groups of students using the principle of
differentiation, (2) involving pupils with tasks and (3) use of innovative educational
practices. Last, a questionnaire on the teachers’ attitudes concerning the usefulness and
effectiveness of the Study-home as an educational innovation.
Results. Regression analyses showed that the self-efficacy beliefs for each of the three
domains were significantly and negatively related to the depersonalisation and
emotional exhaustion dimensions of burnout, and significantly positively related to
the personal accomplishment dimension. Furthermore, the more negative the
teachers’ attitudes towards the Study-home appeared to be, the more they appeared
*Requests for reprints should be addressed to Welko Tomic, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, PO Box 2960,
NL-6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands (e-mail: Welko.Tomic@ou.nl).
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Will J. G. Evers et al.
to suffer from depersonalisation and emotional exhaustion, and the lower they scored
on the personal accomplishment dimension of burnout.
Conclusions. The study’s results indicate that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are related
to their burnout level. Teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs seem to be more
prepared to experiment with, and later also to implement new educational practices.
The tasks of teachers are demanding and heavy. It appears that annually many teachers
feel unable to carry on with their jobs. Results from a considerable number of
investigations into this subject showed that quite a few teachers experience feelings of
exhaustion during their career (Albertson & Kagan, 1987; Burke & Greenglass, 1991;
Friedman, 1996; Merseth, 1992; Van Horn & Van Dierendonck, 1998). Blase (1986) and
Huston (1989) stated that in the USA teacher burnout has become a topic receiving
national attention, which is underscored in a survey of American literature by Farber
(1991) concluding that approximately 5%to 20%of all teachers in the United States will
be burned out at a given moment in their career.
The onerous nature of the profession of a teacher is particularly shown in the
oppressive quantities of stress they experience in their job. Research among British
teachers showed that about a third of them experience the job of a teacher as being
extremely stressful (Borg, 1990). Especially when comparing professions according to
the degree of stress experienced, it appears that teaching is a very stressful job. Travers
and Cooper (1993) found that teachers suffered from higher levels of stress than the
average population and persons who also worked in client-related professions, such as
medical doctors, nurses, and hospital attendants. Dutch figures point in the same
direction. In a study on views about employment among Dutch workers, teachers
indicated they were least able to cope with job-related workloads in comparison with
industrial workers, civil servants, caregivers, and commercial workers (SEO, 1998; Van
Veldhoven & Broersen, 1999). In the Netherlands, relatively many teachers are declared
disabled or partially disabled for work, because they can not cope with the high workstrain and the accompanying stress. In 1994, 44% of the total number of persons
disabled for work were teachers (ABP, 1995). In over half of the cases psychological
complaints were responsible for this form of being disabled for work, which, in
literature, is increasingly connected with burnout (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998).
Schaufeli, Maslach, and Marek (1993, p. 10) state that the burnout syndrome ‘ . . . is
first and foremost visible in human service workers . . . ’. This conception of burnout is
articulated in the widely used definition by Maslach and Jackson (1986) in which
burnout is described as a psychological syndrome of emotional exhaustion,
depersonalisation, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among
individuals who work with other people in some capacity. Emotional exhaustion refers
to feelings of being emotionally overextended and a strong depletion of one’s emotional
resources. Depersonalisation refers to a negative, callous, and detached attitude
towards the persons that one works with, i.e., patients, clients, or pupils. Reduced
personal accomplishment is accessed through a person’s negative self-evaluation in
relation to his or her job performance (Schaufeli et al., 1993).
This study on burnout has been performed among teachers working in the second
phase of secondary education, i.e., the upper years of senior general secondary schools
and pre-university education. In September 1999, in the Netherlands radical innovative
educational changes, commonly called the Study-home indicating that schools should
become places of study, were implemented in this phase of secondary education.
Teacher burnout
229
Study-home refers to a place where pupils of higher secondary education are to find a
safe place to grow, to develop, and to acquire academic achievements in a co-operative
and communicative setting: in short the innovative school and school system in the
Netherlands.
The innovations resulted from national political discussions on adapting education to
the demands of rapid social-cultural changes, such as the questionability of the
importance of ready-made knowledge, computer-based technology, and pupils’ lack of
interest in traditional teacher-centred education. After a law on educational innovations
had been constituted, the new system was implemented nation-wide. It is a matter of a
fundamental and basic change, a transformation of culture (Stuurgroe p Profiel Tweede
Fase Voortgezet Onderwijs, 1996).
An important point of departure of the Study-home is that teachers are to activate
and promote the pupils’ independent thinking and how to learn to study, while at the
same time they have to make allowances for the individual student’s capacities. While
formerly teachers were mainly charged with conveying knowledge and skills to pupils
(sometimes rather condescendingly called ‘chalk-and-talk’ instruction), they are now
expected to be responsible for conducting educational processes (Stokking, 1998).
Levine, Donitsa-Schmidt, & Zellermayer (1996) viewed the primary role of the teacher
in innovative classroom settings as a mediator between subject matter and pupils,
someone who encourages pupils to be responsible for their own development via
collaboration, communication, and reflection.
Teachers who are mainly concerned about controlling the educational process of a
large group of pupils fear an impairment of the control they exercise over their pupils,
which causes them to be reticent about differentiating their instructional methods
(Smylie, 1999). When being in control of the learning process, teachers are more likely
to perceive their own professional worth and self-efficacy (Kushman, 1992). Critics of
the innovations argue that the teachers lack experience in using innovative educational
methods and have not been sufficiently prepared for their new tasks, which is an
essential requirement (Mohlman, Coladarci, & Gage, 1982; Stein & Wang, 1988).
Moreover, teachers often seem to lack the time to train the new skills or to consult one
another in order to acquire the innovative methods the pedagogic-didactical changes
require (Veugelers, 1999). These points of criticism may induce teachers to doubt their
abilities to adequately function in the new Study-home. They may become devoid of
feelings of success in their work, which lead to judgments of inefficacy on their
classroom achievements, which in turn may result in feelings of burnout.
In this study Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy theory is used to explain why teachers
who doubt their capabilities to adequately function in the new Study-home may report
higher levels of burnout than teachers who judge their abilities in this domain as quite
sufficient. Bandura (1997) describes perceived self-efficacy as ‘beliefs in one’s
capabilities to organise and execute the courses of action required to produce given
attainments’ (p. 3). Self-efficacy beliefs do not refer to someone’s capabilities or skills
but only to what someone believes he or she is capable of under certain circumstances,
regardless of the capabilities or skills that he or she actually possesses.
The determinants of self-efficacy beliefs consist of four sources of information, listed
below in descending order (Bandura, 1986, 1997; Maddux, 1995): (1) enactive mastery
experiences, (2) vicarious experiences, (3) verbal persuasion, and (4) physiological and
affective states. Efficacy beliefs produce their effects through four mediating processes,
i.e., cognitive, motivational, affective, and selective processes (Bandura, 1997). These
processes influence the teachers’ functioning. For instance, in teachers full of self-
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Will J. G. Evers et al.
doubts these mediating processes will negatively influence thought patterns,
regulations of motivation, self-regulation of affective states, and the selection of
activities and environments. In short, these teachers perceive themselves to be
occupationally inefficacious, and this is a central mediator of burnout (Bandura, 1997,
p. 466). So, the chances are that inadequate preparation for educational innovations is
related to lower levels of self-efficacy, which may mediate in the onset of burnout in
teachers of the Study-home.
Since self-efficacy beliefs are always linked to a certain domain of activity, it is quite
striking that in studies involving teachers, self-efficacy is always put forward as a general
concept, ‘teacher efficacy’. Teacher efficacy was initially the target of a study by
researchers at the RAND organisation. They defined perceived teacher efficacy as ‘the
extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student
performance’ (Bergman, McLaughlin, Bass, Pauly, & Zellman, 1977, p. 137), adding two
items to what was already a long questionnaire in an attempt to measure this concept.
In subsequent research, teacher efficacy beliefs have been related to a multitude of
critically important educational variables, such as student achievement and motivation
(Moore & Esselman, 1992), student self-esteem and pro-social attitudes (Borton, 1991;
Cheung & Cheng, 1997), school effectiveness (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1993), teachers’
adoption of innovations (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Bishop, 1992), the success of programme
implementation (Guskey, 1988), teachers’ referral decisions for special education
(Meijer & Foster, 1988; Soodak & Podell, 1993), teachers’ professional commitment
(Coladarci, 1992), teachers’ classroom management strategies (Woolfolk, Rosoff, &
Hoy, 1990), teacher absenteeism (Imants & Van Zoelen, 1995), and teacher stress (Bliss
& Finneran, 1991; Parkay, Greenwood, Olejnik, & Proller, 1988).
In this study, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are determined for three domains of
activities or competencies required for successful adoption and implementation of the
innovative practices. The first domain of self-efficacy beliefs of teachers being
employed in the Study-home is working with tasks. The tasks serve for making pupils
independently mould their own educational process. Whereas the traditional practices
are mainly teacher-centred, i.e., teachers talk and pupils listen passively (Cuban, 1990;
Goodlad, 1984; Tomic, 1987), teaching in the Study-home is mainly directed at the
pupils’ independent acquisition of the subject-matter guided by tasks (Ras, 1999).
Co-operation among pupils and between teacher and pupils is a striking feature of
these Dutch educational innovations. The teachers are supposed to frequently
interchange between individual-centred and group-centred practices. Accordingly,
the second domain of self-efficacy beliefs in this study is about guiding groups of pupils
in a differentiating way. It could be said that teachers increasingly have become ‘groupmanagers’ whose activities are characterised by associating well and efficiently with
groups of pupils (Meijnen, 1999). However, they must at the same time promote the
individual pupil’s academic achievement (Stuurgroep Profiel Tweede Fase Voortgezet
Onderwijs, 1996).
Besides the competencies necessary to function well as a teacher of the Study-home
as described above, teachers need specific outlooks to be able to turn to and adopt the
new innovative practices. Weak self-efficacy beliefs about being a competent educator
may be associated with an increased level of stress caused by changes in the work
situation and the pressures of school reform (Corbett, Firestone, & Rossman, 1987;
DeMesquita & Drake, 1994; Duffy & Roehler, 1986; Smylie, 1999). That is why the third
domain of self-efficacy beliefs in this study is about coping with stress attending the
implementation of innovative educational practices such as the Study-home. This self-
Teacher burnout
231
efficacy domain is called the use of educational innovative practices.
In this study we thus examined teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in relation to (1)
involving pupils with tasks in learning processes, (2) differentially guiding groups and
(3) coping with the stresses involved in implementing such innovative educational
practices. In the Study-home teachers are expected to acquire new skills, such as
promoting independence of pupils and co-operation of pupils in group activities, skills
teachers have not or not sufficiently been instructed or trained in (Kwakman, 1999;
Veugelers, 1999; Veugelers & Zijlstra, 1998). Instruction and in-service training of new
skills was mostly not available, or in some cases only in a limited sense, for the teachers
because of a shortage of time; only after the implementation of the Study-home were
meetings arranged for the teachers (Knoppert & Cornelisse, 2000). A strong sense of
self-efficacy is found to be an important factor in school improvement (Dembo &
Gibson, 1985). Bandura (1997) argues that people with strong self-efficacy beliefs do
not shun new challenges, and they will probably be quite determined to complete
actions successfully. People having weak self-efficacy beliefs in performing certain tasks
appear to experience tension, stress, and aversion sooner than those with strong selfefficacy beliefs do. Self-efficacy seems to be a critical variable in persuading teachers to
adopt research-based teaching strategies (Wong, 1997).
The situation and resulting consequences as described above may lead to the
conclusion that the teachers working in the Study-home are going to experience
tension and stress, too (Leithwood, Menzies, Jantzi, & Leithwood, 1996; Mohlman et al.,
1982). Moreover, as they have only few opportunities to evade innovative practices in
their routine educational duties it may be assumed that especially teachers having weak
self-efficacy beliefs about the demands made upon them by the innovative educational
practices will experience tension and stress. As burnout can be viewed as a response to
prolonged tension and stress, the following hypothesis is formulated: the degree to
which teachers judge themselves capable in the above three domains is related to their
burnout level, i.e., their emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal
accomplishment. It is expected that weaker self-efficacy beliefs will be related to higher
scores on emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation, and to lower scores on personal
accomplishment.
As there is a relation between teachers’ self-efficacy level and their attitudes towards
innovations (Guskey, 1988), we not only examined the relation between self-efficacy
and burnout but also the relationship between teachers’ attitudes towards the
effectiveness and usefulness of the Study-home and their level of burnout. Research
from as early as 1957 (Festinger) shows that a discrepancy between a person’s
behaviour and attitude is attended by stress. Attitudes are formed on experiences of the
past and stability is a most characteristic feature of them, meaning they are not easily
changed (Nuttin & Beckers, 1976). Even when new practices are associated with
improved outcomes, routines are difficult to change (Eisner, 1992; Gersten, Vaughn,
Deshler, & Schiller, 1997). Many of the respondents have worked in the educational
profession for a long time, already having experienced educational changes, whereas
the traditional teacher-centred practices, i.e., knowledge is ‘presented’ to the learner
(Cuban, 1990), have been the adopted educational concept for decades (Cuban, 1984).
This also goes for the younger generation of teachers. They themselves were educated
in the traditional system, which served as their educational model for a long time
(Goodlad, 1984; Tomic, 1987). So, it is a matter of course that teachers have come to
some strong convictions with respect to teaching marked by teacher-centred practices
(Miller, 1999). Teachers working in the second phase of secondary education and
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Will J. G. Evers et al.
judging the educational innovations of the Study-home to be ineffective in comparison
with the traditional educational system are likely to experience tension and stress. They
are obliged to educate pupils according to innovative practices, whose effectiveness
and value they doubt. Teachers’ attitudes towards the innovations may have become
even more negative because of lack of collaborative planning, i.e., the innovations were
planned and ordered by the national educational authorities. The innovations can be
looked upon as top-down planning strategies, which often evoke resistance or
indifference (McLaughlin & Marsh, 1978). As burnout can be viewed as a response to
prolonged tension and stress, the following hypothesis will be examined: Negativity of
teachers’ attitudes towards the Study-home innovation will be related to higher scores
on emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation and to lower scores on personal
accomplishment.
Method
Participants
The participants were 490 teachers who were employed in the upper grades of schools
of higher general secondary education (i.e., Dutch HAVO which prepares students for
higher vocational training, and VWO which was primarily intended as preparatory
education for universities), working in 33 randomly selected schools in the
Netherlands. In all, 114 female teachers (23.3%) and 376 male teachers (76.7%)
participated. The average age of the teachers was 47.23 years (SD = 8.07), ranging from
23 to 64 years old. The mean number of years of teaching experience was 22.14
(SD = 8.86), ranging from 1 to 39. The mean number of weekly working hours was
20.65 (SD = 8.24), of which a mean of 13.59 (SD = 7.39) lessons were given in the
upper grades of the HAVO and VWO, the so-called ‘second phase’ of the new Dutch
secondary educational system, commonly called Study-home.
Measures
Burnout. The Dutch version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for teachers (MBI-NL-Ed;
Schaufeli & Van Horn, 1995) was used to assess teachers’ burnout level. The instrument
consists of 20 items and is divided into three subscales: (1) emotional exhaustion (EE; 8
items), (2) depersonalisation (D; 5 items) and (3) personal accomplishment (PA; 7
items). Teachers were asked to respond on a 7-point Likert scale, from ‘never’ to
‘always’, to these items, which are shown in full in Appendix 1. The three-factor
structure of the Dutch version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for teachers has been
investigated with confirmatory factor analysis (Schaufeli, Daamen, & Van Mierlo, 1994).
Perceived self-efficacy. Self-efficacy beliefs were measured with an instrument
especially developed for this study. Items were formulated for three domains of selfefficacy beliefs that are closely related to the most important activities of teachers
working in the second phase of secondary school in the Netherlands: (1) to guide
groups of students using the principle of differentiation (6 items), (2) to involve pupils
in tasks (4 items), and (3) the use of innovative educational practices (3 items). In order
to form a good notion of the most important activities of teachers working in the Studyhome, not only was literature consulted but information was also gleaned from
interviews with five teachers of different subjects working in schools that had already
Teacher burnout
233
been doing pilot work with the new system one year before its nation-wide
implementation. Recommendations stated in literature for the development of
instruments measuring self-efficacy beliefs were acted on as far as possible when
formulating the items (Forsyth & Carey, 1998; Maibach & Murphy, 1995), which were
scored on a 6-point Likert scale running from ‘totally disagree’ to ‘completely agree’.
The items are reported in Table 1.
Attitude. The attitude of teachers concerning the usefulness and effectiveness of the
Study-home as an educational innovation was measured with a 5-item instrument
developed for this study and based on interviews with the five Study-home pilot
teachers mentioned above. The items were worded to reflect the most salient
characteristics of the innovative practices, each item representing a bipolar statement
to be evaluated by giving 10 points in total to the two alternatives. The items are shown
in Table 1.
Procedure
The questionnaires were mailed to 33 randomly selected schools. Before this, school
principals had been telephoned asking for their co-operation at school level. These
preliminary requests were also meant to explain the purpose of the investigation and
the way it had been organised. After the principals’ approval of the request, the
questionnaires, the accompanying letters, and the envelopes for returning the
questionnaires were mailed to the principals with the request to hand them to
teachers working in the upper grades of HAVO and/or VWO (schools in the Dutch
higher general secondary school system preparing students for advanced polytechnic
education or universities). In the letter of introduction the purpose of the investigation
was explained and the teachers were kindly asked to participate in the investigation by
filling out the self-report questionnaires and sending them back anonymously and
individually in postage pre-paid envelopes. Three weeks after the first mailing, repeat
letters were sent to the principals requesting them to hand these letters to the teachers.
Results
In order to be able to determine whether the four variables showing a degree of
predictability of burnout, i.e., the attitude towards the Study-home and the three
domains denoting the self-efficacy beliefs, reflect four factors, a confirmatory factor
analysis has been conducted with the AMOS 6.1 computer program. Afour-factor model
has been formulated in which the items used to measure the attitude towards the
educational innovations were supposed to load on one factor, and the items used to
measure the self-efficacy beliefs of each of the three domains on the other three factors.
In order to decide whether the four-factor model fitted the data, the Comparative Fit
Index (CFI) was used, for which the research findings show that it is relatively
independent of the sample size taken at random (Bentler, 1990). It was found that the
value of CFI was higher than the criterion of .90 recommended by Bentler and Bonett
(1980), and so it was assumed that the model could not be significantly improved.
Results of the confirmatory factor analysis show that the four-factor model fitted the
data quite well (null model: w2(153) = 3220.13; four-factor model: w2(129) = 432.23,
CFI = .90). This four-factor model fitted the data significantly better than the one-factor
model (w2(135) = 1408.63; Dw2(6) = 976.40, p < .001), the best-fitting two-factor
234
Will J. G. Evers et al.
model (w2(134) = 971.79, CFI = .73; Dw2(5) = 539.56, p < .001) and the best-fitting
three-factor model (w2(132) = 491.96, CFI = .88; Dw2(3) = 59.73, p < .001). The fit of
the four-factor model could not be improved by adding a second-order factor behind
the three self-efficacy fac tors to the model (w 2 (1 31) = 452.83 , CFI = .90;
Dw2(2) = 20.60, p < .001).
Table 1 shows the standardised regression coefficients of the four-factor model that
can be interpreted as factor loadings. The lowest value of the standardised regression
coefficients was 7.41, which implies that the items loaded well on the factors in
question.
After scaling, the means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations were computed
(see Table 2). Reliability analysis resulted in Cronbach alphas of .90 for emotional
exhaustion, .68 for depersonalisation, .83 for personal accomplishment, .79 for attitude,
.68 for the self-efficacy beliefs concerning the employment of pupils with tasks, .85 for
the self-efficacy beliefs concerning the use of innovative educational practices, and .80
for the self-efficacy beliefs concerning guiding groups of students.
The correlation analyses (see Table 2) showed that the self-efficacy beliefs for each of
the three domains were significantly and positively related to the depersonalisation and
emotional exhaustion dimensions of burnout, and significantly but negatively related to
personal accomplishment. The more negative the teachers’ attitude towards the Studyhome appeared to be, the more they appeared to suffer from depersonalisation and
emotional exhaustion, and the lower they scored on personal accomplishment. Older
and more experienced teachers had a more negative attitude towards the Study-home
and they had weaker self-efficacy beliefs in both using innovative educational practices
and in guiding groups of students in a differentiating way. Moreover, teachers who
were older scored higher on emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation, but lower on
personal accomplishment than did their younger counterparts. The total number of
working hours seemed only to be significantly related to emotional exhaustion and to
the self-efficacy belief concerning the use of innovative educational practices; the more
lessons teachers give weekly, the more they suffer from emotional exhaustion, and the
less they are convinced of their capacities to stand up to the stress innovative changes
are accompanied with. Teachers with a more negative attitude towards the Study-home
use a larger percentage of their lessons using traditional teacher-centred practices, and
have weaker self-efficacy beliefs for each of the three domains. The weaker the
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs appear to be, the higher the percentage is of their use of
traditional teacher-centred practices.
Hierarchical regression analyses were carried out in order to investigate to what
extent the teachers’ attitude about the usefulness and effectiveness of the Study-home
and their self-efficacy beliefs towards (1) the use of tasks, (2) the guiding of groups in a
differentiating way, and (3) the use of innovative educational practices, would explain
their burnout level. In doing so, the variables gender, age, the number of years of
teaching experience, the number of hours appointed at the school, and the percentage
of lesson time the teachers estimated to have spent on traditional teacher-centred
practices were statistically controlled. With each burnout dimension as a dependent
variable, these control variables were first added to the regression equation (step 1),
followed by the independent variables, i.e., attitude and the self-efficacy beliefs of the
three distinct domains (step 2).
The results of the hierarchical regression analyses (see Table 3) showed that of the
variables added in step 2 only the self-efficacy belief concerning the use of innovative
educational practices was significantly related to the burnout dimension emotional
Teacher burnout
235
Table 1. Results of confirmatory factor analysis of items for self-efficacy beliefs and the attitude
towards the Study-home
Item nr.
Item
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 4
.66
—
—
—
.65
—
—
—
.65
—
—
—
.62
—
—
—
.57
—
—
—
—
.75
—
—
—
.63
—
—
—
.57
—
—
—
.45
—
—
—
—
.92
—
—
—
.90
—
—
—
.61
—
—
—
—
.87
—
—
—
7.76
—
—
—
.70
—
—
—
.57
—
—
—
7.41
Self-efficacy beliefs about guiding groups in a differentiating
way
3.
5.
7.
10.
4.
2.
If a pupil shows unmotivated behaviour, I am able to
find out the reason for it
I always assess well what is going on when a group
works in a troublesome way
I am able to foster co-operation in a group when
the pupils experience difficulties in this
When a group is disruptive I am able to get them
back to work again quickly
I can quickly set a pupil to work who is thwarting
co-operation with others
I am able to point out to the pupils that they are
responsible for good academic achievements
Self-efficacy beliefs about involving pupils in tasks
11. If pupils experience difficulties in carrying out a task,
I can make them think about finding solutions
themselves
13. I am able to give the necessary clues to pupils they
need in searching for relevant information for a task
6. If a pupil experiences difficulties in doing a task, I am
able to help him or her on the right course
9. I can find out and check whether a task has the
appropriate level of difficulty
Self-efficacy beliefs towards the use of innovative educational
practices
8. In general I can cope quite well with stress that
attends the implementation of educational innovations, as for example the Study-home
12. I can cope well with stress originating from innovative
educational changes such as the Study-home
1. Even when sceptical colleagues comment on it, I am
able to keep on putting my back into innovative
projects
Attitude towards the Study-home
1. In my opinion, the most suitable educational
strategy is the method of self-discovery as used in
the Study-home
3. My favourite style of teaching is the teacher-centred
style
5. I believe that the educational innovations of the
second phase prepare pupils much better for higher
education
4. I think that pupils of the second phase can cope with
the freedom they get in the new educational system
2. It is my opinion that the control of the educational
process should mainly be guided by the teacher
.66
236
Table 2. Means and standard deviations of the variables and correlations between the variables
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Gender
Age
Number of Years Working as a Teacher
Number of Lessons Per Week
% Teacher-Centred Practices
Attitude Towards the Study-home
SE Towards Guiding Groups
SE Towards Using Tasks
SE Towards Using Innovations
Emotional Exhaustion
Depersonalisation
Personal Accomplishment
SD
1
—
—
—
47.23 8.07 7.33**
22.14 8.86 7.37**
20.65 8.24 7.19**
35.76 20.74 7.07
23.99 7.14
.04
19.25 4.19
.00
14.72 2.44
.00
9.67 3.24
.03
18.41 9.38 7.04
6.44 4.12 7.08
25.98 6.11 7.03
Note: SE: Self-Efficacy Belief; *p < .05; **p < .01.
2
3
4
—
.87**
7.03
.11*
7.16**
7.11*
7.02
7.12**
.13**
.12**
7.18**
—
.00
.09
7.17**
7.12**
7.04
7.16**
.16**
.13**
7.18**
—
7.07
7.02
.02
7.02
7.14**
.13**
.07
.01
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
—
7.39**
—
7.21**
.35**
—
7.20**
.23**
.57**
—
7.16**
.48**
.43**
.41**
—
.00 7.30** 7.28** 7.20** 7.61**
—
.07 7.30** 7.36** 7.26** 7.45**
.56**
—
7.12**
.33**
.55**
.44**
.53** 7.42** 7.48**
Will J. G. Evers et al.
M
Teacher burnout
237
exhaustion (b = 7.60, p < .001). The variance in the depersonalisation dimension of
burnout was partly explained by the self-efficacy beliefs about guiding groups
(b = 7.16, p < .01) and the use of innovative educational practices (b = 7.34,
p < .001). The self-efficacy beliefs about all three domains appeared to be significantly
related to the burnout dimension personal accomplishment (b = .33, p < .001 for the
use of innovative educational practices; b = .13, p < .01 for employing pupils with
tasks, and b = .32, p < .001 for guiding groups). The total of the variance explained of
the predicting variables in steps 1 and 2 was for emotional exhaustion 39%, for
depersonalisation 24%and for personal accomplishment 43%.
Table 3. Results of hierarchical regression analysis for the predicting variables of emotional
exhaustion, depersonalisation and personal accomplishment
Emotional
Exhaustion
Predicting Variable
Step 1.
Gender
Age
Number of Years Working as a
Teacher
Number of Lessons Per Week
% Teacher-Centred Practices
Step 2.
Attitude Towards the Study-home
SE Towards Guiding Groups
SE Towards Using Tasks
SE Towards Using Innovations
F-Total for the Equation
Beta
DR2
Depersonalisation
Beta
.04**
DR2
Personal
Accomplishment
Beta
.03*
DR2
.05***
7.02
.01
.04
7.05
.10
7.05
7.06
7.12
.01
.05
7.10*
.02
7.04
.05
.06
.35***
7.06
7.03
.08
7.60***
29.82***
.21***
7.07
7.16**
7.02
7.34***
15.34***
.38***
.03
.32***
.13**
.33***
34.70***
Note. SE: Self-Efficacy Belief; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001.
Discussion
The results of this study, showing a degree of predictability of burnout level self-report
by teachers’ efficacy beliefs, concur with the results of other studies. Brissie, HooverDempsey, & Bassler (1988), for instance, found that teachers who positively rated their
teaching capabilities suffered less from burnout than teachers whose scores were
lower. Chwalisz, Altmaier, & Russell (1992) asked teachers to appraise their own
capacities in dealing with the most stressful experience of the past year. The results
indicate that high-scoring teachers used more effective strategies and subsequently
appeared to have less burnout than low-scoring teachers. In a cross-sectional study
among teachers in the Netherlands Brouwers and Tomic (1999 ) demonstrated that
teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs about classroom management were significantly related to
238
Will J. G. Evers et al.
their burnout level. However, longitudinal research showed that the teachers’ selfefficacy beliefs were only related to the depersonalisation and personal accomplishment dimensions of burnout, and not to emotional exhaustion (Brouwers & Tomic,
2000).
As opposed to the expectations, the degree to which teachers appeared to harbour
negative attitudes towards the effectiveness and usefulness of the new educational
system was not significantly related to their reported burnout level. Apparently, the
discrepancy between behaviour and attitudes is not so serious as to evoke long lasting
tension and stress. A plausible explanation may be found in the degree of nonimplementation of the innovative practices by the teachers with a negative attitude
toward the Study-home. Non-implementation may occur, for a teacher’s job is still
characterised by isolation and relatively large autonomy (Ashton, 1984; Doyle & Ponder,
1977–78; Poole & Okeafor, 1989). In this kind of professional culture norms, values,
and beliefs will rarely be challenged (Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). The results of our
correlation analysis seem to support these findings. The stronger the teachers’ negative
attitudes are towards the Study-home, the larger the percentage of time the teachers
spend on traditional educational practices (r = .39, p < .001). Apparently teachers with
negative attitudes towards the effectiveness of the Study-home do not spend the
required time on the implementation of innovative educational practices, thus
preventing the development of a discrepancy between behaviour and attitudes and
consequently the susceptibility to burnout.
Allinder (1994) showed that teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs are more
prepared to experiment with and later also to implement new educational practices.
These teachers were not only better planners and organisers in matters concerning
their work but they appeared to be more enthusiastic as well. Our study also suggests
that teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs show a greater readiness to adopt
innovative educational practices and are less susceptible to burnout than their
counterparts with weak self-efficacy beliefs.
This study has a few limitations. First, the cross-sectional character of the present
study—the variables have only been measured at one time—imposes restrictions on the
generalisation of the results, which may be counteracted by a longitudinal follow-up.
Second, self-report questionnaires are susceptible to answers tinged with social desirability.
Results of this study should, therefore, be interpreted with caution. A longitudinal sequel
to this study may overcome the drawbacks of our cross-sectional study.
Sequel investigation is also advisable because of the time-period the respondents
were asked to participate, viz. a short time after the innovations had been implemented.
As the complete innovative process, consisting of the phases, adoption, implementation, and institutionalisation takes about two years (Heller & Firestone, 1995), it may be
expected that the implementation of the innovative practices requires a rather lengthy
period of time, especially because they will be attended by a change in culture and
pedagogic-didactical climate in the schools (Stuurgroep Profiel Tweede Fase Voortgezet
Onderwijs, 1996).
In order to get a clear understanding of the future phases of the implementation of
the Study-home it would be desirable to continue the inquiry into factors leading to the
onset of burnout. Support for a longitudinal sequel study comes from Ross (1994) who
found that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs about implementing innovative practices may
be low initially, but grow stronger later on when the practices appear to be successful.
On the other hand, Stein and Wang (1988 ) found that teachers initially having negative
attitudes towards innovative practices later developed even more negative attitudes
Teacher burnout
239
towards the innovative practices during the implementation of innovations. Teachers
reporting rather negative attitudes towards the educational innovations may not
experience successes in the Study-home. They may develop even more negative
attitudes towards the innovations, which ultimately may increase the risk of becoming
burnt out.
The professional development of teachers especially takes place during their daily
routines in the classrooms, which has hardly been a subject of interest within the
schools (Kwakman, 1999). It seems to be appropriate to start the fight against burnout
at the roots of its origin: the daily classroom practices. Collaboration is the essential
foundation for school reform efforts (Curtis & Stollar, 1996), so group-centred in-service
training or peer coaching directed at strengthening teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs may
prove to be an effective means of burnout prevention (Ross, 1995; Stein & Wang,
1988). But as teachers start to experience work overload (Smylie, 1999), it is important
the intervening strategies should not burden the teachers even more. A final critical
issue is the unsolved mystery of the difference between the philosophy behind the
innovations, viz. viewing pupils as able, independent seekers of knowledge, and the
governmental top-down strategy, imposing innovations on the teachers, regarding them
as recipients of knowledge! Should not the teachers be the (co)producers of innovative
practices (Englert & Tarrant, 1995)?
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Appendix 1: Maslach Burnout Inventory
Emotional Exhaustion
I feel emotionally drained because of my work
I feel used up at the end of the workday
I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day at the job
Working with people all day is really a strain for me
I feel burned out by my work
I feel frustrated by my job
I feel I’m working too hard at my job
I feel like I’m at the end of my tether
Personal Accomplishment
I can easily understand how my students feel about things
I deal very effectively with the problems of my students
I feel I’m positively influencing other people’s lives through my work
I can easily create a relaxed atmosphere with my students
I feel exhilarated after working closely with my students
I have accomplished many worthwhile things in this job
In my work, I deal with emotional problems very calmly
Depersonalization
I feel I treat some students as if they were impersonal ‘objects’
I’ve become more callous toward people since I took this job
I worry that this job is hardening me emotionally
I don’t really care what happens to some students
I feel students blame me for some of their problems