“Nobody Can Do This Job”: Efficacy Expectations, Emotional Exhaustion, and Burnout in Special Education Teachers

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Analyzing In-Service and Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge, Identities, and Agency

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine a variety of teacher belief variables and job characteristics to help understand the phenomenon of emotional exhaustion experienced by special educators. Results indicated that 43% of the variability in the level of burnout reported by special education teachers can be attributed to differences in levels of outcome efficacy, the amount of experience teaching special education, levels of self-efficacy, and the level of perceived agreement with families about their job responsibilities. These findings indicate that rates of burnout among special education teachers might be decreased by clarifying or altering job expectations to increase teacher perceptions of agreement with others and sense of outcome efficacy.

Author

• Tracy Thorndike-Christ, Western Washington University