Stress Contagion in the Classroom? Relationships Between Teachers' Burnout and Morning Cortisol in Elementary Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Physiological Stress in Teachers and Students: Identifying Ways to Facilitate Adaptive Coping

Abstract

Teachers play a central role in establishing a positive and responsive classroom environment that is conducive to healthy social, emotional, and academic growth (Hamre & Pianta, 2010; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Unfortunately, due to heavy workloads, lack of support, and the pressure of high stakes testing in public education, many teachers face high levels of occupational stress and burnout, experience challenges in forming close relationships with students, and have difficulties to create a positive and responsive learning environment (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Marzano et al., 2003; Pianta et al., 2007).
The goal of our study was to investigate the link between classroom teachers’ burnout levels and elementary school students’ salivary cortisol levels as a biological indicator of stress. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess students’ stress regulation at a biological level in relation to teachers’ emotional exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization from students. Although this connection is plausible in the context of stress-contagion theory (Wethington, 2000), where stressful experiences can spillover from one stressed individual to another within a shared social setting (Milkie & Warner, 2011), the link between teacher burnout and students’ biological stress indicators remains unexplored. Considering pathways in which classroom teacher burnout could relate to stress in students, researchers have theorized – but not yet empirically investigated – the existence of a “burnout cascade” in which teachers’ and students’ stressful experiences are connected in a cyclic manner (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Marzano et al., 2003).
The present study expands on previous research demonstrating that students in more stressful classroom environments in which teachers experience a lack of respect, exhibit more behavioral adjustment problems (Milkie & Warner, 2011). We included a student sample of 406 4th to 7th grade students (50% female, based in 17 classrooms) and their classroom teachers. Measures of main interest were the Maslach Burnout Inventory for teachers, and students’ salivary cortisol samples (3 samples collected in the classroom on one day at 9 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m.). As expected, a multilevel-modeling-analysis revealed that after adjusting for differences in cortisol levels due to age, gender, and time of awaking, higher morning cortisol levels in students’ could be significantly predicted from higher burnout levels in teachers. In fact, before considering the predictive role of teacher burnout in the present sample, we found an initial 10% of variability in morning cortisol levels between classrooms. Hence, morning cortisol levels did not only significantly differ among individual students, but could also be predicted from the classroom students were part of. We found that classroom-specific variability was significantly reduced from 10% to 4.6% when considering the role of teacher burnout in relation to students’ morning cortisol levels. This is an important finding; it extends the field of school-based experiences and cortisol activity in students, and links teachers’ stressful occupational experiences to students’ biological stress levels.
Potential explanations for the link between teacher burnout and students’ physiological stress levels are discussed. We discuss the findings with regards to their empirical and practical relevance, limitations, and future directions.

Authors

• Eva Oberle, The University of British Columbia

• Kim A. Schonert-Reichl, The University of British Columbia