Does Risk for Stress and Burnout Cross Over in Secondary Schools? Evidence From Secondary School Teachers

• In Event: 66.083 - Researching Stress and Developing Interventions That Promote Wellness in Educational Settings

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this study is to gain understanding on how teachers appraise their professional environment for resources and demands in order to mitigate vocational stress. Using national data from 2007-2008 SASS, the following research question informed our study: when controlling for teacher-, classroom,- and school-level covariates, to what extent are secondary teachers’ risk for stress, classroom control (teacher autonomy), and the proportion of stress-vulnerable teachers within the school associated with teachers’ burnout?
Theoretical Framework
While Lazarus and Folkman (1984)’s transactional model can be used to understand which teachers are most at risk for stress, existing research has overlooked that teaching is a socializing profession (Goodlad, 2004; Kim, Youngs, & Frank, 2017; Lortie, 1975) and that a teacher’s stress and burnout symptoms can crossover (i.e., influence) to the way their colleagues also appraise the workplace (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2000; Kim et al., 2017).
Method: Data Source and Participants
The participants in this study (n=13,180) were full-time public school secondary teachers (middle and high school) in 1,740 schools responding to the 2007- 2008 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Each school contributed an average of 7.59 teachers. An Appraisal Index was created to measure teachers’ risk for stress, replicating previous research (Authors, 2015), in which survey items on the SASS scales were created to measure Classroom Demands (e.g. classroom discipline problems, lack of parental support, and increased student absenteeism, α = .880) and Classroom Resources (e.g. faculty collegiality, administrative support, and access to instructional resources, α = .828). We then created a category of Demanded teachers (most at at-risk for stress) by using the 95% confidence interval around the Appraisal Index score of 0 (no difference between Resources and Demands). Finally, we aggregated the Demanded teachers at the school-level and standardized (mean=0, SD=1) the percentage of Demanded teachers in each school, which was used as an indicator of stress crossover. Burnout and classroom control variables were constructed using relevant SASS items. To answer the research question, we used a multilevel model to examine the association between level 1 covariates (teacher, classroom, characteristics, and classroom control), level 2 covariates (school characteristics), level 1 predictors (proportion of Demanded teachers in the school), and the outcome variable, burnout.
Results
Teachers working in high-stress crossover schools who also report having high Appraisal Index scores were found to have higher Burnout scores (.937), than teachers working in average stress crossover schools who reported having average Appraisal Index scores (-.011). Furthermore, teachers with a lower proportion of stress crossover and high classroom control were associated with substantially lower burnout (-.464) compared to the average teacher. Where teachers working in stress-contagious schools and reporting lower classroom control are associated with a moderate average increase in burnout (.442).
Discussion
In addition to the factors of classroom control and individual teachers appraisal index scores, this study suggests a crossover effect may contribute to increased rates of burnout wherein teachers’ appraisals of their classroom influence their peers.

Authors

• Emily Playfair, University of Texas at Austin

• Paul G. Fitchett, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• Cassandra Gearhart, University of Texas at Austin