This Student Makes Me Feel Burned Out: Student-Specific Self-Efficacy, Classroom Demands, and Burnout

• In Event: Exploring the Situated Nature of Teachers’ Ability-Related Beliefs, Classroom Practices, and Well-Being

Abstract

Aims/Background
Burnout reduces teachers’ professional well-being and is linked to low student performance (Klusmann et al., 2008) and student-rated teaching quality (Butler & Shibaz, 2015; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Social-cognitive and resource theories suggest that teacher burnout is not a direct consequence of the demands teachers experience in the classroom, such as low student motivation and achievement, but rather the perceived inability to cope with these demands successfully (Bandura, 1997). Various student characteristics have been identified as potential stressors and demands, with students’ disruptive classroom behaviors and low motivation being named most frequently (e.g., Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016). In contrast, teaching self-efficacy often serves as a protective factor against burnout (e.g., Dicke et al., 2014; Durr et al., 2014; Lauermann & König, 2016). However, no study has examined these associations on the within-class level, even though evidence suggests that burnout is often linked to negative experiences with individual students rather than entire classes (Little, 2005).
Accordingly, the present study focused on teachers’ student-specific ratings of self-efficacy and burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization) using multi-source data from teachers, students, and standardized assessments. An additional strength is our focus on two educational settings: secondary and adult education classes of German as a Second Language (GSL). We examined:
RQ1: Which student-rated, teacher-rated, or objectively assessed student characteristics are linked to teachers’ student-specific burnout on the within-class level?
RQ2: Does teachers’ student-specific self-efficacy have incremental predictive effects on their student-specific burnout, controlling for within-class differences in students’ self-reported, teacher-rated, and objectively assessed academic characteristics?

Method
We use data from the [blinded] study, which examines different aspects of teachers’ professional competencies in GSL classrooms; 60 teachers participated with their 610 students (30 secondary-school classes and 30 adult-education classes).
Previously validated scales were adapted to refer to individual students (see Table 1). Students’ academic characteristics were assessed via students’ self-reports (intrinsic motivation), teacher ratings (student engagement and language ability), and objective tests (language ability).

Results/Discussion
A multi-level path analysis tested the hypothesized within-class associations (Lüdtke et al., 2008).
First (see RQ1), the less motivated, engaged, and proficient in German a given student was, relative to other students in the same class, the more likely this student was perceived as a source of experiencing burnout (see Table 2). These student characteristics can thus serve as stressors on the within-class level.
Second (see RQ2, Figure 1), when all student-rated, teacher-rated, and objectively assessed student characteristics were entered as predictors of teacher burnout jointly with teachers’ student-specific self-efficacy, only self-efficacy remained a significant predictor of burnout in both subsamples. Multigroup comparisons revealed that the path coefficients did not differ significantly across the two subsamples, with the exception of students’ self-reported intrinsic motivation and teacher-rated proficiency in German.
The results are consistent with key assumptions in socio-cognitive and resource theories, according to which teachers’ self-efficacy rather than the objectively experienced classroom demands is a more proximal predictor of, and a potentially protective factor against, burnout. We expand upon prior research by focusing on within-class associations and using multi-source data.

Authors

• Annika Koch, University of Bonn

• Fani Lauermann, University of Bonn