Lifting an Even Heavier Load: Influences on Teacher Burnout During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Consortium of State and Regional Educational Research Associations Distinguished Paper Session 3

Abstract

Burnout is defined as a “syndrome” (Maslach et al., 1996, p. 193) containing three dimensions (Maslach & Leiter, 2016). For classroom teachers, burnout can lead to negative impacts on both the teacher and their students (Hughes, 2010; Madigan & Kim, 2021). The purpose of this study was to examine teacher burnout using qualitative methods, allowing the voices of teachers to speak to the factors that influence their feelings of burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. We reference literature that stresses the organizational and structural factors that influence burnout in our examination of this phenomenon. There are four levels of influence described in the findings of this study that can be used as a conceptual model to further examine teacher burnout empirically.

Authors

• Jennifer Richardson McGee, Appalachian State University

• Gwynne Shoaf

• Tim Huelsman, Appalachian State University

• Terry McClannon, Appalachian State University