A Study of Teacher Burnout in Private Seventh-day Adventist and Public Schools in Trinidad/Tobago and Michigan, USA

Problem Burnout as described by Maslach and Leiter (2007) is a syndrome involving psychological processes that result from Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization and diminished Personal Accomplishment in the workplace. It is represented as a stressful experience that is rooted in a person’s own interpretation of social relationships and needs. The aim of this study was to investigate teacher burnout and its interactions with individual factors (Gender, Years of Experience, Emotional Intelligence, Nationality), organizational factors (School Type, School Culture), and transactional factors (Technology Use, Teacher Self-Efficacy) for teachers in Trinidad and Tobago and the state of Michigan in the United States. The literature highlighted the fact that individual, organizational and transactional factors all affect each other in the process of burnout. This was most prevalent with School Type and Teaching Experience where School Culture seems to serve a mediating role with burnout. Methods A cross-sectional design was used for this study. Voluntary participation was requested from elementary and high school teachers from Trinidad and Tobago and Michigan, USA via multiple online platforms. To explore the depth of this research the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES), Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Short Form (TEIQue-SF), School Culture Scale (SCS) and Teacher’s Sense of Efficacy Scale-Short form (TSES-SF) were used to collect data. Research Questions were evaluated using MANOVA, ANOVA, regression analysis, and Pearson’s correlation. Results The findings indicated that when each variable is independently assessed with teacher burnout significant differences exist in teacher burnout between Teaching Experience, Nationality, School Type, School Culture, Technology Use, Emotional Intelligence and Teacher Self-Efficacy. However, no differences between Gender were found for teacher burnout. In addition, it was found that organizational factors when compared with individual and transactional factors had the greatest effect on teacher burnout. Within the organizational factors, School Culture had the greatest impact on teacher burnout. Conclusion Schools with school cultures that had more bureaucratic policies within their administration and offered little to no support to their teachers were found to have teachers with significantly higher teacher burnout. When teachers felt supported, they appeared to do better at their jobs. Also, teachers from public/government schools had significantly higher Emotional Exhaustion than their private SDA school teacher counterparts. This may have resulted as teachers in private schools usually have greater leverage on what they teach and how it delivered. It is therefore clear that teacher burnout is affected most significantly by the environments that the teachers are placed in, rather than intrinsic factors that teachers possess. This research could be further developed by using a sequential design in order to identify specific patterns that may precede the onset of teacher burnout.