Romanian teachers burnout and psychological and professional

difficulties
Lecturer Ovidiu GAVRILOVICI, Ph.D.

Summary
Burnout syndrome has three components emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and
reduced professional efficacy. The authors investigated this syndrome on 178 teachers in primary,
secondary, and high schools and special schools in Iasi County, during 2007-2009. The authors
adapted Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and showed that teachers indicate higher scores of
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, compared to studies in other European countries. The
instrument proves to have psychometric qualities to be used in epidemiological studies for
professionals in educational field.

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Method
2.1. Sampling and data collection
2.2. Data analysis
2.3. Results
2.4. Discussion

1.

Introduction

In the literature search we found that the teachers difficulties associates with a
syndrome of emotional fatigue, chronical fatigue that can reduce the satisfaction working with
students (Instrand, 2002). Teachers tend to be less emotionally involved in their activity, and
also show lower self image and lower self esteem. That is why, initially, there was a tendency
to consider Jackson and Maslach model underlines the physical symptoms, while in fact, the
psychological symptoms are present, too.
Schaufeli and colleagues (2003) considered that the best approach to the phenomenon
of teachers difficulties is characterized in three dimensions, that is, a physical dimension
related to exhaustion as an external symptom, a mental distancing from didactic regular
teacher activities, and a third dimension, related to the perception of a reduced professional
efficacy.
The study of burnout was recently done with more refined methodology and
instruments. The complex relationships between organizational factors and the three burnout
factors requested structural equation modeling. This approach permitted researchers to
examine the contribution of several potential influences and several consequences in the same
time, separating the unique factors of the redundant ones in the development of the burnout
concept.
Some longitudinal studies started to reveal the relationships between a work
environment at a certain time, and the individual attitudes and feelings. Beyond the statement
of the basic premise that burnout is a consequence of the interaction between the individual
and the workplace, longitudinal studies are important to determine the impact of the
interventions aimed at preventing or reducing burnout.
Teachers tend to be described in many studies as having one of the most stressing
occupations (Yong and Yue, 2007, Gold and Roth, 1993, Dunham, 1992, and Kyriacou,
1

1987). Teachers burnout affect the schooling climate, decrease workplace motivation and
increases the probability of personnel turnover.
Hiebert (1988),. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define workplace stress as reactions of
people who perceive external requests as over passing their resistance and result in
physiological, psychological and behavioral changes (Young and Yu, 2007, p. 79).
Freudenberger proposed the concept of burnout in 1974 to describe mental and
physical exhaustion determined by the excessive hours of work, high load of tasks, or
exaggerated work intensity. Later, Maslach (1982) describes the three components of the
burnout syndrome: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and the perceived low
professional efficacy.
Emotional exhaustion (EE) is expressed as lack of enthusiasm and the feeling of
emotional draining by others. Depersonalization (DEP) is the emotionally dry, detached,
manner of relating to others, in teachers case, relating to students, mainly. Loosing the
feeling of success is defined as perceived reduced professional efficacy (RPE), that is,
reporting serialization feelings relative to professional life.
2. Method
2.1. Sampling and data collection
The first stage of the study comprised of a qualitative research of teachers difficulties
in Iasi County roundtables with experts from the Iasi County Center for Psycho-educational
Assistance and the Iasi County School Inspectorate along with the university research team
members recommended the use of a stratified sample of public schools and special schools.
All the teachers in the selected schools were invited to participate in the study.
A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed, out of which 176 were used for the
quantitative analysis, a 88% response rate. As a result of the qualitative study and the
recommendations of the experts the authors added and adapted version of the Maslach
Burnout Inventory (MBI), with 22 items (Maslach and Johnson, 1981).
The instrument. The original MBI instrument with 22 items was back-and-forth
translated. The differences of items were negotiated by a team of two psychologists
knowledgeable in English. Differences were consensually resolved.
The study sample comprised of teachers with an age mean of 40.6 (SD=11.4 years)
with an average seniority of 17 years on the job (SD=11.7 years), with a minimum of 0 and a
maximum of 42 years of experience on the job. Over 56% of the sample has an experience in
teaching starting after the Revolution in 1989. That means that in our public education system
there are more professionals hired after 1989 than teachers with a didactic experience from
the communist regime, before 1989. There was no significant statistical difference of the
average of length of work history, on genders.
Work history and age are directly correlated (Pearson r = 0.89, p<0.05). Due to the
differences in the age limit for pension, males age average is higher, 45.5 years, and females
is 39.1 years (t(168)=3.25, p<0.05).
The sample was composed of 74.4% women and 23.9% men. Nearly three quarters of
the respondents are married (71.6%) and three quarters live in urban areas of Iasi County.
67.1% of the total number of respondents (N=140) both reside and work in schools in urban
areas. 10% of respondents live in urban areas but they commute to schools in rural areas. Less
teachers (7.1%) live in rural areas and commute to schools in urban areas. The remaining
15.7% of the teachers live and work in rural areas.
2

A third of the teachers work in schools with grades 5-12 and a quarter work in primary
schools. Most of the teachers (52%) have university degrees (BA), 20.5% of them have MA
level postgraduate studies and 20.5% have only high school level education. Almost half of
the teachers graduated higher education from the major Iasi County university, Alexandru
Ioan Cuza in Iasi City.
2.2. Data analysis
Internal consistency of the Romanian version of MBI proved to be close to the original
instrument and similar adaptations in other languages. A principal component analysis was
performed on each MBI subscale. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis using
varimax rotation was performed. The original structure of the MBI was preserved on all three
subscales. Among some of the tested relationships the authors performed independent sample
t-tests to test for mean differences among groups and Pearson correlation among selected
variables.
Table: Reliability measures (Alpha-Cronbach) for MBI subscales
Studies
Total MBI
Emotional Depersonali
exhaustion
zation
Gavrilovici (2008)
Kokkinos (2006)
Maslach (2001)
Dorz et al. (2003)

0,82
0,74
-

0,79
0,85
0,90
0,86

0,62
0,63
0,79
0,65

Reduced
professional
efficacy
0,78
0,79
0,71
0,73

2.3. Results
The average total emotional exhaustion score of teachers with work experience since
the communist regime (work history higher than 17 years) is higher (M=31) than teachers
with less work experience (M=27) (t(133)=2.5, p<0.05). No statistically significant
differences were detected on depersonalization and reduced professional efficacy scores.
This suggests that didactic personnel in the public system of education with over 17
years of work history (hired before 1989) report a higher level of emotional exhaustion than
younger generations of teachers. The gender, marital status, nor the urban/rural residence
status do not have an effect on any of the burnout subscales.
For 162 respondents there are significant differences between the average total score
on emotional exhaustion for teachers with high school land those with postgraduate studies
(see Figure) (Anova F(2)=5,65, p<0,05)
34

Media Scorului TOTAL Epuizare

32

30

28

26

24
liceale

Studii

universitare

postuniversitare

2.4. Discussion
The literature review indicate contradictory findings relating to the relationship of the
marital status and the MBI subscales. Woodside et al. (2008) reports the lack of buffering
effect of marital status against stressors. We consider that, even if included in previous
studies, the marital status is not a relevant variable in a protective model. The marital
satisfaction and the marital or relational conflict levels may more relevant variables which
future studies could use.
Brenninkmeijer, V. and VanY. Peren, N. (2006) recommend considering as having
burnout those people from non-clinical population who have a score over the median of a
normative group for emotional exhaustion, and in the same time, a score over the median on
depersonalization subscale, or a score under the median on the perceived low professional
efficacy subscale. This is called the criterion exhaustion +1. This would be an onedimensional estimate of the percentage of people who indicate burnout, in a certain sample.
There are more critiques relative to the reductionism of the tridimensional scores of
burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and perceived low professional efficacy) to
only one dimension (such as a general burnout score). Using an one-dimensional measure
of burnout we would loose from sight that MBI was designed to describe the syndrome of
three rather orthogonal factors. Other critiques are related to the process stages of burnout
phenomenon. Each of the subscale would describe in a different way the experiencing of
burnout, in its different phases, over time (Brenninkmeijer, V. and VanY. Peren 2006).
On the other hand, there are studies which indicate that emotional exhaustions the
most robust descriptor of burnout. High EE scores associated with DEP or low RPE would
mean an experience of burnout.
Table Average scores and standard deviations (SD) in studies which used MBI
Studies
Emotional
Depersonaliza Perceived
low
exhaustion
tion
professional
efficacy
Average SD
Average SD Average
SD
CNCSIS1480 (2008)
Kokkinos, (2006)
Maslach, et al. (2001)
Romi (2007)
Dorz et al. (2003)

28,34
27,37
21,25
20,27
17,8

9,33
10,91
11,01
11,49
11,9

9,30
4,42
11,0
5,96
4,8

4,34
4,23
6,19
6,95
5,3

22,45
38,13
33,54
23,50
35,9

7,71
6,94
6,89
13,13
8,5

In the literature review there are some studies which suggests the use of score ranges
for each subscale to define three levels of burnout (low, moderate and high) (Maslach, 1981;
Rosenberg and Pace, 2006):
Table: suggested score ranges for each subscale indicative of burnout
Low
Moderate
=<
13
14 20
Emotional
exhaustion
=< 4
57
Depersonalization
>= 34
33 29
Perceived
low
professional efficacy
5

high
>= 20
>= 8
=< 28

In the present study we did not use these score ranges to qualify the level of burnout of
teachers. A larger study on a representative sample of teachers should identify the scores
ranges for the teachers in Romania.
The final analysis took into consideration an aggregated score of seven items
suggested by the participants in the qualitative phase of the research defining a proxy
variable for importance of some factors relevant to the didactic performance (an empirical
operationalization of didactic efficacy). The belief in the relationship between the difficulty of
didactic activity and health status correlate with the total score on Emotional Exhaustion
(Pearson r = 0.44, p<0.05), but does not correlate neither with the total score on
Depersonalization (Pearson r = -0,08, p>0,05) nor with the total score on perceived reduced
professional efficacy (Pearson r = -0,04, p>0,05). It is apparent that teachers who report
higher scores on emotional exhaustion indicate also significant associations with more of the
risk factors identified in the qualitative component of the research.
The cross-sectional research does not permit the identification of causal relationships
(Guglielmi and Tatrow, 1998). There is a need to use longitudinal designs systematically to be
able to capture the causal factors and the stages in which the burnout symptoms interact and
evolve. Other future studies could also take into consideration the measurement of variables
relative to marital or relational stress and its interaction with professional stress, such as a
measure of burnout.
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