The purpose of this study lies in examining the characteristics of job stress and burnout of teachers at special classes for the handicapped in the elementary and their correlation in order to find countermeasures and prevention measures and to improv...
The purpose of this study lies in examining the characteristics of job stress and burnout of teachers at special classes for the handicapped in the elementary and their correlation in order to find countermeasures and prevention measures and to improve the efficiency of education for the handicapped.
The survey was conducted on 264 teachers at special classes in elementary schools for the handicapped located in Kyungsangbuk-do and Taegu city by sending questionnaires to them by mail. For this study, 'Stress Profile for Teacher (SPT)' written by Wilson (1981) and 'MBI (Maslach Burnout Inventory)' written by Maslach & Jackson (1981) were used as measure materials.
For the data processing of the survey, t-test & F-test were conducted to verify the differences of teachers' job stress & burnout experiences by their background variation, and scheffe verification was conducted for F-test's post verification. To examine the correlation between job stress and burnout of the teachers, pearson's simple correlation analysis was also conducted, and SPSS/Win (version 9.0) Program was used for all data processing.
The conclusions of this survey is as follows :
First, the general tendency of job stress for the teachers of special classes for the handicapped is shown high in 'social support' and 'work environment & conditions.'
To examine job stress characteristics according to teacher's background variation, female teachers were shown higher than male teachers in job stress, and relationship with students, colleagues and student parents were shown statistically meaningful influence on the job stress. By teacher's religious status, non-religious teachers conceived their job stress relatively higher than religious teachers but it was not a significant difference statistically. By teacher's career, teachers of less than 10 years of career showed most job stress, followed by 11-20 years and over 21 years of career, which indicates the lesser the career the more job stress. By teacher's license holding, teacher's license for handicapped holders showed most job stress, followed by regular teacher's license holders and both of regular teacher's license-teacher's license for handicapped holders. By number of students in charge, teachers for 9 or more students in charge showed highest job stress, followed by 5 or less students and 6-8 students.
Second, to examine general tendency of burnout experience perceived by teachers at special classes for the handicapped is shown that they experienced most in 'emotional burnout' and 'loss of personal achievement sense.'
To examine the differences in burnout according to teacher's background variation, female teachers showed higher job stress than male teachers while there was no statistically significant differences in religious status though teachers having religious belief showed a bit higher job stress than have-nots. By teaching career, teachers of 10 years or less career showed most burnout experience, followed by teachers of 11-20 years and 21 years or more career. By teacher's license holding, teacher's license for handicapped holders were highest, followed by both of regular teacher's license·teacher's license for handicapped holders and regular teacher's license holders. By number of students in charge, teachers for 9 or more students were highest, while followed by 5 or less and 6-8 students in charge.
Third, the relation between job stress and burnout of teachers at special classes for the handicapped is shown r=.33, which indicates static correlation.
To examine the relation between burnout's subordinate factors and job stress, the results were shown as emotional burnout (r=.33), inhumanization (r=.22), and loss of personal achievement sense (r=.26) are statically correlated to job stress and burnout.
To anaIyse the relation between job stress subordinate factors and burnout, it was shown as physical symptom (r=.31), relationship with colleagues (r=.30), relationship with student parents (r=.27) have comparably higher relation than other job stress factors.
To examine the relation between job stress subordinate factors and burnout, relationship with students vs loss of personal achievement sense (r=22), relationship with seniors vs emotional burnout (r=.31), relationship with colleagues vs emotional burnout (r=.34), relationship student parents vs loss of personal achievement sense, loss of personal achievement sense and miscellaneous duties vs emotional burnout (r=.23), work environment and conditions vs emotional burnout (r=.19), physical symptoms vs inhumanization (r=.28), and psychological symptom vs emotional burnout (r=.17) were shown high relation.
Based on this conclusion, I'd like to propose following suggestions.
1. Due to the fact that the survey conducted on only the teachers at special classes in elementary schools for the handicapped in Kyungsangbuk-do and Taegu city area, the results derived from this study cannot be generalized for other teachers in other areas and teachers of special classes in middle & high school for the handicapped. Therefore, additional study which includes all teachers of special classes for the handicapped in the country is demanded.
2. In the questionnaire organizing, sex, religious status, teacher's license holding, number of students in charge were dealt for the job stress and burnout analysis according to teacher's background variation, but it suggests its limitation that many other influential factors are not comprehensively included. In following studies, this should be supplemented for more comprehensively results.
3. Studies on job stress in teaching and burnout of not only teachers at special classes for the handicapped but also regular teachers at regular schools who are educating or dealing with handicapped children should be conducted.
4. Through more social support and improvement in working environment 8z conditions for the teachers of special classes for the handicapped, plans and measures for improving education efficiency and putting out their utmost ability having voluntary enthusiasm and pride should be designed and created.