Since September of 2005, the school counselors have been assigned to the schools in Korea, starting from all the offices of education, taking full charge of counseling the students without any subject given to teach. It has been done in order to preve...
Since September of 2005, the school counselors have been assigned to the schools in Korea, starting from all the offices of education, taking full charge of counseling the students without any subject given to teach. It has been done in order to prevent teenager crimes, internet addictions, and all kinds of deviations of teenagers including school dropouts. However, this attempt which came up as a solution to the teenagers at risk is still in the beginning stages, with several aspects to be improved. For example, school counselors often face a role conflict, since they are uniquely given two different responsibilities; to be a teacher as well as a counselor. They are sometimes vulnerable to several kinds of mistreatment, such as a smaller salary, lower positions, or more demanding work, since the operation system for the school counselors has not been clearly defined. Yet, what is interesting is that some school counselors have been able to find their identity without much of the burnout symptoms in spite of the challenges they face. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to see if there were some factors that prevent the counselors from getting burnout. Since school counseling is still new to schools, it is necessary to pay attention not only to the difficulties but also to the positive structural aspects that could have contributed to the satisfactory establishment of the school counselors. Thus, this study investigated the effects of the challenges and social support on the burnout of the school counselors, highlighting the positive elements that might have prevented them from getting burnout even in the midst of the occupational stresses and difficulties.
The subjects were two hundred and three school counselors in the offices of education or in schools. In order to measure the level and cause of burnout, the study made use of Maslach and Burnout Inventory (MBI) created by Maslach and Jackson(1981), which was translated by Sung-ho Park(2001). To evaluate the occupational stresses for the school counselors, the study used the questionnaire made by Jayaratne and Chess(1981), which was translated by Bu-sung Yoon(2000). A questionnaire, developed by Caplan, Cobb, French, Harrison and Pinneau(1980) and translated by Sung-ho Park(2001), were also used to check social support that the school counselors were able to recognize.
Firstly, the study investigated the reliability of the inventories and the questionnaires by calculating Cronbach's alpha, finding correlation of the variables. Secondly, to measure how the risk elements contribute to burnout, the study sets the systematic challenges as independent variables, while keeping burnout as a dependent variable, coming up with the stepwise multiple regression analysis. Thirdly, to evaluate social supports and their impact on burnout of the school counselors, the study put the various social supports, having burnout as a dependent variable. Lastly, to see the moderating effect of the social supports on the occupational stresses that could have lead to burnout, the study did the hierarchical multiple regression analysis.
The finding were as follows:
Firstly, the occupational stresses of the school counselors have significant influence on leading them to burnout.
Secondly, the social supports that the school counselors themselves sense have a power to ease the stresses that might have caused burnout. According the study, it was evident that the school counselors could experience less burnout when they receive social support from supervisors or colleagues than when they do not.
Thirdly, even when they were in the process of getting burnout, it turned out that the social supports that the school counselors got could ease the process. Therefore, in order to reduce the burnout of the school counselors, which would eventually enhance the quality of the counseling that they give to the students, it is important to organize the social support structure that would allay the occupational stresses of the school counselors.
Lastly, with studies like this, I hope that there would be more serious attempts to help the school counselors who are trying hard to reduce misbehavior and deviations of the students despite the poor working conditions that still need institutional compliments.