Burnout in Student Teachers

Teacher burnout and the influence of personality thereon, as well as that of organisational and environ-mental conditions, have been discussed in several studies. Until now, this syndrome has mainly been ob-served in teachers who have spent many years in the profession. Additionally, there is little clarity offered by those studies as to when the burnout process begins. Recently a few studies have indicated burnout evidence among student and novice teacher samples (e.g., Dückers-Klichowski, 2005), therefore our study used a sample group of 75 student teachers in an attempt to discover whether or not a specific personality structure is more susceptible to the onset of burnout at an earlier stage. In line with Hobfoll’s (1998) con-ception of spirals of resources loss, the study aimed firstly to establish levels of burnout among the sample and, secondly, to investigate correlations between these levels and the subjects ´ own individual and social coping styles, as well as motivation