The Phenomenon of Teacher Burnout: Mitigating its Influence on New Teachers

Burnout is a psychological condition with physical, emotional, and mental dimensions. Burnout often includes feelings of exhaustion, long-term fatigue, negative self-concept, despair or hopelessness, frustration, and a lack of productivity at work. Teacher burnout is a well-known and researched field. It has been documented in the literature that teachers experience high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion, which leads to high levels of burnout and professional attrition. This study examined the incidence of burnout in new elementary school teachers and makes recommendations for changes to organizational structure that may reduce professional burnout. For the purpose of this study five new elementary-level teachers, with less than five years of experience, from several school districts in the San Francisco Bay Area were selected. Researchers conducted informal as well as formal surveys of self-reported stress levels using the teachers’ own descriptions of their daily stressors as well as implementing the Maslach Burnout Inventory (1986) measure. Researchers then synthesized these findings and use this information to suggest ways in which organizational change can alleviate, rather than add to teacher burnout. Keywords: Teacher burnout, engagement, stress, new teachers, elementary educatio