Burnout, Self-Efficacy, and Coping Strategies Among College Faculty

Due to the changing college environment, university faculty are faced with a serious burden to support their university. University faculty are expected to satisfy numerous job demands, and these demands in turn lead to burnout, a chronic response to job stressors. Burnout is an essential component of occupational research as it relates to other negative outcomes, such as turnover and decreased performance. Because of this, it behooves both faculty and universities to employ methods that decrease burnout. Research concerning other populations indicates that certain personal resources can decrease burnout. Therefore, the current study seeks to determine if coping strategies and self-efficacy are useful for decreasing burnout. Furthermore, this study distinguishes between research and non-research universities following the Carnegie Classifications. Faculty were collected from five universities from the Eastern United States. The results suggest that faculty at both types of universities experience levels of burnout similar to that of medical professionals. Approach-based coping strategies can be useful in decreasing burnout, but avoidance-based coping strategies only serve to potentially increase burnout. Despite expectations, self-efficacy was not related to burnout, and potential explanations are offered. In conclusion, burnout is an important consideration for both individual faculty members as well as higher education institutions in general, and approach-based coping strategies may be helpful for reducing burnout levels