Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Kristian Veit

Publication Date

5-2024

Scholarship Domain(s)

Scholarship of Discovery

Abstract

Burnout in educators can be attributed to high stress, increased demands, and a lack of resources, leading to high levels of turnover. Personal resources, such as optimism and spirituality, have been shown to individually have a negative correlation with burnout but have not been evaluated jointly to predict burnout in an educational setting. This research determines the relative contribution of optimism and spirituality to the three facets of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. An electronic survey consisting of the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Life Orientation Test-Revised, and the Spirituality at Work Scale was completed by educators of different levels ranging from preschool to post-secondary education. The regression analysis of both predictors, optimism and spirituality, were overall significant for each facet of burnout. The results support that both optimism and spirituality, together, negatively correlate with emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. In contrast, optimism and spirituality, together, positively correlate with personal accomplishment. With these results in mind, fostering a more supportive work environment for educators may mitigate the effects of burnout, increasing educator satisfaction and improving the overall quality of education. This could provide valuable insight to future research in developing interventions to enhance the well-being of educators and employees experiencing burnout.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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