Effect of COVID 19 on Teacher Burnout

Findings and Results

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of COVID-19 on teacher burnout. The study identifies the COVID-19 global pandemic as an example of environmental factors that contribute to or influence teacher burnout. This research was conducted on grounds that teacher well-being remains one of the most critical issues in the United States educational sector. Teacher well-being has gained interest in the U.S. because of the increased diversity and demands across schools and classrooms. Moreover, given the nature of their work, teachers are predisposed to a series of stressors including lack of emotional support, student discipline problems, and poor working conditions (Ross, Romer, & Horner, 2012). To achieve the purpose of the study, four individual teachers were included in the survey. These participants provided significant insights into the issue of teacher burnout, environmental factors contributing to it, and the impact of COVID-19 on teacher burnout.

Results

As previously indicated, a total of four teachers were included in this qualitative survey. The surveyed teachers are from kindergarten, middle school, high school, and higher education. In addition, the study participants are from diverse racial backgrounds and have a working experience in a teaching role of between 5 and more than 20 years. Their experience in teaching makes the ideal participants as they provided rich data relating to the issue under investigation. Teachers from these different schools were identified in order for the researcher to have a wider perspective of the issue under investigation.

Data obtained from participants was analyzed using the thematic analysis technique, which is a qualitative data analysis technique that identifies themes and patterns in existing data. The emerging themes and patterns are in turn utilized to answer the research questions and/or achieve the purpose of the study. This analysis revealed four major themes relating to the phenomenon under investigation. The emerging themes and patterns in the dataset are as follows:

Theme #1 - Teacher burnout is multifaceted

One of the emerging themes from the dataset is the view that teacher burnout is multifaceted in nature. Study participants contend that teacher burnout incorporates different dimensions or aspects depending on the experience of the individual. They provided different understandings of this concept based on their experiences while teaching. They state that teacher burnout incorporates physical, psychological, and emotional aspects. Participant #2 and Participant #4 defined teacher burnout as mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion brought about by work and impacting one’s life. Participant #2 said that teacher burnout “means mentally and physically a person’s life is impacted by work and they need to make a change.” Participant #4 agreed by stating, “burnout means that you are physically, mentally, and emotionally drained. It encompasses the idea of being in a state of constant exhaustion because you are overworked and always feel swamped.” As evident in their statements, the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion are a result of work.

While Participant #1 and Participant #3 did not use the terms physical, mental, or psychological, and emotional exhaustion, they demonstrated the multifaceted nature of teacher burnout by sharing their thoughts. Participant #3 said it is “someone no longer having the energy, passion, or commitment to do their job effectively.” Despite not experiencing teacher burnout, Participant #3 believes that the lack of energy, devotion and passion carry out job responsibilities effectively could be an indicator of burnout. Participant #1 showed the multifaceted nature of teacher burnout by prioritizing different major points. He stated that teacher burnout incorporates “lack of consistency in teaching, lack of appreciation, repetitiveness, lack of support from the school community, systematic and structural issues, and conflict and staff inconsistency.”

Participants #1, #2, and #4 provided their views of teacher burnout based on their individual experiences. Their view of teacher burnout as a multifaceted concept is influenced by their own experiences in the teaching profession. However, Participant #3 defined this concept based on his thoughts or ideas rather than personal experiences. He reported not experiencing burnout throughout his profession but believed it incorporates exhaustion across different domains of an individual’s wellbeing.

Despite demonstrating the multifaceted nature of teacher burnout, Participant #2 does not believe that it is around safety as shown in research. Therefore, safety is not one of the dimensions or aspects of teacher burnout. On the question of whether teacher burnout is related to issues of safety, Participant #2 states, “I am going to overly say no, I am a fairly large male, so I think that helps play into like me not feeling unsafe.”

Theme #2 - Teacher burnout has significant effects on workload

All participants reported that burnout affected their workload and forced them to make changes to their work. While three of them increased their workload due to burnout, the remaining one did not change the workload but instead change the type and level of classes he/she was teaching. Participant #1 stated, “As teachers have been leaving the profession this year I find myself having to supplement for their jobs and help to rectify conflicts that students have with substitutes or themselves. I have had to rewrite a 6th-grade curriculum that I have never taught before…” In concurrence, Participant #2 stated, “Yes, of course…” on the question of whether burnout has affected his/her workload. Participant #4 reported that burnout “has negatively impacted my workload.” Burnout has made him feel unable to complete tasks he was assigned as a DL teacher. He has struggled with increased workload as he is “not completing IEPs at the level of accuracy and proficiency I want to be completing them at. I also feel that my DL students are not receiving the best modifications on their handouts/assignments because I feel so overwhelmed by other responsibilities. I feel that I am being stretched so thin that I can only complete the tasks assigned to me at 50% accuracy.”

To demonstrate that teacher burnout has increased his workload, Participant #4 further states that “the combination of IEP season coupled with the Biology situation, has increased my workload significantly.” The switch to online teaching did not help lessen his workload as he experienced frustrations and difficulties to “get students to engaged in rigorous critical thinking skill for reasonable periods of time like 20-30 mins.”

On the contrary, Participant #3 stated that burnout forced him to reduce his workload. He states “…I stopped teaching remedial reading and writing and moved to entirely college-level courses.” His decision to lessen the workload was also influenced by personal factors relating to taking care of a toddler as a foster parent.

Theme #3 - Personal, home, and school environment influence teacher burnout

The levels of burnout among teachers are affected by personal factors as well as issues in their home and school environment. These factors can be the cause of burnout, influence burnout levels, and prevention/response measures adopted by an individual teacher. For Participant #3, personal and home environment factors shaped the strategies he adopted to prevent experiencing burnout. In this case, personal factors and issues at home shaped what he did to avoid burnout. He shifted to teaching entirely college-level courses and stopped teaching remedial reading and writing as he was dealing with issues at home and at school. He said, “…I was dealing with toddler and preschool behaviors as a single parent, at home, I found I no longer had the patience or desire to deal with behavior and executive functioning issues at work as well.”

Participants #1, #2, #3, and #4 stated that the nature of the school environment was a major environmental factor contributing to burnout. They reported the lack of support from the school and district as a major cause of their experiences of burnout. Participant #1 reported not having support from the school and district except “peers I am close with.” In concurrence, Participant #2 stated that the school and district simply focus on hiring more teachers “but salvaging teachers and taking care of those who are already here does not seem a priority.” On the question of whether there is adequate support to address burnout at the school and district, Participant #3 simply stated, “No.” He further stated that the administration simply thinks that laying out a teaching plan is adequate to help teachers address burnout. In essence, by creating a teaching plan, the administration believes that all is well with the teachers. The administration’s perception demonstrates the lack of support at the school and even made Participant #3 think “this is going to be my last time teaching…” In concurrence, Participant #4 said, “Unit plans are a big ask and have been a cause for burnout for many teachers at the school.”

Additionally, Participant #4 said, “I do not feel there is support in place at the school and especially at the district level to address teacher burnout. I believe that the school speaks highly of ensuring that teachers have SEL specifically geared towards teachers, however, I think it is spoken about but not respected or implied.” While his school emphasizes the significance of teachers taking time away from their jobs, it does not uphold these ideas. The failure to uphold these ideas results in a lack of support from the school and district. According to Participant #4, the school and district would provide support by adopting strategies like “admin check-ins, or coaching. I also think there needs to be more thought in regards of new teachers vs. veteran teachers- more scaffolding for new teachers vs. veterans.” He further stated that while the school has a designated mentor teacher and a separate designated instructional coach, more should be done to support teachers. He said, “it would have been incredibly beneficial to have those two positions come and assist/work with the biology sub to help her understand the curriculum and just basic questions about how our school functions.” And adds “this would have taken a lot of pressure off of me.”

Theme #4 - COVID-19 had mixed impacts on teaching experience and burnout

Participant #1 and Participant #3 report that COVID-19 significantly impacted their teaching experiences. They stated that the impact of COVID-19 on their teaching experiences was linked to the emergence of digital learning. Students faced high academic fatigue because the digital format of learning made it difficult to sustain direct instruction. Participant #1 said, “I have seen students’ lack of writing ability and cognitive focus extremely declined because of the use of a digital platform. There is also high academic fatigue where the students have a difficult time sustaining direct instruction.” Participant #2 reported feeling strained by the digital learning format to an extent that he “strongly considered early retirement or a career change if I had to remain on zoom, and began pursuing an alternate certification in another field.” This was because the digital learning format worsened his health problem since he was already suffering from an autoimmune disorder.

Participant #2 and Participant #4 had different experiences relating to the impact of COVID-19 on their teaching experiences and burnout. For Participant #2, COVID-19 generated positive teaching experiences because of the digital learning format. He believes that digital learning created a low behavioral intervention setting for teachers and enables some of them to accomplish more because student behavior was easy to manage. Participant #2 said, “It has taught me the joy of teaching in a low behavioral intervention setting. My remote learning classes accomplished more than previous years because behavior was easier to manage.” On the contrary, Participant #4 stated that COVID-19 had no impact on him since learning was still in person as many people in the state and school ignored the health protocols. Participant #4 said, “…COVID protocols were very much ignored and did not really ever affect my experience as a teacher.” On his part, Participant #3 said, “I think the school was prepared for COVID because when COVID first broke out,… the school was already a 1:1 school. We had platforms such as Schoology to help students online which they were familiar with. Each student already had their own Chromebooks and were able to use it on their own.”

These participants also reported varied experiences on whether they were better prepared as educators to handle the impact of the virus on teaching and student learning. Participant #1 stated that they were better prepared to handle the implications of COVID-19 on teaching through technology skills. He reported, “…I was skilled in technology.” On the other hand, Participant #2, and Participant #4 disagreed by stating that they were not prepared to handle COVID-19 and its effects on the overall teaching experience and student learning. Participant #2 said, “Not prepared at all. Everything was fly by night so to speak.” Participant #3 stated, “Everything would have been fine with me if the physical experience of teaching online wasn't so painful.”

Discussion

This study has provided significant insights into the issue of teacher burnout, environmental factors, and how it was affected by COVID-19. As evident in the findings of this study, teacher burnout refers to the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion brought about by work. This definition is consistent with the findings of existing studies, which state that teacher burnout has three dimensions i.e. physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness (Shirom & Melamed, 2006; Maslach, Jackson & Leiter, 1997; Chang, 2009). These three dimensions form the premise with which burnout affects teachers’ effectiveness in their specific roles and their overall input into student learning. As evident in this study, the physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion are attributable to and affect teacher workload. Burnout is essentially as a result of being overwhelmed by work. On the other hand, burnout forces teachers to either increase or reduce their workloads. Therefore, study findings indicate that there is a strong link between teacher burnout and workload.

Study findings indicate that teacher burnout is associated with various environmental factors including administrative issues, lack of support from peers, poor teaching environment, family problems/issues at home, and workload. Graber (2018) notes that environmental stressors or factors like school policies, working conditions, and on-the-job demands contribute to teacher burnout. These stressors are factors outside the teacher as a human being. In this case, these environmental stressors are evident in the form of structural issues within the learning environment. Some of these teachers faced instructional factors like workload and felt under-supported by their peers/leaders (Buchanan, 2012). In addition, personal stressors/factors are those related to the teacher that could contribute to teacher burnout. This study found family problems or issues at home as personal factors that result in teacher burnout. This means that teacher burnout is brought about by a myriad of factors including personal factors and issues at home and the school environment.

On the impact of COVID-19, the study found that the major effect of the global pandemic was the transition to online teaching and instruction. As part of efforts to mitigate the spread and effects of COVID-19, schools were forced to transition to online classrooms and instruction. For most of these teachers the impact of COVID-19 on the teaching experience was essentially the transition to online learning. However, the study established mixed results on whether teachers and their schools were prepared to handle the implications of COVID-19 as educators. Some of these teachers report that they were adequately prepared to handle the implication of COVID-19. They believed that possessing technology skills and the existence of an online learning platform prior to COVID-19 enhanced their preparedness for the implications of the virus on the overall teaching and student learning experience. Therefore, this finding contradicts those of Flaherty (2020) who contends that educators had little to no adequate training since the transition to online teaching and instruction was abrupt and unexpected. On the other hand, some teachers believed that they were not better prepared to deal with the implications of the virus on the education sector. They believe that everything happened abruptly and unexpectedly, which concurs with the study by Flaherty (2020).