A study of the relation between special education burnout and job satisfaction (original) (raw)
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Attrition of Special Educators: Why They Leave and Where They Go. Working Paper
1995
Telephone interviews concerning special education teacher attrition were conducted with 96 former special education teachers in Florida. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to analyze the interview data. Participants had not returned to their special education teaching positions after the 1992-93 school year. The majority of these leavers indicated that they had taken positions that were education-related. Disgruntled teachers (n=49) made up the largest category of leavers. Nondisgruntled teachers (N=36) made up the second largest category *
Special Education Teacher Burnout: A Synthesis of Research from 1979 to 2013
Education and Treatment of Children, 2014
Teacher burnout occurs when teachers undergoing stress for long periods of time experience emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment (Maslach, 2003). Outcomes associated with burnout include teacher attrition, teacher health issues, and negative student outcomes. Special educators are at high risk for burnout as their working conditions align with many factors associated with burnout. In this review, we updated the literature on special education teacher working conditions by reviewing studies (N = 23) that (a) included a quantitative measure of burnout and (b) focused on special education teachers as participants. An analysis of the studies reviewed provided a clear base of support for the association between burnout and a range of variables from the individual, classroom, school, and district levels. Bronfenbrenner's (1977) Ecological Model supplied the organizational framework for the range of variables. Teacher experience, student disability, role conflict, role ambiguity, and administrative support were particularly salient factors in special education teacher burnout. Important gaps in the research are discussed, future directions for researchers are outlined, and implications for teachers and other practitioners are provided.
1995
This paper reports on a study investigating the issues that most significantly influence urban special education teachers' decisions to leave the field voluntarily or transfer to a different type of educational position. First, it presents the results of post-attrition interviews with 17 special educators who left their positions during or immediately following the 1991-92 school vear and then reports results of a survey of 868 special educators in three urban areas. The first section of the report describes the sample; explains tho interview design, guide, and process; and reviews data analysis procedures. The second section focuses on three recurrent themes drawn from the interviews: job design, the nature of relations with the central office, and the professional and/or personal fit of their special education teaching assignment. The report then describes the development of the questionnaire used in the survey and procedures employed for descriptive analysis, including factor analysis of all teachers who completed the survey, analysis of those who expressed an intent to leave in the near future, and analysis of differences in profiles of work-related leavers and those who stayed. Data are reported by factors relating to support, preparation, stress related to job design and workload manageability, affective issues related to students, satisfaction and personal assessment of rewards, and role conflict. Appendices provide additional analytical detail. (DB)
Beginning Special Education Teachers: At Risk for Attrition
1992
Recognizing the importance of early experience to job satisfaction and commitment, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of support from administration on the induction and retention of 457 beginning public school, special education teachers. Secondary analysis techniques were applied to information derived from the 1987-88 cross sectional database Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), with concentration on results of the Perceptions and Attitudes toward Teaching section. Findings suggest that the presence of administrative support is significant to beginning special education teachers in scheduling conferences and Individualized Education Plan meetings, providing information, and giving authorization to act; in allowing novices' participation in educational decision making and staff meetings; in providing appropriate resources; and in recognizing progress made. The findings in this study confirm previous research that aspects of the teaching climate can help to ameliorate conditions that may lead to attrition of new teachers. This conclusion may strongly influence educational policy making. It supports the call for the provision of mentoring and other beginning teacher induction programs. (Contains 21 references.) (LL)
Working in Special Education: Factors that Enhance Special Educators' Intent to Stay
Exceptional Children, 2001
T he noted documentarian John Merrow (1999) recently examined national attempts to fill the shortage of qualified teachers, including major recruitment and incentive efforts by various states. He concluded that enhanced teacher recruitment is not the answer: "We're misdiagnosing the problem as 'recruitment' when it's really 'retention.' Simply put, we train teachers poorly and then treat them badly-and so they leave in droves" (p. 64). Merrow's documentary and related arti-cle help once again to highlight a critical issue in special education: the need to retain qualified personnel. A national survey of over 1,000 special educators recently conducted by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) concluded: "Poor teacher working conditions contribute to the high rate of special educators leaving the field, teacher burnout, and substandard quality of education for students with special needs"
An Analysis of Pre-Service Versus Experienced Special-Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Attrition
2014
In this quantitative study, I assessed the presence of factors related to attrition in pre-service special educators. I surveyed 23 pre-service special educators regarding various attrition factors identified in the research literature and then compared their responses to the perceptions of 32 seasoned special educators to test for statistical significance. Participants were located at a large, public university in the southeast United States and the largest public-school system in proximity to the university. The results of the study indicated that attrition factors may be evidenced in preservice educators and therefore detectable prior to entering the teaching field. The study also found that pre-service educators frequently had low expectations for what they would face. For instance, compared to the reality reported by the experienced educators, the pre-service educators expected to do more work and have fewer resources available to them. However, they also expected there to be more collaboration and support, and they expected areas such as paperwork to be more meaningful than the experienced educators reported was the case. The results help to direct future research by noting areas in which the expectations of the pre-service educators differed from those of the experienced educators, such as the expectation of building relationships.
Investigation of Burnout Levels of Special Education Teacher Candidates
International Journal of Disabilities Sports and Health Sciences, 2024
The current research is to examine the burnout levels of special education teacher candidates. This study used a correlational survey design. 311 teacher candidates studying in the special education department in Turkiye in the 2023-2024 academic year participated in the research. The research data were collected through the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Form (MTE-Student Form). The analysis of the obtained data was carried out through the statistical package program. Independent groups ttest was used to reveal the differences in variables related to the gender of the teacher candidates, their satisfaction with the special education teaching department they studied in, and their interaction with individuals with special needs in the past. Oneway analysis of variance ANOVA was used to determine the differentiation in terms of variables related to the grade level of education. In cases where differentiation was understood, the Tukey test was used to reveal the reason for the differentiation and to control the difference between the means. As a result of the research, it is revealed that there is a significant difference (p˂0.05) between the gender, grade level, satisfaction with the special education department and interaction with individuals with special needs in the past and burnout levels of pre-service teachers. In order to reduce burnout in pre-service special education teachers, personal achievement and skills of these individuals should be developed, activities that encourage learning should be included and group work should be included.
Why Stay? A Phenomenological Look at Special Education Teacher Retention
This phenomenological study examined the teaching experiences of veteran special education teachers (SETs) and why they chose to remain in a special education teaching setting. Guided by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems framework, veteran SETs were interviewed and asked to describe the experiences and situations that have influenced their decision to remain in special education. Three themes and two sub-categories emerged as their motivation for persevering: (A) a calling from above, (B) standing up for the underdog, (b) personally committed to my kids, my babies, (C) beating the bushes with the apathetic, (c) against my ethical judgment. Specific information related to these themes is reported with implications for hiring practices of special education teachers and future special education teacher retention/attrition research.
Burnout among Special Educators: A Meta-Analysis
This paper presents a meta analysis of the literature on special education teacher burnout. Discussion of a theoretical framework reviews theoretical models of burnout, especially Maslach's model, and stages and constructs of burnout. The meta analysis of 46 studies of special educator burnout with sufficient data for further quantitative analysis addressed 23 research questions. Findings are reported in terms of descriptive analysis of primary studies, descriptive analysis of statistical tests, and independent meta analyses of selected findings. The study found small to negligible negative mean correlations for relationships between the burnout constructs of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment and the predictor construct of experience, suggesting that burnout tends (slightly) to decrease as experience increases. Also, small, negative relationships between age and the burnout constructs of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization suggest that e...