Part A-research Methodology Assignment.docx

PART A Article critique

Francesca Giovanna Maria Gastaldi, Tiziana Pasta, Cloudio Longobardi,Laura Elvira Prino and Rocco Quaglia. Measuring the influence of stress and burnout in teacher-child relationship. European Journal of Education and Psychology. 2014, Vol 7 page 17-28.

1. Research Area and Research Questions

The focus of this research to study the significant correlations existing between burnout, self efficacy, students’ academic performance and the quality of pupil-teacher relation.

The purpose of this research is to identify the level of burn-out and self-efficacy of the teachers involved by highlighting on the link between these dimensions as well as with the relationship between teacher and pupils based on the level of closeness, conflict and dependence perceived by the teacher and as with pupils’ level of performance. This research also intends to investigate the link between the socio-personal characteristics of the sample, the degree of selfefficacy and the level of burn-out in the participants.

There are few questions that guided the research. First, is the level of burn-out and selfefficacy in teachers are affected by personal and professional variables. Second, is there any correlation among the three dimensions of burn-out syndrome (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal gratification) with the degree of burnout. Third, is the teacher’s perception of the relationship (conflict, dependence & closeness) with specific child will give effect to the level of burnout in the teacher.

Hypothesis i.

There is a relationship between burnout and self efficacy.

ii.

There is relationship between self efficacy and pupils-teacher.

The variables that being investigated are based on the types of instruments that been used in the research. Personal variables such as age, marital status , presence and number of children and professional variables such as year of teaching experience, qualifications, type of contract, class teacher or support teacher, subject taught and class size are being investigate to see the relationship with the level of burn-out and self efficacy. In the other test, emotion exhaustion, depersonalization and personal gratification becomes the variables to be investigated. The variables that are being investigated in teacher’s perception of his or her relationship with pupils are conflict, dependence and closeness. i.

Dependent variable 

ii.

Pupils-teacher relationship

Independent variable 

Level of burnout



Level of self eficacy

Theoretical framework

strees

burnout • emotional exhaustion • depersonalization • personal gratification

Methodology

Sample selection

self eficacy • self efficacy in school context • self efficacy in class context

Pupils-teacher Relationship

There are 37 participants in this research. The samples are randomly selected among the teachers of year 1, 2 and 3 at seven state primary schools in Piedmont (north-western Italy). There are four instruments being used in this research specially designed Form for registration of sociopersonal and professional data, Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Classroom and School Context Teacher Self-efficacy Scale (CSC-TSES) and Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS). The specially designed form for registration of socio-personal and professional data is used to gather the information of personal variables such as age, marital status, presence and number of children and of professional variables such as years of teaching experience, qualifications, type of contract, whether class teacher or support teacher, subject taught and class size. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) designed by Maslach & Jackson (1981) was used in version adapted for the Italian educational context by Talamo (1989). This test consist of 22 items that assessing three dimension of burn-out syndrome : Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP) and Personal Gratification (PG). The subjects has to respond by indicating the frequency from 0 “never” to 6 “daily” with which the situation described is experienced at work. The Classroom and School Context Teacher Self-efficacy Scale (CSCTSES) that was used in this research was the Italian version by Di Fabio & Taralla (2003,2006). It used to assess the perception of teachers’ sense of personal efficacy which evaluates two components the Efficacy in the class context (theoretical score range: 19-114) and the Efficacy in the school context (theoretical score range: 8-48). The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS) in this study was the adapted version to the Italian context by Flaire et al. (2008) it was used to assess the teacher-pupil relationship in three dimensions. The first dimension is Conflict which is referring to the perception of negative aspects and difficulties present in the relationship. The second dimension is Dependence that indicates how dependent the teacher feels the pupils is on him or her. The third dimension is Closeness which considering the aspects of sharing and affinity. The STRS involving twelve pupils (six boys and six girls) in class that drawn randomly by the teacher.

Based on MBI results it showed that teacher perceive low level of emotional exhaustion and of depersonalization and moderate levels of personal gratification hence there is low degree of burnout. It also showed the positive correlation between emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and negative correlation of personal gratification with both emotional

exhaustion and depersonalization. CSC-TSES found that neither burnout level of self efficacy level are related to personal and professional variables such as age, marital status, year of teaching, length of service in present school of class, subject area taught and class size. However CSC-TSES show there are association between burnout level and self efficacy with variables such as whether the teacher has children, qualification and kind of contract. Teacher without children show greater level of personal gratification and lower levels of depersonalisation. As the number of children goes up so does the sense of depersonalisation while the level of personal gratification falls. In the context of the kind of contract, teachers that graduate in Primary Teaching or those having specific school leaving certificate perceived the lower levels of depersonalisation and highest levels of class self efficacy and school self efficacy while the permanent teachers fells more self efficacy in class and more personal gratification. Support teachers fell more personal gratification then the class teacher. The results also show there are correlations and associations between dimensions of MBI and CSC-TSES where the increase in sense of self efficacy in class correspond to a growth in professional satisfaction and inversely, a reduction in the sense of emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. Personal gratification also correlates positively with the sense of School Self-efficacy.

This data confirms what the

literature reports about the links between self-efficacy and burnout where that those who feel lacking in competence and self-efficacy in class are more exposed to the burnout syndrome (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010; Friedman, 2003; Friedman & Faber, 1992; Brouwers & tomic, 2000; Ross, 1998). Based on the analysis of the correlations between the single items of the scales, it shows that a greater workload corresponds to higher levels of Emotional Exhaustion and also to a more rigid and less flexible class management style. Teacher with low self-efficacy tend to manage the class in a more controlling and authoritarian way (Chacon, 2005; Woolfolk et al., 1990). The present research too founds that lower levels of teacher burn-out will linked to the ability to manage the class more flexibly. There less the teacher affected by burn-out the more empathy he/she shows, the more he/she feels able to deal successfully with conflictual situations with the pupils, allowing them to take part in decision about leaning, as shown by Midgley et al. (1988). In the STRS shows a high average level of closeness and low levels of conflict and dependence. Class self-efficacy correlates negatively with the teacher’s perception about the levels of conflict in relating to the pupils. This as shown by Melby (1995) and by Pianta et al. (2005) , a low sense of self-efficacy in class management is tied to a greater likelihood of

conflictual relationships with the pupils. The MBI dimensions of personal gratification and depersonalization are correlating significantly with the average score assigned by the teachers to the conflict dimension in relationships with individual pupils in class self-efficacy. Teacher will fell more self-efficacy in class and more personal gratification when there is a greater number of pupils perceived putting high effort into the activities presented. This predictive value of teachers’ beliefs about efficacy in foreseeing the pupils’ school performance has been underlined by various authors (Ross, 1998; Guisti & Testi, 2006). School self-efficacy on the other hands is not tied to any dimension of the teacher-pupils relationship. As the number of pupils with high level of effort per class and the number of high achieving pupils increase, the levels of Emotional Exhaustion gets lower and so does the risk of burn-out of the teacher. Teacher with more gratification and self efficacy are more likely to have more motivated pupils who achieved better results. The positive correlations exist between the number of low-achieving pupils and the levels of Dependence and the number of pupils with low effort and levels of conflict.

Findings and Discussion

Conclusion From this study we can see that the whole sample are not greatly affected by the burn-out syndrome, presenting low average levels of Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization, and high levels of Personal Gratification. The degree of self-efficacy is medium to high. The average level of Closeness is high and levels of Conflict and Dependence are low. The reciprocal influence is observed between the level of teacher’s self-efficacy and the degree of burn-out where it showed negative correlation between the teacher’s self efficacy in class, Emotional Exhaustion and Depersonalization, found by Skaalvik & Skaalvik (2010). However other scholars (friedman, 2003; friedman & farber, 1992; Brouwers & tomic, 2000) shows that teachers with low self-efficacy are more vulnerable to burnout and, at the same time, that the onset of burn-out can undermine their sense of self-efficacy. The level of emotional and psychological well-being is also correlated to low levels of conflict perceived in relations with the pupils which is also found in the findings of Yoon (2002), Melby (1995) and Pianta et al. (2005). This study need to be taken to the broader spectrum with concern the big number of participant, at different types of primary school or to adopt a longitudinal approach in order to

explore the direction of causal relations between some of dimension examined such as the personal factors of self-esteem, resilience and coping, along with the perceptions of the context.