This study examined the relationship between select role-related stressors, as measured by the Teacher Stress Measure, as well as the background variables of gender, years of experience as aspects of educator burnout, as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). From a sample of 104 educators from schools in the Pietermaritzburg region, it was found that burnout is exhibited largely through feelings of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment. While both males and females appear to be affected similarly, the less experienced educators appeared to be more susceptible to burnout than their more experienced counterparts. This study also indicated that stressors such as redeployment, promotion and salary correlated with burnout, although not significantly. Learner pressures, lack of support and recognition, poor interpersonal relationships, role ambiguity, role conflict, lack of decision-making and role insufficiency (which encapsulates the issue of Outcomes Based Education) were found to have a significant influence on educator burnout. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

Bisherige Studien deuten an, dass Emotionale Intelligenz eine wichtige Rolle in der Lehrtätigkeit spielt. Sie hilft dem Lehrer bzw. der Lehrerin mit sich selbst, aber auch mit Schülern klarzukommen. Jedoch ist bislang noch weitgehend unklar, welche Mechanismen dem Zusammenhang zwischen Emotionaler Intelligenz und berufsnahen Kriterien zugrundeliegen. Zur Klärung dieser Frage soll die vorliegende Arbeit einen Beitrag leisten. Emotionale Intelligenz wird dabei in Anlehnung an Mayer und Salovey (1997) als Fähigkeit aufgefasst. Die vorliegende Arbeit umfasst drei Artikel. Der erste Artikel beschäftigt sich mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen wahrgenommener Emotionaler Intelligenz des Lehrers und Schülerverhalten im Klassenraum. Gefunden wurde, dass Lehrer über weniger unpassendes Verhalten ihrer Schüler berichten, wenn sie selbst über hohe emotionale Fähigkeiten verfügen. Hohe Emotionale Intelligenz scheint positiv verbunden zu sein mit der Tendenz, auf die Bedürfnisse der Schüler zu fokussieren, die wiederum weniger unpassendes Verhalten im Klassenraum zeigen. Im zweiten Artikel wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Emotionaler Intelligenz und Burnout untersucht. Proaktives Coping wurde als Mediator zwischen Emotionaler Intelligenz und Burnout angenommen. Daneben wurde geprüft, ob die wahrgenommene Unterstützung durch den Vorgesetzten den vermuteten Zusammenhang zwischen Emotionaler Intelligenz und Burnout und die Dimension moderiert. Die Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Lehrer mit hoher Emotionaler Intelligenz deshalb weniger Burnout-Symptome zeigen, weil sie dazu tendieren, proaktives Coping als Strategie der Stressbewältigung zu nutzen. Sie können ihre Kompetenzen und Ressourcen offensichtlich situationsangemessen einsetzen, um emotional anspruchsvolle Situationen am Arbeitsplatz zu meistern. Darüber hinaus zeigt sich, dass wahrgenommene Unterstützung durch den Vorgesetzten den Zusammenhang zwischen Emotionaler Intelligenz und Burnout moderiert: Für Lehrer, die angaben, von ihrem Vorgesetzten unterstützt zu werden, zeigte sich der indirekte Effekt von Emotional Intelligenz auf wahrgenommene Leistungsfähigkeit über proaktives Coping deutlicher. Die Beziehung zwischen positivem und negativem Affekt, Arbeitszufriedenheit und Burnout ist Inhalt des dritten Artikels. Gefunden wurde, dass Lehrer mit hohem positiven Affekt zufriedener mit ihrer Arbeit sind als Lehrer, die negativen Affekt im Zusammenhang mit ihrer Arbeit berichten. Darüber hinaus war Arbeitszufriedenheit negativ mit dem Level an Burnout verbunden. Die Ergebnisse der Mediationsanalyse zeigen, dass Arbeitszufriedenheit den Zusammenhang zwischen Affekt und Burnout vermittelt. Zusammenfassend lässt sich also sagen, dass Lehrer mit hoher wahrgenommener Emotionaler Intelligenz erfolgreicher und zufriedener im Beruf sind und zudem eine höhere psychische Gesundheit aufweisen. Schüler von Lehrern mit hohen emotionalen Fähigkeiten scheinen deshalb weniger unpassendes Verhalten im Klassenraum zu zeigen, weil auf sie mehr geachtet und ihre Probleme und Bedürfnisse besser erkannt werden. Emotional intelligente Lehrer versuchen, Problemen im Klassenraum schon bei deren Entstehung zu begegnen, was wiederum dazu führen könnte, dass sie weniger Belastung erleben und langfristig weniger Burnoutsymptome zeigen. Dieser Prozess kann durch die Unterstützung des Vorgesetzten positiv beeinflusst werden. Daneben zeigt sich auch, dass Lehrer, die positiven Affekt gegenüber ihrer Arbeit erfahren, zufriedener mit ihrer Arbeitstätigkeit sind, was wiederum damit verbunden ist, dass jene Lehrer Burnout-Symptome in geringem Maße erleben. Daher scheint es gewinnbringend, in die Personalauswahl Emotionale Intelligenz als ein wichtiges Entscheidungskriterium einzubeziehen. Bestehende Qualifizierungsprogramme sollten zusätzlich auf eine Verbesserung der emotionalen Fähigkeiten abzielen. Weiteres Potential zur Intervention von Burnout besteht im Aufbau oder der Stabilisierung kooperativer Beziehungen zwischen Lehrer und Vorgesetztem. / Many teachers experience high levels of stress from their work, but not all of them suffer from burnout. Why are some teachers less likely to succumb to burnout than others? How can teachers avoid suffering from burnout and continue to have a good influence on the behavior of their students? One reason that some teachers are able to avoid burnout might be that these teachers embody personality characteristics such as emotional intelligence and proactive coping, and these characteristics may act as resources that counteract burnout. Another reason might be that they experience feelings of positive affect from their work and feel satisfied with their jobs. Perhaps this occurs because emotional intelligence helps teachers to understand the emotions of their students and to interact with them. Or perhaps these teachers are engaged in their jobs, and this might reduce the risk of burnout. Proactive coping helps teachers to use their resources to overcome their difficulties and to manage the demands they face, which aids in preventing burnout. Emotional intelligence can help teachers to control their emotions and be able to think effectively and use active strategies to find solutions to their problems. In my thesis, I expected that emotional intelligence would have a direct negative effect on burnout and an indirect effect on it through proactive coping. Furthermore, proactive coping was expected to be positively related to emotional intelligence and negatively related to burnout. Perceived supervisor support in the form of information, advice, and feedback provided by supervisors may help teachers to more actively deal with stressors. I assumed that perceived support from supervisors would moderate the influence of emotional intelligence on reduced personal accomplishment through proactive coping. However, teachers with positive affect tend to derive enjoyment from their work and to find their jobs interesting in spite of many difficulties. They are satisfied with their jobs, and this may prevent them from experiencing burnout. Positive affect is considered to be a stable personality variable, whereas job satisfaction is a temporal attitude toward one’s job; therefore, positive affect was expected to predict job satisfaction and to be positively related to it. Burnout is more of a job outcome that results from having excessive stress for a long time, whereas job satisfaction is an evaluative response to one’s job. Job satisfaction also means that a person enjoys his or her career and is engaged in it; people who are satisfied tend to feel energized and competent and are protected from being at risk of burnout. Thus, job satisfaction was expected to contribute to the prediction of burnout by being negatively linked to it. In addition, teachers who experience positive emotions while working as teachers tend to want to keep working as teachers despite any setbacks that they experience. They have positive attitudes about their jobs and are thus satisfied with them. Therefore, it was expected that positive affect would predict job satisfaction and would be positively related to it. Having positive emotions in the workplace can help teachers to like their work and to find pleasure in it. They then probably exhibit good job performance and this prevents them from suffering from burnout. Therefore, I assumed that job satisfaction would mediate the relation between positive affect and burnout. Little attention has been given to the relation between teachers’ emotional intelligence and student misconduct in the literature, but these factors may be linked. Emotionally intelligent teachers are aware of their own emotions; thus, they can regulate their own negative emotions so they can act as a role model for the students and influence the behavior of their students. Emotional intelligence also helps teachers to understand their students’ emotions, to address their students’ emotions in a positive fashion, and to establish warm relationships with their students. Emotionally intelligent teachers can understand their students and motivates these students so the teachers can focus on helping their students to accomplish their goals. These factors strengthen the relationships between the teachers and their students and have a positive impact on the behavior of the students. This thesis consists of three studies.The aim of the first study was to investigate the link between emotional intelligence and student misconduct through attention to student needs. The findings showed that attention to student needs mediates the emotional intelligence- student misconduct relation. Identifying the factors that are related to burnout is important as this can help to reduce the risk of such negative outcomes. Although many studies have been conducted on the resources that protect teachers from burnout, few studies have examined the relation between burnout and personal resources such as emotional intelligence and proactive coping. Therefore, I tested how these factors are related to burnout in direct and indirect ways. The role of perceived supervisor support has also been neglected. Thus, I tested the relation between emotional intelligence and burnout through proactive coping in the second study. In addition, I tested the moderating role of perceived supervisor support on the link between emotional intelligence and reduced personal accomplishment through proactive coping. The results showed that proactive coping mediated the impact of emotional intelligence on burnout, and perceived supervisor support moderated the influence of emotional intelligence on reduced personal accomplishment through proactive coping. Emotions in the work environment play an essential role in job satisfaction and seem to protect teachers from experiencing burnout. The purpose of the third study was to examine the relations between positive affect, job satisfaction, and burnout and to determine whether job satisfaction would mediate the association between positive affect and burnout. The results indicated that positive affect was positively related to job satisfaction and negatively related to burnout, and job satisfaction functioned as a mediator between positive affect and burnout.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993.

Thesis (MMed)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. / Aim: This study investigated burnout and depression among medical doctors in the context of work-related conditions and the role of resilience as a modifiable factor. Methods: A cross-sectional, observational study was conducted on all consenting medical doctors (N=132) working at Cape Town metropole primary health care facilities of the Provincial Government of the Western Cape. Data were collected from doctors at 27 facilities by means of a self-administered questionnaire battery containing socio-demographic information, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC). Results: Of 132 doctors included in the analysis, 76 % experienced burnout, as indicated by high scores on either the emotional exhaustion or depersonalisation subscales. In addition, 27% of doctors had cut-off scores on the BDI indicating moderate depression, while 3 % were identified with severe depression. The number of hours, work-load, working conditions and system-related frustrations were ranked as the most important contributing factors to burnout. More experienced doctors and those with higher resilience scores had lower levels of burnout as evident by lower scores on the emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation domains of the MBI. Conclusion: Both burnout and depression are prevalent problems among doctors working at district level and in communities. Resilience appears to be protective and may be a useful target for future intervention.

Thesis (MA (Industrial Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / In the new service economy organisations have to distinguish themselves from their competitors in terms of the quality of their service delivery. In order to attain this new goal organisations realise the important role that customers play in their success. Organisations also recognize that modern day customers have different wants and higher expectations regarding service delivery compared to only a decade ago. To live up to these new challenges a novel form of conducting business was introduced to the global labour market: Telephone call centres provide quality and efficient service in the most cost-effective way possible by, inter alia, utilising customer service representatives (CSRs) to attend to clients’ each and every need – this job demand is termed emotional labour. Due to the way in which the CSRs’ work is structured and the wide-ranging demands placed on them, these individuals experience countless and varied stressors on the job. The result, in a nutshell, is that CSRs become emotionally exhausted and eventually leave the call centre. The purpose of the present research study is, therefore, to identify to what extent emotional labour influences CSRs’ feelings of emotional exhaustion, and whether the latter results in detrimental outcomes that undermine organisations’ success and competitive advantage in the marketplace. A large organisation’s call centre operators participated in the study (n = 84). Seven focus groups were conducted for the purpose of qualitative data collection: Six groups consisted of CSRs (N = 30) and one group consisted of team leaders (N = 4). Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the focus group interviews. The participants (n = 84) also completed questionnaires measuring emotional labour, emotional exhaustion, supervisor support, organisational commitment, and intentions to leave. Analysis of the interview data supported the existence of the five theoretical constructs and additional sources of job stress, over and above emotional labour, were identified. Pearson product-moment correlation analysis was used to analyse the questionnaire data, followed by multiple regression analysis with organisational commitment and intentions to leave as dependent variables, and the remaining constructs as the predictors. After determining the fit of the measurement model, consisting of the five constructs, a structural model was tested. Both the measurement and structural models produced acceptable goodness-of-fit statistics. The results of the structural model did not indicate a significant correlation between the total construct emotional labour and emotional exhaustion. Significant correlations were found between emotional labour and supervisor support, emotional exhaustion and organisational commitment and intentions to leave respectively, and organisational commitment and intentions to leave. Multiple regression analysis indicated emotional exhaustion is a significant predictor of both lowered organisational commitment and increased intentions to leave. Structural equation modelling indicated emotional exhaustion is causally related to intentions to leave through organisational commitment. The findings are congruent with previous research on the detrimental effect of emotional exhaustion on organisational outcomes and illuminate the complex relationship between emotional labour and emotional exhaustion. Interventions minimising the impact of both emotional labour and emotional exhaustion, within a call centre environment, are explored.

This study investigated the effects of an individually administered versus a group-administered stress management training program on various measures of stress, job satisfaction, and burnout among mental health workers. A total of 36 subjects, who were employed in Texas community mental health facilities, participated in the study. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental group (N = 12) which received training on an individual basis, an experimental group (N = 12) which received training in small groups of four to six subjects, and a control group (N = 12) which did not receive training. Both didactic and experimental modes were utilized during the six-week training program. All experimental subjects practiced relaxation daily and were exposed to a broad range of coping skills for stress management.This study investigated the effects of an individually administered versus a group-administered stress management training program on various measures of stress, job satisfaction, and burnout among mental health workers. A total of 36 subjects, who were employed in Texas community mental health facilities, participated in the study. The subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups: an experimental group (N = 12) which received training on an individual basis, an experimental group (N = 12) which received training in small groups of four to six subjects, and a control group (N = 12) which did not receive training. Both didactic and experimental modes were utilized during the six-week training program. All experimental subjects practiced relaxation daily and were exposed to a broad range of coping skills for stress management.

Burnout is reflected in pathological emotional depletion and maladaptive detachment that is a secondary result of exposure prolonged occupational stress. It is comprised of three dimensions, namely, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment. It is becoming increasingly recognized as one of the most serious occupational hazards for nurses who work in critical care units. The objectives of this study are to assess the prevalence of burnout among a sample of nurses who worked in the critical care units in a particular hospital in Kenya, to analyze factors that contributed to the development of burnout and to identify measures for the mitigation of burnout. For this study, the researcher utilized a mixed methods research design in two phases. Phase one assessed the prevalence of burnout in nurses working in the critical care units by making use of the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human Services Survey. Focus groups discussions were then held in Phase two to investigate the factors that the nurses perceived as the main causes of burnout and to solicit their ideas about it could be mitigated. Convenience sampling and purposive sampling were used in the two phases of the study respectively. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

Employees in the workplace face many challenges that cause stress. Despite these stresses many cope and remain positive. This study investigated positive psychological functioning among civil servants and explored how they functioned despite stressors in the work environment. The constructs of locus of control, sense of coherence, engagement and their relationship to the burnout construct (viewed as the opposite end of the wellness continuum) were used to examine this behaviour. Results showed that high sense of coherence, locus of control and engagement scores resulted in low burnout scores. Internal control and meaningfulness were found to be significant predictors of engagement. Employees will therefore be engaged in their work only if and when they display and/or are allowed to exhibit emotional meaningfulness in their work and their relationships, and when they behave and make decisions from an internal motivation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MA (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The thesis deals with the issue of stress in teachers. The concepts of teacher, stressor, stress and burn out syndrome are explained, as well as the connection between them. The theoretical part is focused on the stress prevention and the defense against stress. The aim of the practical part is to detect the main stressors in teachers, as well as the frequency and the intensity of their stress and negative emotions experience with regard to their professional age, sex and specialization. Further, teachers' knowledge about stress and their effort to prevent themselves from experiencing it are investigated.

Diploma thesis deals with altruistic behaviour of the professionals, such as teachers, nurses and doctors, who provide helping service. The work focuses not only on the professional part of the care but also on human care and feeling towards patients. Two proposed hypothesis were tested. The hypothesis H1: strictly brought up people working in the helping profession lead their patients to the passive dependency. The hypothesis H2: religiously brought up people working in the helping profession feel to be blame more often than the other people. A special questionnaire, containing 25 questions, was designed. Each of the questions offered various variants of answers which had to be mutually inconsistent. The questions can be divided into groups: one of them characterized the composition of the respondents, four served for the hypothesis testing and the rest of the questions enabled to fine distinguish various characteristics of the respondents and to mask the purpose of the questions. In the group of 97 respondents prevailed women in the age below 45 years of the nursery profession who practiced 1 to 20 years. Most of them were atheists. In the group of religious people prevailed the Catholics. The professional software EXCEL 3 was used to test both hypothesis and the special logic calculus was developed to make the answer evaluation easier. The output/input controls of the entering data were also used to find the occasional mistakes. The hypothesis was proved if more then 70 percent of the premises responded to the presumptive implications. Based on this criterion the hypothesis H1 was proved while the hypothesis was not approved.