Engagement and Burnout in teaching environment : Analysis of their relationships with job and life satisfaction in a sample

Abstract

Traditionally the teaching context has been shown as a work environment where the professionals can be more exposed to suffer the Burnout syndrome. The negative effects of this work situation in teaching quality stimulate a social and a scientific interest in this subject. The study focuses on examining Burnout syndrome from a positive psychology perspective. Because of that, together with the measurement of Burnout in a sample of 265 teachers, the level of Engagement has been assessed. Also Life and Job Satisfaction were evaluated as a measure of general and specific wellbeing at work, respectively. The data showed moderate-strong links between Emotional Exhaustion and Dedication with Life Satisfaction; Absorption is added to these moderate-strong links when the relationships between the different dimensions and Job Satisfaction are considered. Finally, even though the dimension Vigor has shown moderate correlation indexes with Job and Life Satisfaction, this dimension has not been included as a predictor for any of these variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)