Professional burnout of preschool teachers and quality of interaction with children: experience and difficulties of empirical research
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Abstract
Background. Teachers play a crucial role in the development of preschoolers’ personalities. However, their professional work is associated with emotional intensity, multitasking, and increased responsibility, which creates the preconditions for the development of burnout. High levels of teacher burnout negatively impact the quality of interactions with children, their motivation, and initiative, while insufficient interaction competence, in turn, can exacerbate burnout. This indicates the need for a systematic study of factors predicting increased burnout.
Objective. To identify relationships between professional burnout, burnout factors, and the quality of interactions between teachers and children in kindergarten groups.
Sample. The sample consisted of 25 teachers (M = 43.3, SD = 10.1, 100% women) working in senior and preparatory groups of kindergartens.
Methods. The CLASS method (adapted by Bukhalenkova and Almazova) was used to assess the quality of interactions. Professional burnout was diagnosed using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (adapted by Vodopyanova and Starchenkova). A sociodemographic questionnaire was also administered. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis (Spearman rho) were used to analyze the data.
Results. High depersonalization scores were found to be associated with shorter teacher tenure. No significant associations were found between burnout symptoms and interaction quality, age, education level, qualification category, or the number of children in the group. Additional analysis revealed a trend: when interaction quality was low, teachers more often chose midpoints on the burnout scales, which may indicate the influence of social desirability when questionnaires were completed anonymously.
Conclusions. A direct link between professional burnout and interaction quality was not confirmed in this study. The findings highlight the methodological challenges of studying burnout using self-report methods in settings where complete anonymity is not guaranteed. Further research with larger samples and procedures that minimize the influence of social desirability is needed.
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