Browsing by Subject "työuupumus"

Teacher burnout has negative consequences on an individual, transactional and organizational levels between teachers and pupils. Compared to other fields, the educational field experiences higher levels of burnout. Previous studies indicate that burnout is connected to turnover, withdrawal, pupils’ motivation, and problems in the working community in addition to the individual’s health. The burnout symptoms have been found to differ in gender, career phase, academic level, socio- economic level of the neighborhood and organization size. Previous research has found that burnout crossover happens from an individual to another across the teacher community. The buffering and exposing attributes concerning the crossover of teacher burnout have been studied rather little. The aim of this research is to discover which individual, transactional and organizational attributes could potentially buffer or expose to the crossover of burnout. Research data was gathered as a part of a wider, national research project called School Matters by the members of the Learning and Development in School research group (Pietarinen, Pyhältö & Soini, 2017). The participants were selected from six different areas. Altogether 1531 teachers from primary, secondary and combined schools completed the questionnaire. The teachers were divided into groups based on their gender, academic level, the level of socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood, career phase and school size. Individual, transactional and organizational factors’ connection to the burnout symptoms were examined through correlations, t-test and One-way analysis of variance. Results indicate that on average the teachers are doing quite well and experience quite moderate levels of burnout. Even so, quite many of them reported higher and lower levels of the symptoms. The symptoms correlate positively with each other. Based on the research findings it can be suggested that individual attributes, including male gender and higher number of years in the profession, buffer from the crossover of burnout. In addition, the higher socio-economic status (SES) of the school neighborhood – a transactional attribute – and smaller school size – an organizational attribute – also act as buffers. On the other hand, exposing attributes include the female gender, less years in the profession, lower socio-economic status of the school neighborhood and large school size. The result may be generalized to the Finnish teaching community as a whole because the research population was large and the geographical distribution of the population was comprehensive.

The study examined Finnish classroom teachers’ self-compassion and perfectionism in relation to burnout. The study sought to find out how self-compassion and perfectionism affect the burnout experienced by classroom teachers and what kind of relationship there is between self- esteem and perfectionism. Previous studies have shown that perfectionistic concerns are a risk factor for burnout. Self-compassion has been found to affect very positively for a person's well- being and resilience. In Finland, no research has been conducted among teachers about these topics. The data was collected via an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to teachers by Luokanopettajat ry -email list and Alakoulun Aarreaitta -Facebook group. The questionnaire measured burnout by Maslach Burnout Invetory, perfectionism by The Short Almost Perfect and self-compassion by Self-Compassion Short Form. Answers were received from 153 classroom teachers. Self-compassion was negatively correlated with perfectionist concerns and all dimensions of burnout. Perfectionist concerns were positively correlated with all dimensions of burnout. Two different groups of perfectionism and self-compassion were found. The second group (46%) consisted of teachers with high self-criticism, high perfectionistic concerns and perfectionistic strivings and low self-compassion This group was named as self-critical teachers. Teachers in the second group (54%) were more self-compassionate and less critical about themselves. This group was named as self-compassionate teachers. Self-critical teachers experienced more exhaustion than self-compassionate teachers. No statistically significant difference was found between these groups for cynicism and inefficacy. Based on the correlation matrix, self- compassion was negatively and perfectionistic concerns were positively related to all the dimensions of burnout. Perfectionistic strivings correlated negatively with inefficacy so striving for perfection seems to be protective factor against inefficacy. According to the study, self- criticism and perfectionist concerns are predisposing factors for burnout. Self-compassion seems to protect teachers from burnout.

Työuupumus on kolmitahoinen stressioireyhtymä, jolle on tyypillistä uupumusasteinen väsymys, kyynistyneisyys ja ammatillisen itsetunnon heikkeneminen. Balanssi-hanke perustettiin tutkimaan ja kehittämään ryhmähoitomuotoa vakavaan työuupumukseen. Projektin tavoitteena on selvittää kahden eri ryhmähoitomuodon vaikuttavuutta ja sellaisia yksilöön liittyviä tekijöitä, joilla saattaa olla vaikutusta ryhmähoidon tuloksellisuuteen. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin mielialan havainnoinnin, tunnistamisen ja säätelyn (Trait Meta-Mood) yhteyksiä työuupumuksen laskuun ryhmähoitojen aikana ja kuuden kuukauden pituisella seurantajaksolla. Emootioilla on useiden eri teorioiden mukaan yksilön sopeutumista edistävä signaalitehtävä. Mieliala kertoo yksilön sisäisestä tilasta, ja sitä voidaan kuvata miellyttävänä, epämiellyttävänä, kiihtyneenä tai rauhallisena. Mielialaa voi tarkastella mielialakokemuksen tai mielialan säätelyn tasolla. Mielialan säätelyn tasolla tarkoitetaan ajatuksia mielialasta. Tällä reflektiivisellä tasolla mielialaa havainnoidaan, tunnistetaan ja säädellään. Oletettiin, että jos mieliala tunnistetaan hyvin ja mielialaa säädellään tehokkaasti, työuupumus vähenee eli työuupumuksen ryhmähoito on tuloksellista. Lisäksi tutkittiin missä vaiheessa mahdolliset yhteydet ilmenevät ja eroavatko yhteydet psykoanalyyttisessä ja toiminnallisessa hoitoryhmässä. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin 1999-2000. Koehenkilöt (n=99) olivat 31-59-vuotiaita valtion laitosten ja valtion yritysten työuupumuksesta kärsiviä työntekijöitä, miehiä oli 24 ja naisia 75. Lisäksi kerättiin ei-uupuneiden kontrolliryhmä (n = 26, ikä 37 - 58 vuotta), jota hyödynnettiin tässä tutkimuksessa vain uupuneiden ja ei-uupuneiden vertailuihin ennen hoidon alkua. Molempina vuosina uupuneet henkilöt satunnaistettiin toiminnallisiin ja psykoanalyyttisiin hoitoryhmiin. Työuupumus mitattiin 9 kuukautta kestäneen hoidon alussa, lopussa ja puoli vuotta hoidon päättymisen jälkeen. Mielialan havainnointi, tunnistaminen ja säätely mitattiin hoidon alussa, lopussa ja puoli vuotta hoidon päättymisen jälkeen. Tulokset osoittivat, että mielialan tunnistamisen korkea taso ja mielialan säätelyn korkea taso olivat yhteydessä työuupumuksen voimakkaampaan laskuun koko tutkimusjakson ajan. Yhteydet olivat erilaiset eri ryhmähoidoissa hoidon aikana ja seurantajaksolla. Hoidon aikana psykoanalyyttisessä hoitoryhmässä mielialan havainnoinnin lisääntyminen ja mielialan säätelyn tehokkuus olivat yhteydessä työuupumuksen voimakkaampaan laskuun. Toiminnallisessa hoitoryhmässä sen sijaan mielialan tunnistamisen taito oli yhteydessä työuupumuksen voimakkaampaan laskuun hoidon aikana. Seurantajaksolla molemmissa hoitoryhmissä mielialan tunnistamisen taito oli yhteydessä työuupumuksen voimakkaampaan laskuun. Kontrolliryhmässä ei todettu mielialan havainnoinnin, tunnistamisen ja säätelyn taitojen ja työuupumuksen vähenemisen välistä yhteyttä. Tutkimuksen tulokset antavat uutta tietoa sellaisista yksilöllisistä tekijöistä, joilla on työuupumuksen ryhmähoitoprosessia moderoiva rooli. Mielialan hyvin tunnistaminen ja mielialan tehokas säätely saattavat olla sellaisia ryhmäterapiassa opittuja yksilöllisiä voimavaroja, joita työuupumuksesta toipumisessa tarvitaan hoidon päättymisen jälkeen. Koska mielialan hyvin tunnistamisen, mielialan tehokkaan säätelyn ja työuupumuksen ryhmähoidon tuloksellisuuden väliset yhteydet todettiin molemmissa ryhmähoitomenetelmissä, voi olettaa, että molemmat ryhmähoitomenetelmät ovat vakavaa työuupumusta vähentäviä hoitomenetelmiä. Ryhmähoidon aikana opitut mielialan tunnistamisen ja säätelyn taidot auttavat ylläpitämään terapian aikana alkanutta hyvinvoinnin kasvua.

Aim of the study. Students and their difficult behavior are, according to several studies, one of the most significant burdensome factors in teaching work. In the field of research on teacher well-being at work or stress and burnout, this aspect is often emphasized. The im-portance of the teacher-student relationship for teacher well-being, job satisfaction, and commitment to work is well known. This study aims to look at the teacher-student relation-ship as a resource for teaching work. In my research, I try to find out what kind of teacher-student relationship promotes teacher well-being. Also, the study examines the extent to which the teacher-student relationship protects the teacher from risks to their well-being in terms of managing workload. Methods. The research approach was hermeneutic-phenomenological, aiming to understand and interpret an individual’s experiences and their associated meanings. The study was a qualitative interview study, the material of which consisted of interviews with six (6) classroom teachers. The body of the interview was a semi-structured interview. The inter-views were recorded and transcribed, after which they were analyzed. The method of anal-ysis was content analysis, typical of qualitative research. Results and conclusions. Based on my research material, I have divided the factors of the teacher-student relationship that promote teacher well-being, into those related to the teacher's professional skills, as well as those relating to the student's willingness and ability to participate in building the teacher-student relationship. The results showed that the teacher-student relationship is, to the greatest extent possible, a resource for teaching work. A warm teacher-student relationship was perceived as a significant and meaningful factor in teachers' work. However, it does not appear to protect teachers from overwork, and interviewees reported that other approaches are required to manage their workload and to protect themselves from exhaustion. The role of the teacher leans heavily towards interpersonal work, and the ability to tailor approaches to different students to build relationships is important. Attention is often paid to the teacher-student relationship only when problems arise, even if it would be beneficial for both the teacher and students' well-being to focus on building successful teacher-student relationships.

The purpose of this thesis is to chart teachers' experiences concerning job burnout and the role of social support in gaining well-being at work. The theoretical base of this study is in Maslach's, Schaufeli's and Leiter's (2001) research on job burnout and in House's (1981) and Cohen's and Wills's (1985) research on social support. Burnout of teachers appears to be a special phenomenon compared to other occupations, which is due to the nature of the teachers' job. My research questions are as follows: 1. How does job burnout appear on teachers' speech and stories? 2. How does social support appear in teachers' work in relation to job burnout and what kind of forms of social support have they experienced and would like to experience? 3. How are teachers' stories and their collective memory about job burnout and social support reflected in the data? I collected the data through a narrative interview in a focus group. The group consisted of seven teachers. I analysed the data through content analysis and narrative analysis. The teachers described their experiences of job-related rush and burnout. They felt that their burnout was increased by the lack of superior support and by role conflicts. In contrast, the support from their superior and their peers helped them to gain well-being at their work. In the narrative analysis, it appeared that their experiences of burnout were collective and their stories about job burnout were based on collective memory. Social support appears to be carnivalistic according to Bakhtin (1979). In the carnival, people can free themselves from society's norms and the boundaries between the roles are blurred. As a conclusion, I can state that job burnout is a common problem among teachers and social support helps them to gain well-being at their work. For teachers, it is important that there is support at hand. It would be important to intervene at an early stage of job burnout before it becomes severe.

Work related exhaustion is widely known phenomenon in the field of teaching. It is stated to be negatively correlated with teachers work results, the well-being of the work community and the quality of ones personal well-being and private life. Previous study indicates sicnifigant amount of teachers to be exhausted due to the factors in work. This exhaustion leads to absence and even to change of career. The goal of this research is to study the amount and quality of experienced exhaustion in terms of teachers’ age and work experience. The data was gathered from 163 teachers from six different schools from the Helsinki metropolitan area between March 2019 and February 2020. The group of respondents consisted of subject-, primary- and class teachers working primary schools. The data was collected with a survey which included an open ended question: ”What are the factors in your work that make you exhausted?” In addition teachers’ age and the amount of years in duty were sorted out. The quality and quantity of workload were measured with data-driven content analysis, theme design and scoring. For the analysis respondents were divided into three different groups based on their age and to five different groups based on their work experience. The quality and the quantity of work related stress in terms of teachers’ age and work experience were analysed reviewing correlations, running regression- and variance analysis and finally with crosstabulation. Age and work experience were noted to measure the same thing and therefore the analysis concentrated on age as a factor. The results show that age and the amount of experienced exhaustion are correlating negatively. In other words generally younger teachers were more exhausted whereas older teachers were not as exhausted. In addition the differences between age groups were significant in terms of the amount of exhaustion From the exhaustion themes ”students”, work-enviroment”, ”uncontrollability” and co-operation with parents” correlated negatively with teachers’ age. The age groups differed in terms of the quality of the workload, with younger teachers perceiving students, the amount of workload, resources, uncontrollability, the work environment and co-operation with parents as the most burdensome issues in their work. Middle-aged teachers found the lack of time and co-operation with professionals the most stressful factors in their work. The oldest teachers found additional non-core tasks/issues and poor management to be the most burdensome factors in their work. The results were largely in line with the previous study. Lack of time was the biggest exhaustion theme experienced regardless of the group. It is possible that the research results were partly explained by the demands placed on teachers by the change in society, the disregard for the needs of the individual in education policy, the harmful structures of the school for an individual and the individual's lack of influential opportunities. In further research, it would be important to consider the cause-and-effect relation-ships of different work load themes more profoundly and to include a broader and thus more generalized sample of respondents in the research. The research can be utilized in the development of teachers' well-being at work and as a tool in further research.

Aims. This study investigated to what extent servant leadership is associated with teachers’ work engagement and burnout and whether the form of teacher’s employment relationship influenced this association. The job demands-resources (JD-R) model and conservation of resources theory were used as a theoretical framework of the study. Previously it has been found that servant leadership is positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with burnout. There are incoherent results on the effects of the form of employment relationship on work engagement and burnout, but recent study suggests that those on a permanent contract experience more work engagement compared to those on a fixed-term contract. It is hypothesized that servant leadership is positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with burnout. It is also hypothesized that servant leadership and permanent contract are positively associated with work engagement and for those on fixed-term contracts, servant leadership is negatively associated with burnout. Methods. The material of this study is from a study in which teachers from Mind the Gap -research schools participated in 2015. The participants filled in an online questionnaire concerning servant leadership, work engagement and burnout. The data was analysed using linear regression analysis. Results and conclusions. The results showed that servant leadership was positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with burnout. Considering the form of the employment relationship, it was noticed that for both those with a fixed-term and permanent employment relationship, servant leadership was positively associated with work engagement and negatively associated with burnout. As a conclusion, leadership style is associated with employees’ wellbeing at work. Workplaces could pay attention to leadership styles and develop policies that support wellbeing at work. There should be more specific studies about the association between employment relationship and wellbeing at work.

Well-being at work is challenged by problems in employee–working environment fit. Therefore job stress can occur. Employees can use several strategies to adjust the fit and gain better well-being. If the job-stress is prolonged, it may eventually cause burnout. Previous studies indicate that burnout is related to problems in working community, individual well-being and turnover. In the educational field employees experience more job stress and burnout symptoms than in other fields. Only a few studies have been done about school principals' well-being. Therefore the aims of the research were to analyze school principals' well-being and to investigate if proactive strategies, principal–working environment fit and turnover intentions relate to challenges of well-being. Research data was gathered as a part of a wider, national research project called Learning, agency and pedagogical well-being in comprehensive school (Pyhältö, Pietarinen & Soini, 2014). The participants were selected with random sampling method (N=6000). Altogether 2310 teachers and principals completed the questionnaire. Principals and assistant principals (from now on: principals, n=420) were selected for this research. Principals were clustered into different groups based on the challenges of well-being they reported. Those challenges were measured in terms of job stress and burnout symptoms. The clusters that represented burnout symptoms and job stress were formed through hierarchical cluster analysis, K-Means cluster analysis and discriminant function analysis. One-way analysis of variance and crosstabs were conducted to see, whether principals in different clusters varied in terms of proactive strategies, principal–working environment fit, turnover intentions and background variables. Results indicate that on average the principals are doing quite well. Even so, quite a lot of them reported turnover intentions. It was possible to cluster principals into four groups: 1) principals, who experience well-being, 2) cynical principals, 3) principals, who experience burnout and 4) principals in danger of burn out. The cluster membership was related to proactive self-regulating strategies, principal–working environment fit and turnover intentions. Principals who experience well-being reported the best principal–working environment fit, strongest proactive self-regulating strategies and less turnover intentions. Cynical principals reported quite strong proactive self-regulating strategies, second worst principal–working environment fit and some turnover intentions. Principals who experience burnout reported weakest proactive self-regulating strategies, worst principal–working environment fit and most turnover intentions. Principals in danger of burn out reported quite good principal–working environment fit, quite weak proactive strategies and lots of turnover intentions. In future there is a need to better understand the development of school principal burnout and the motives behind school principals' turnover intentions.

Teacher well-being has been discussed amongst the professionals and those working in the area for many years now. The phenomena has been widely studied before and numerous studies show for example that the teacher profession is often experienced as stressful and that violence is a factor that decreases well-being significantly in the profession. What makes the subject significant in terms of the society, is that teacher well-being also has an impact on student well-being. The purpose of this study is to portray through the personal experiences of one experienced teacher those factors that have an impact on teacher well-being at work. The study was carried out as as a qualitative research and its methodological basis was in the hermeneutical and phenomenological approach. Used as the empirical data of the study was a theme interview of one teacher. The theme of the interview was teacher well-being. The gathered data was analyzed using thematising as the data analysis method and more spefically the contextualized approach were the significations produced by the interviewee are tied to a wider frame of reference. From the data and with the help of the chosen frame of reference was searched the elements of physical well-being, emotional well-being, social well-being, well-being in relation of work, well-being related to the working environment and well-being related to the organization. On the basis of the analysis conjugated from the data and the chosen frame of reference teacher well-being was affected in this study by physical well-being, emotional well-being and social well-being as well as by factors related to the well-being in relation of work, the well-being related to the working environment and the well-being related to the organization. As a conclusion from this particular study can be stated that social well-being has a vast impact on the well-being of the teacher in question and more precisely the importance of the relationship between the teacher and collegues is a major factor in teacher well-being at work.

The aim of this study was to examine what kind of achievement goal orientation profiles can be identified and their relations to work engagement and job burnout among 30-year old employees. Usually researchers have adopted a variable-centred approach in achievement goal examinations, but this study was based on a person-centred approach, which allows for the study of multiple goals among employees. The data used in this study was collected as a part of the Finnish Education Transitions (FinEdu) -research project, funded by the Academy of Finland and Jacobs Foundation. The participants of this study were (N=372) 30-year old employees. Groups of students with different motivational profiles were identified using a k-mean cluster analysis. Group differences in work engagement and burnout were examined by means of analysis of variance (ANOVA). Four different achievement goal orientation profiles were found: uninterested, success-oriented, mastery-oriented, and avoidance-oriented. All achievement groups were of the same size, so there did not appear any exceptionally large or normative motivational groups of 30-year old employees in the study. Uninterested employees were the least mastery- and success-oriented in working life, but they also did not avoid working as such. The group of success-oriented employees emphasized the desire to learn, to succeed and specially to perform at work, and they were characterized by social comparison and fear of failure. The avoidance-oriented group just wanted to cope with work tasks, and they were not particularly motivated to work. Mastery-oriented employees were interested in learning and succeeding in the workplace. In this study, the mastery-oriented employees experienced the less burnout than the other groups, and the avoidance-oriented group experienced burnout the most. In work engagement assessments, mastery and success-oriented groups differed from uninterested and avoidance-oriented groups, and the results show that mastery- and success-oriented groups are more energetic, dedicated and immersed in work than employees who are uninterested and avoidance-oriented. These results support the idea that employers should recognize and draw attention to differently motivated employees, and they should be given different attention from the point of view of well-being at work. It is also important to examine well-being at work also from a positive construction, as it can open up new perspectives about work engagement.