Browsing by Subject "työvaatimukset"

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.