Browsing by Author "Tikkanen, Lotta"

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.