ABSTRACT
Teaching is a profession plagued with high levels of burnout. Teacher burnout exists in many countries such as Malta, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, United States, Finland, United Kingdom, and Germany, just to name a few (Borg & Riding, 1991; Byrne, 1999; Dorman, 2003; de Heus & Diekstra, 1999; Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996; Pyhältö, Pietarinen, and Salmela-Aro, 2011; Travers & Cooper, 1993; Unterbrink et al., 2012). Teacher burnout is also apparent throughout a teaching career, as evidenced among student teachers (Fives, Hamman, & Olivarez, 2007; Zimmermann et al., 2011), early-career teachers (e.g., Capel, 1987, 1991; Pierce & Molloy, 1990; Zabel & Zabel, 2002), mid-career teachers (Carson, Dodge, Barber, & Brackett, 2014), and late-career teachers (e.g., Burke & Greenglass, 1989; Tye & O’Brien, 2002). Given its pervasiveness, a significant amount of attention has been given to understanding the plausible explanatory factors contributing to teacher burnout. Historically, a majority of teacher burnout studies have examined sources of burnout at the individual (i.e., gender, age, or personality) or organizational (i.e., role conflict, work overload, or social support workload) levels. Chang (2009b) has argued that transactional factors such as personal beliefs, appraisals, and emotional regulation strategies are important factors relating to the causes of teacher burnout, as well as potential interventions to counteract symptoms of teacher burnout. The purpose of this chapter is twofold: to briefly review the literature on teacher burnout, and to further explore two specific transactional strategies that have been found to curb teacher burnout, namely, teacher efficacy and emotional regulation. For comprehensive reviews on the topic of teacher burnout in different contexts, see B. M. Byrne (1999); Chang (2009b); Fernet, Guay, Senécal, and Austin (2012); Maslach, Schaufeli, and Leiter (2001); Pyhältö et al. (2011); and Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007).
