The Relationship of Professional Burnout of the Teachers with the Peculiarities of the Value-Sense Sphere and Life Position

Abstract

 The aim of the article is to consider the theoretical and practical approaches in the study of professional and emotional burnout of the teachers in the context of the interrelation of their value-sense sphere and existential sensation. The concepts of «professional and emotional burnout» are analyzed from modern points of view, but they are based on the known theories of H. Maslach and N. Vodopianova. It is noted that burnout in the broadest context, as a state of psycho-emotional and motivational exhaustion, is caused by the imbalance of expenditures and resources of professional activity, which affects the value- motivational basis of the regulation of behavior and leads to a long-term decrease in human efficiency in his or her vital sphere of life.

In order to determine the relationship between expressiveness of professional burnout and peculiarities of value-sense orientations, a complex of methods and techniques has been used, such as standardized questionnaire «Professional burnout» (by N. Vodopianova and O. Starchenkova), Questionnaire of Life Orientations (by O. Korzhova), the Schwartz’ Theory, the Existence Scale (by A. Längle, K. Orgler), Subjective Alienation Questionnaire (by S. Maddi, in the adaptation of Ye. Osin), Maddi’s Vitality Test, the Coping Test (by R. Lazarus and S. Folkman), methods of correlation and factor analysis.

The results of the research. It was determined that the acceptance and denial of a number of educators’ values were significantly related to the symptoms of burnout – they can be their diagnostic markers, causes or effects. In general, burnout of teachers is accompanied by the desire for inner harmony, the attitude to health and safety as the leading principles of life, the strengthening of hedonistic attitudes, the desire for novelty.

The correlation analysis has been conducted, which established that the existential fullness of life directly correlated with the level of personal and professional achievements of teachers and was a factor that counteracted burnout. The expressiveness of burnout, on the contrary, correlates with manifestations of self-alienation and loss of sensation in different areas of life.

In conclusions, it was proved that there are common strategies of life, which regulate the relationships of professional burnout and value-sense orientations of employees and heads of secondary schools, such as exhaustion by self-improvement; hyperhedonism; freedom of thoughts and actions; humanistic position; correspondence to social expectations.