Abstract:

Burnout syndrome as well as job stress are common problems among teachers. They significantly decreased their effectiveness of work and the quality of their psychosocial functioning. Job stress and burnout are usually conceptualized as the results of misfit between the person and the job. One of the most important characteristic of the person which should be included as risk factor for job stress and burnout is temperament because it is very stabile and difficult to change.
The purpose of the study was to identify such temperament features and systems of temperament features which constitute a risk factors for stress and professional burnout of teachers. It was assumed that stress and burnout are related to increased emotional reactivity and perseverance as well as decreased endurance. Another assumption was that there is a positive correlation between stress and burnout and that both of these factors tend to appear more often in case of teachers who work in big cities. Apart from that, the study covered recognition of most stressful factors, differences in this field in terms of age and relation between the stress level and time of employment.
110 teachers from 9 elementary schools of the Poland aged 24-65 took part in the research. The following questionnaires was used to measure stress, professional burnout and temperament features: Perceived Job Stress Questionnaire (PJSQ), Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-II) and Formal Characteristic of Behaviour – Temperament Inventory (FCB-TI).
In order to single out a group of people with different features of temperament, k-means clustering analysis was used. Thus, two groups of teachers with different features of temperament were differentiated. They were defined as a “resistant type” – characterized by high briskness, endurance and activity and low emotional reactivity, perseverance and sensory sensitivity and a “sensitive type” – with high emotional reactivity, sensory sensitivity and perseverance and low activity, briskness and endurance.
Results showed significant positive correlation between stress and burnout. It was also concluded that high level of these variables tends to coexist with “sensitive” type of temperament, strong emotional reactivity and perseverance, low endurance, and shorter time of employment. Low activity as a feature of temperament turned out to be connected with high level of burnout and stress resulting from job complexity and no rewards at work. Briskness showed a significant negative correlation with stress resulting from job complexity and high level of burnout. Teachers who work in big cities turned to be more emotionally exhausted and depersonalized than those who work in little towns. Lack of control and awards turned out to be more stressful for younger teachers. The major stress determinants within the sample included mental strain related to complex nature of work, social contacts, lack of awards and control, no support and physical arduousness.

Keywords:

Temperament, stress, burnout, teachers.