高中英语教师教学效能感与职业倦怠的相关性研究

 

Chapter 1 Introduction

 

1.1 Research background

The professional staff in human service institutions are often required to spendconsiderable time in intense involvement with other people (Maslach & Jackson,1981). Frequently, the staff-client interaction is centred around the client's currentproblems (psychological, social, and physical) and is therefore charged with feelingsof anger, embarrassment, fear or despair (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). As one of themost typical professions involved with people, teachers spend a large amount of timedealing with students and their various problems, which belongs exactly to thesituation mentioned by Maslach and Jackson. Teachers, who are known as "engineersof human souls", bear the responsibility of imparting knowledge and educating people,nevertheless, they also work under the pressure coming from schools, families andsociety. Currently, more and more attention has been paid to the field of education andthe group of teachers, who are expected to be professional, caring and moral at thesame time. However, quite a few teachers can not work under such great pressure. Inthe United States, up to 25% of beginning teachers do not come back for their thirdyear and almost 40% leave the profession within the first five years of teaching (Gold,1996; Harris & Associates, 1993). In Britain, some teachers leave their jobs before thetime of retirement (Macdonald, 1999). Chen Weiqi's thesis, published in 1998, isbelieved as the first research on teacher turnover at home, which is almost 20 yearsago. Thus, it is certain that this problem also exists in China. Research showed thatmany teachers left their jobs because of burnout that is linked to teachers' self-efficacyin classroom (Brouwers & Tomic, 2000; Chwalisz, Altmaier & Russell, 1992; Emmer& Hickman, 1991). There is evidence that those teachers who leave their jobs havesignificantly lower self-efficacy than teachers who remain in teaching (Glickman &Tamashiro, 1982). Definitely, teacher self-efficacy is linked to level of stressexperienced in teaching (Smylie, 1988).

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1.2 Research content

This study analyzes the current situation of teacher efficacy and burnout amonghigh school English teachers, as well as the relation between them based on the data collected from several high schools in Guizhou Province. In order to achieve that,relevant literature is consulted to correctly and deeply understand the theories andtheoretical sources of teacher efficacy and burnout. Subsequently, studies andachievements have been collected, compared and researched to collect the currentresearch results in this area. Besides, studies on the questionnaire scales, which areused to collect research data, are necessary. After using SPSS to analyze the collecteddata, the status quo of teacher efficacy and burnout among high school Englishteachers is found out. Moreover, it is realizable to analyze both factors consideringdemographic variables and to research the relation between teacher efficacy andburnout. Last but not least, findings of this thesis are listed detailedly and suggestionsfor improving high school English teachers' teacher efficacy and reducing burnout,which are based on other researchers' opinions, are placed in the final part forreference.

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

 

Both teacher efficacy and burnout are hotly discussed by researchers in recentdecades both at home and abroad. There have been a good deal of meaningfulresearch results up to now. This chapter introduces the theories of teacher efficacy andburnout, as well as reviews the previous domestic and overseas research on the twofactors and the relation between them, all of which have driven this field to moveforward ceaselessly. In this chapter, which focuses on the development, achievementand shortcomings of the previous research, there are four sections in total. Section oneintroduces the theoretical bases of this thesis, section two demonstrates the relatedresearch on teacher efficacy, while related research on burnout is placed in sectionthree. In section four, research on the relation between teachers’ efficacy and burnoutis provided.

 

2.1 Theoretical bases

Teacher efficacy is a kind of cognitive motivational system, which is a part ofconsciousness control, emphasizing on teachers' beliefs on their teaching ability ratherthan their actual teaching performance. Teacher efficacy reflects teachers' beliefs forteaching tasks, that is, it determines how teachers believe they have the capacity toaffect student performance (Bandura, 1994; Bandura, 2006). Ashton (1985) definesteacher self-efficacy as a teacher's belief that he or she can affect his or her students'performance. Moreover, Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998: 223) define it as "the teacher'sbelief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of action required tosuccessfully accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context". The mostfrequently used instrument (Gibson & Dembo, 1984) produces two scores: personalteaching efficacy (the expectation that the respondent will be able to bring aboutstudent learning), and general teaching efficacy (the belief that teachers' ability tobring about change is limited by factors beyond their control). No matter what itsdefinition is, teacher efficacy has been testified to be inseparable from a lot ofoutcomes related to education. In classrooms with teachers of high instructionalself-efficacy, students are more academically motivated, more likely to have highself-efficacy themselves, and more likely to achieve academic success (Moore &Esselman, 1992; Ross, 1992).

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2.2 Related research on teacher efficacy

Though many researchers both at home and abroad have done abundant studieson the subject of teachers' self-efficacy, there is no agreed term for now. According to Gibson & Dembo (1984) and Ross (1992), teacher efficacy (Moore & Esselman, 1992;Tschannen & Woolfolk, 2001; Jennett et al., 2003; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010)measures the extent to which teachers believe their efforts will have a positive effecton student achievement. Teachers' sense of efficacy (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Brennanet al., 1995; Shachar & Shmuelevitz, 1997) is defined as the belief that teachers canhave a positive effect on student learning (Woolfolk, Rosoff & Hoy, 1990). It can beobserved that they mean the same thing. Moreover, some researchers abroad use"Teacher Self-efficacy" (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008; Skaalvik, & Skaalvik, 2010) torefer to professional self-efficacy of teachers, while most researchers at home adopt"Teaching Efficacy" ( Liu Yi et al., 2009; Yu Guoliang & Luo Xiaolu, 2000; Fan Linet al., 2017) to express the same meaning. Considering the frequency of use, as wellas the convenience of thesis writing, "Teacher Efficacy" is used in this thesis exceptfor citations.

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Chapter 3 Research Design ............15

3.1 Research questions................15

3.2 Research subjects....16

3.3 Research instruments ............17

3.4 Research procedures .............19

Chapter 4 Results and Analysis .....21

4.1 Validity and reliability of questionnaires..........21

4.2 Overall status of high school English teachers’ efficacy andburnout ............25

4.3 Analysis of high school English teachers’ efficacy ........28

4.4 Analysis of high school English teachers’ burnout.........30

4.5 Relation between high school English teachers’ efficacy andburnout ............33

4.5.1 Correlation analysis result .........33

4.5.2 Regression analysis result..........34

4.6 Interviews with teachers .......36

Chapter 5 Conclusion .......40

5.1 Major findings and discussions ..........40

5.2 Suggestions .............46

5.3 Limitations ..............50

 

Chapter 4 Results and Analysis

 

Before listing out the research results, it is necessary to explain some of thestatistical analysis methods. It has been mentioned in previous chapter that all data issorted and analyzed through SPSS 22.0 statistical software. Enumeration data ispresented in the form of frequency (percentage), while measurement data in the formof mean value±standard deviation ( x±s ). Independent sample T test is used tocompare differences between the two groups and one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA) is used to compare differences among groups more than two. For thedifferences which are of statistical significance between groups, LSD-t test is used tocompare those groups in pairs. What’s more, the reliability analysis of questionnairesis carried out through the method of Cronbach's α and the validity analysis is throughfactor analysis method (significant level α=0.05).

 

4.1 Validity and reliability of questionnaires

From Table 2, it can be seen that the Cronbach's α coefficient of TSES is 0.751and that of MBI-ES is 0.848, which are both above 0.7, and so are the Cronbach's αcoefficients of their five dimensions, which tell that TSES and MBI-ES both haverelatively high reliability.According to Table 3, the KMO of TSES is 0.669, and Bartlett sphericity testshows that P value is 0.000, which means that there are correlations among theoriginal variables. Thus, it is suitable to use factor analysis method to test andevaluate the validity of this scale.From Table 5, it can be seen that 9 factors are extracted through factor rotation,the items each of which includes vary from 2 to 4 and the factor loads of these itemsare all above the Minimum acceptable value 0.45, explaining that TSES is of ratherhigh construct validity. In addition, it is worth mentioning that through preciseanalyses and accurate experiments, Yu and his colleagues (1995) divided TSES intotwo dimensions, PTE and GTE.

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conclusion

 

Last but not least, in terms of internal environment, psychological quality is animportant matter when it comes to work stress, which more or less exists in almostany profession. Those who have rather high psychological quality are able to dealwith their stress properly or even turn it into a driving force, while those whosepsychological quality is not so high tend to be dispirited and depressed, or evenbecome hostile to people around. As a result, high school English teachers shouldenhance their stress tolerance and increase the ability to adapt to the ever-changingworking environment nowadays, so that they can react to different situations properlyand effectively. Also, the enhancement of psychology bearing capacity andpsychological adjustment ability is also of great importance in the battle towards workstress and burnout. In addition, high school English teachers need to have correctprofessional sense, which refers to teachers' personal cognition and attitude towardstheir profession. As a famous old Chinese saying goes, "It takes ten years to growtrees but a hundred years to cultivate people".Teachers are encouraged to have spiritof utter devotion because teaching is a job that needs long-term of hard work. Besides,teachers are not only the disseminators of knowledge and culture, but also the educators of morality. They are not only the leaders and elders for students, but theirfriends and companions. Only do they set a good example for students can they beexpected so as to achieve better teaching results. In short, teachers with correctprofessional sense are able to use spiritual strength to cope with work stress, utilizeteachers' sense of honor to help reduce feelings of burnout, and explore the meaningsand values of life.

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References (abbreviated)