Teacher Burnout Scale

Abstract

The Teacher Burnout Scale (TBS) is a specialized 21-item instrument developed by S. A. Seidman and J. Zager (1986–87) for the direct and nuanced assessment of teacher burnout. The scale was designed to focus exclusively on stressors and emotional states relevant to the educational profession. The TBS is structured around four empirically derived orthogonal factors: career satisfaction, perceived administrative support, coping with job-related stress, and attitudes toward students. The scale underwent rigorous psychometric development, including multiple stages of factor analysis and validation studies, demonstrating high internal consistency and strong evidence of both construct and predictive validity within educator populations.

Keywords

Teacher Burnout Scale, TBS, psychological assessment, career satisfaction, administrative support, job-related stress, educational psychology, teacher well-being.

Authors

S. A. Seidman, J. Zager

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Teacher Burnout Scale (TBS) is to provide a reliable and specific tool for quantifying the degree and specific domains of occupational burnout experienced by educators. By focusing uniquely on the teaching environment, the scale aims to identify critical areas where teachers may be struggling, such as intrinsic dissatisfaction with their career choice or perceived inadequate support from school administration.

The scale’s multidimensional design is intended to facilitate targeted research and intervention strategies. Researchers and school districts can utilize the TBS to gain a detailed understanding of the factors contributing to teacher attrition and distress, differentiating between internal coping mechanisms and external organizational stressors.

Construct

The Teacher Burnout Scale (TBS) measures the construct of occupational burnout as manifested across four distinct, yet interrelated, psychological dimensions relevant to the teaching profession:

• Career Satisfaction: This factor measures the teacher’s intrinsic fulfillment and long-term commitment, relating to the positive selection of teaching as a career.

• Perceived Administrative Support: This factor assesses the teacher’s perception of external encouragement and assistance, specifically whether they feel adequately supported by their supervisors and school leadership in managing classroom difficulties and job demands.

• Coping with Job-Related Stress: This dimension captures the negative emotional and physical toll of the job, focusing on feelings of lethargy, depression, and general difficulty managing professional pressures.

• Attitudes toward Students: This factor measures the teacher’s affective orientation towards their students, encompassing both positive and negative emotional responses and perceptions regarding student behavior and motivation.

Validity

The validity of the TBS was established through both construct and predictive validation procedures conducted on a sample of 490 teachers from Fort Worth, Texas. The initial factor analysis provided foundational evidence, establishing four orthogonal factors consistent with existing burnout literature.

Construct Validity was further supported by correlating TBS scores with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI, frequency dimension). These correlations were found to be low to moderately high, confirming that the TBS measures the general construct of burnout while retaining specific relevance to the teaching context. Furthermore, teachers who scored higher on the four TBS scales reported being more burned out than those who scored lower, confirming the scales’ ability to discriminate based on self-reported burnout severity.

Predictive Validity was demonstrated using an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). This analysis tested whether burnout scores of teachers in low-stress/burnout schools would be significantly lower than those in high-stress/burnout schools. Significant main effects were found across all four scales. A subsequent Tukey HSD test confirmed that all four comparisons were statistically significant at the 0.05 level, indicating the TBS effectively predicts differences in burnout levels between varying school environments.

Reliability

The reliability of the Teacher Burnout Scale was assessed using coefficients of internal consistency and test-retest stability, demonstrating generally strong psychometric properties.

Internal Consistency: The internal consistency of the factors, measured using Cronbach’s alpha, showed high reliability: career satisfaction (0.89), perceived administrative support (0.84), coping with job-related stress (0.80), and attitudes toward students (0.72). These values confirm that the items within each factor consistently measure the intended construct.

Test-Retest Reliability: Temporal stability was evaluated over a six- to eight-week interval using a sample of 89 public school teachers. The resulting coefficients were 0.82 for career satisfaction, 0.78 for perceived administrative support, 0.56 for coping with job-related stress, and 0.76 for attitudes toward students. All reliability coefficients reported were statistically significant at the 0.001 level, indicating that the scales generally maintain stability over time, although the coping factor showed slightly lower stability.

Factor Analysis

The final 21-item structure of the TBS was derived from a rigorous factor analysis conducted on the data from 490 teachers. The development process began with a 65-item scale, refined through initial testing in southern Indiana, and finalized after a second administration in northern Texas.

The researchers accepted a four-factor orthogonal varimax rotation solution, based on the criteria of eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and minimum factor loadings above 0.40. The resulting four distinct factors and their item compositions are:

• Career Satisfaction: Comprised of five items (1, 5, 10, 12, and 19).

• Perceived Administrative Support: Comprised of six items (3, 8, 11, 15, 18, and 20).

• Coping with Job-Related Stress: Comprised of six items (2, 4, 7, 9, 13, and 14).

• Attitudes toward Students: Comprised of four items (6, 16, 17, and 21).

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological scale

Format: The instrument consists of 21 items rated on a 6-point Likert-type scale. The response options are: Strongly Agree, Moderately Agree, Slightly Agree, Slightly Disagree, Moderately Disagree, and Strongly Disagree.

Language Available: English (Original development language)

Population Group: Teachers (specifically elementary and secondary school educators)

Age Group: Adult (Working professionals)

Population Details: The scale was developed using samples of elementary and secondary school teachers from southern Indiana and northern Texas, with the final validation sample consisting of 490 public school teachers from Fort Worth, Texas.

Test Methodology: The scale utilizes a direct response methodology where respondents indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with statements reflecting their professional satisfaction, stress levels, and perceptions of their work environment.

Keywords

Psychometrics, Cronbach’s alpha, test validity, reliability, ANOVA, teaching profession, educational research, scale development.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source material.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Teacher Burnout Scale was first published in 1986–87. Details regarding current permissions, usage fees, and licensing must be obtained directly from the original authors, S. A. Seidman and J. Zager, or the publisher of the journal Educational Research Quarterly.

Test Year: 1986–1987

Reference’s

• Seidman, S. A., and Zager, J. (1986–87). The Teacher Burnout Scale. Educational Research Quarterly 11:26–33.

• Skuller, J. B. (2011). Teacher efficacy, teacher burnout, and attitudes towards students with autism. PhD dissertation, University of Louisville.

• Zager, J. (1982). The relationship of personality, situational stress and anxiety factors to teacher burnout. PhD dissertation, Indiana University.

Items of the Teacher Burnout Scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I look forward to teaching in the future.

2. I feel depressed because of my teaching experiences.

3. I get adequate praise from my supervisors for a job well done.

4. The teaching day seems to drag on and on.

5. I am glad that I selected teaching as a career.

6. The students act like a bunch of animals.

7. My physical illnesses may be related to my stress in this job.

8. I feel that the administrators are willing to help me with classroom problems, should they arise.

9. I find it difficult to calm down after a day of teaching.

10. Teaching is more fulfilling than I had expected.

11. I believe that my efforts in the classroom are unappreciated by the administrators.

12. If I had to do it all over again, I would not become a schoolteacher.

13. I feel that I could do a much better job of teaching if only the problems confronting me were not so great.

14. The stresses in this job are more than I can bear.

15. My supervisors give me more criticism than praise.

16. Most of my students are decent people.

17. Most students come to school ready to learn.

18. I feel that the administrators will not help me with classroom difficulties.

19. I look forward to each teaching day.

20. The administration blames me for classroom problems.

21. Students come to school with bad attitudes.