Who will burn out, and who will leave? Demographic predictors of burnout and intent to quit in world language teachers

Abstract

Teacher burnout and attrition are significant concerns in the United States and globally, particularly in high-needs areas such as world language (WL) teaching. Despite extensive international research on teacher burnout and attrition, few studies have specifically examined how demographic characteristics may influence burnout and intent to quit among WL teachers. To address this gap, this study employed a cross-sectional research design utilizing a factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to explore the relationships between various demographic factors and teacher burnout and intent to quit in high school WL teachers. Analysis revealed statistically significant main, interactive, and between-participants effects for a range of personal characteristics (i.e. gender, age, race, and ethnicity), teacher characteristics (i.e. number of WLs taught, primary language status, years of experience, highest level of education completed, type of certification program, number of professional organizations, and number of additional certifications), and school characteristics (i.e. urbanicity of school, type of school, and region). Findings suggest a need to take these factors into consideration when addressing teacher attrition and burnout through research and practice.