Predictors of Teacher Burnout in Middle Education: School Culture and Self-Efficacy

This study aimed to investigate the extent to which school culture and self-efficacy predicts teacher burnout. The research was conducted on 284 (Mage = 36.15, SDage = 8.34; 51.4% females) middle school teachers from 12 Turkish middle schools. The data were collected utilizing the School Culture Scale, Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale, Maslach Burnout Inventory and personal information form. Structural equation model was used to analyze whether school culture and self efficacy predicts teacher burnout or not. Findings showed that school culture dimensions of bureaucratic culture and task culture had a statistically significant positive association with efficacy for student engagement and efficacy for instructional strategies. Task culture had also a significant positive association with efficacy for classroom management. Although success culture was negatively associated with both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, bureaucratic culture had a positive association with depersonalization. Efficacy for student engagement was negatively associated with emotional exhaustion. The results of this study support the importance of school culture for self-efficacy and burnout. The findings were discussed within the scope of burnout literature.