A Study On The Relationship Between Middle School English Teachers' Job Satisfaction And Job Burnout

As a universal phenomenon which strikes most professionals, burnout has been a popular focus of more and more researchers since it is firstly put forward by American clinical psychologist Freudenberger in 1974. And studies on teachers' job burnout began to emerge in the mid-1970s. It is found that when teachers are affected by job burnout, a feeling of low accomplishment will strike them. When it comes to the reasons leading to job burnout, the gap between reality and ideals is one of important factors. And such a gap will result in dissatisfaction with work. Many scholars considered that job satisfaction was an individual's affective response showing the degree to which a person's needs are being met by his or her actual job. And if the dissatisfaction can not be effectively relieved, it will change into burnout which will adversely affect their work. In addition, it is found that there is a negative relationship between job satisfaction and job burnout. In China, as a special community, middle school English teachers have been experiencing serious job stress because that English has attracted more and more public's attention. And the quality of middle school English teachers will in turn exert a non-ignorable influence on the quality of the whole education system. As a result, a research specific on the status quo of middle school English teachers'views about job satisfaction, job burnout especially the relationship between them is of great necessity.The current study aims to explore the general situation of middle school English teachers'view about job satisfaction and their job burnout, to examine the relationship between them and to propose some coping strategies and implications with the purpose of improving the quality of middle school English teachers who play an important role in the development of the whole education system. The present thesis begins with the background of current situation of the teachers'job satisfaction and job burnout followed by the literature review of the research on job satisfaction, job burnout as well as the relationship between them. Then, discussion on the empirical study that has been conducted in order to give the results of the research questions of this thesis. The participants in this study are 210 middle school English teachers from five provinces of China, that is. Henan province, Shanxi province. Chongqing city, Guangdong province, and Liaoning province, all of whom are of different genders, ages, educational backgrounds and years of teaching. Questionnaires and interviews are chosen as the research methods. The former is used to get general results of middle school English teachers' views about job satisfaction, job burnout, and the relationship between them. And through the latter method, more details can be obtained and the analysis results can be further proved.The main findings can be summarized into the following points:Firstly, middle school English teachers'job satisfaction keeps at an intermediate level on the whole. And among the five dimensions of job satisfaction, namely, self-realization, work intensity, salary, the relationship with leaders, and the relationship with colleagues, the most satisfactory aspects is self-realization followed by the dimension of relationship with colleagues and the relationship with leaders, and the last two most unsatisfactory factors are work intensity and salary. Secondly, middle school English teachers are experiencing moderate level of job burnout and they bear most burnout on emotional exhaustion; in reference to the other two dimensions, namely, depersonalization, reduced personal achievement, the subjects report that they are not as serious as emotion exhaustion. Thirdly, it is found that job satisfaction is negatively correlated with job burnout through Pearson correlation analysis. And work intensity, salary as well as self-realization of job satisfaction can reversely predict emotional exhaustion; the negative predicative variables of reduced personal achievements are self-realization and relationships with leaders; and only one dimension of job satisfaction, namely, work intensity has negative predictive relations with depersonalization.On the basis of the above findings, it is shown that the whole society, school leaders, and middle school English teachers themselves should take responsibilities to improve teachers'satisfaction and reduce or prevent job burnout. Through the support from various aspects of society, the reform of school leaders'management system, along with individual's continuous effort, the quality of middle school English teachers will be improved, which can exert positive impact on the whole education system.