The Characteristics Of Rural Preschool Teachers’ Job Burnout And Its Relationship With Subjective Well-being

In recent years, job burnout has been studied extensively in the field of mentalhealth. According to previous researchers, jot burnout is prevalent in service trades,especially in teaching profession. Because of rural preshool teachers’ special job natureand working environment, they experienced obvious job burnout, which in turninfluenced teachers’ subjective well-being. However, most research that focused onrural preshool teachers’ job burnout has been conducted in Western settings and verylittle is known about the characteristics of it and the relations between rural preschoolteachers’ job burnout and subjective well-being among Chinese societies. Accordingly,the present study explored these problems in Chinese societies.The participants in the study included 379 rural preschool teachers from three citiesin Shandong province. Self-reported questionnaires were administered to investigatethe characteristics of preschool teachers’ job burnout and its relationship withsubjective well-being, including Maslach Burnout Inventory-EducatorsSurvey(MBI-ES),The Satisafaction With Life Scale(SWLS) and Affect Scale(AS). Themajor results are as follows:1. As a whole, rural preschool teachers’ job burnout is prevalent but not serious. Thescore of emotional exhaustion was the highest of the three subscales.2. Significant age and job experience differences in rural preshool teachers’ job burnoutwere observed. The scores of teachers aged 40 and over were significantly higher thanother teachers’ in emotional exhaustion .The teachers with 10 years working experiencehad low level of job burnout but high level of personal accomplishment. The teacherswith 15 years working experience had the highest score in emotional exhaustion.3. Preschool teachers’ job burnout was related to their position. Child-care directors gotthe lowest scores in job burnout, subject department heads’ score of emotionalexhaustion is highest, and monitors had the highest scores in reduced personal accomplishment.4. As compared to teachers in collective and private kindergartens, teachers in publickindergartens reported significantly higher scores of total scale and two subscales ofMBI-ES(depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment); Teachers in publicand collective kindergartens had the significantly higher scores in emotional exhaustionthan private kindergarten teachers.5. Rural preschool teachers had a moderate level of subjective well-being as awhole.Preshool teachers’ subjective well-being had significant age and job experiencedifferences. Teachers who aged 31 to 40 and with 11 to 15 years working experiencereported high level of subjective well-being.6. There were significant position differences in the scores of total subjectivewell-being scale. Child-care directors had the highest level of subjective well-being.Monitors’ scores of negative emotion were significantly higher than those of others.7. In public and collective kindergarten , the scores of teachers’ total scale of SWLS,positive emotion and negative emotion were significantly lower than those in privateschool.8. The scores of total scale and subscales of MBI-ES were significantly and negativelycorrelated with the scores of total scale and subscales of SWLS. Furthermore,regression analysis indicated that emotional exhaustion could significantly andnegatively predict the total scores of subjective well-being, life satisfaction and positiveemotion, but could significantly positively predict negative emotion. In addition,reduced personal accomplishment could significantly and negatively predict the scoresof total subjective well-being and positive emotion. Depersonalization couldsignificantly negatively predict their negative emotion.Accordingly, the present study made suggestions as follows:1. Rural preschool teachers should face job burnout squarely and conduct mentaladjustment positively, establish the conviction of lifelong learning and improve theirprofessional competence, seek support and respect from the family and the society andcommunicate with children’s parents.2. The society should improve rural preshool teachers’ socioeconomic status and rural teaching environment, take rural preschool teachers’ mental health seriously, and affordvarious opportunity of study for rural preschool teachers.