A Comparative Research On Teacher Burnout Of College English Teacher In Public And Private Vocational Colleges Of Dongguan

With the three dimensions of Maslach’s burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) as the basic theory of this research and the Maslach Burnout Inventory—Educator Surveyed (MBI-ES) as the burnout measurement instrument, this research does an investigation with questionnaires in 116 college English teachers belonging to two types of vocational colleges in Dongguan, which containing 51 in the public and 65 in the private. The main purpose of this research is to compare the burnout results of English teachers respectively belonging to the public and the private vocational colleges and tries to find whether there is any burnout difference between those teachers. With eight demographic variables as the comparison factors, the present thesis compares the burnout of the two schools based on the three dimensions theory. After data analysis, interviews for getting further research are made among certain teachers with questions from the analysis results. With the data analysis from questionnaires and results conclusions from interviews, the research indicates as the following:The significant difference is found on emotional exhaustion of burnout almost on all the demographic variables when comparing the burnout results of the two schools. And depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment are found on a small number of variables. In most of the comparison cases, teachers of the public get higher levels of burnout on emotional exhaustion than those in the private. Teachers with over 15years of teaching experience are found significant differences on depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment, and those of the private get a higher level of burnout on these two dimensions than those in the public. Professors of the private get a higher level of burnout on depersonalization than those in the public. According to the interview records, we learn that there are overload work and fierce competition in the public. Professors and other teachers with 15 years of teaching experience in the private school have higher level of burnout on depersonalization and personal accomplishment as professors feel some kinds of disappointment in the new work environment. For those teachers with more than 15 years of teaching experience, they are easily tired of the repeated work in the same environment year by year. And new comers are curious for a new working environment, so their burnout on emotional exhaustion is lower than those working in one school for a long time. Yearly income may affect the burnout results in some way but not the major one. And in the public school, not everyone gets a position as a government teacher, so competition for the position is fierce; burnout of these teachers is more serious than that of the private.The purpose of this research is to arouse the attention to teacher burnout in English teachers of vocational colleges, to find out the causes of the burnout and give out some corresponding prevention and mitigation countermeasures. Those countermeasures are fitness programs offered by schools which could develop the friendship between colleagues and help them to ease the intension of work; joining in team programs for the academic research which will enhance teachers’confidence and release the burnout; creating a new working environment for teachers which would be a good idea to relieve the burnout; considering about the reasonable workload for teachers and balancing the income gap between them, increasing teachers’income with certain payment. All those are good methods for relieving the teachers’burnout which are concluded from the interview records.