教师职业倦怠的研究状况毕业论文外文翻译.doc

Chapter 1 Concepts and Research Status1 .1 Definition of Job-BurnoutEver since Freudenberger put forward the concept "burnout", it has been used specifically on the job-burnout phenomena of people involved in people-helping occupation. Job-burnout is now divided into three sections: Emotional Exhaustion Depersonalization and Efficacy. Such division is followed by most researchers.1 .1 .1 The Static Definition of Job-BurnoutSome researchers study job-burnout from a static viewpoint. For example, Farber6 holds that job-burnout originates from the individual's recognition of the serious imbalance between his efforts and gains. Brill thinks that the characteristics of job burnout can be viewed from two angles. On the one hand, the individual has experienced good job achievement and higher emotional level in the same job context; on the other hand, without outside help or changes in the environment, it may be very difficult for the individual to return to the original state.1 .1 .2 The Dynamic Definition of Job-BurnoutOther researchers term job-burnout as a dynamic process. For example, Cherniss thinks that job burnout can be divided into three stages. The first stage is stress. The individual is faced with long-term excessive emotional demand from their target of service, which brings imbalance between the individual's effective resources and his job demand. The second stage is fatigue. The individual has short-term emotional anxiety, fatigue and sense of burnout. The third stage is called "Defensive Coping", which involves series of changes in behavior and conduct. The individual start to put his needs in front of everything else and treat its target of service in an alienated and mechanical way so as to detach other people and reduce emotional input. At last, the individual discovers the great disparity between his actual job state and his expectation, which may lead to considerable decline in job satisfaction1.1 .3 General Definition of Job BurnoutMaslach and Jackson's definition of job-burnout is the most oft-quoted in numerous research literatures. Here job burnout is defined as "the individual's symptoms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and efficacy in occupational areas with people as the service target." Emotional exhaustion refers to the individual's excessive consumption in emotional resources which leads to emotional distress and total loss of occupational passion; depersonalization refers to the individual's treating the target of service with such negative attitude as denial, negation, apathy and excessive detachment; efficacy refers to the individuals declining sense of competence and job achievement with negative evaluation of the meaning and value of one's job.1 .2 Job-Satisfaction and Other Related ConceptsJob burnout shares certain similarities with occupational stress, depression and occupational pressure. A one-on-one comparison may give us a better understanding of the definition of job burnout.1 .2. 1. Job Burnout and Occupational StressTheir difference falls into three parts. Firstly, stress refers to the individual's short-term adaptive process with psychological and physical symptoms. When outside factors like working environment place a demand on the individual that is beyond the individual's effective coping resources, occupational stress takes place. Job-burnout marks the breakdown of the coping process. It's the result of long-term, persistent occupational stress. Secondly, occupational stress has a wider target area, anyone may experience stress through his job, but only those with a higher achievement motivation or occupational goals, or those whose self-expectation differs greatly from reality may experience job-burnout. Thirdly, job burnout involves the formation and development of the individual's negative attitude and behavior towards his target of service, organization and the job itself. Occupational stress may not be paired with such changes in attitude and behavior.1.2. 2 Job Burnout and DepressionAccording to Freudenberger, job burnout is job-related and apparently context-bound. Depression, on the other hand, is universal. Warr also thinks that depression does not have context limitations and demands while job-burnout is job-related.l. 2. 3 Job Burnout and Occupational PressureFirstly, occupational stress adopts a uni-dimensional approach on the research of stress reactions, while job burnout studies not only the individual's emotional reactions under occupational pressure, but also changes in the individual's attitude and behavior towards others and oneself as a result of occupational pressure. Secondly, occupational pressure usually originates from the individual's recognition of the imbalance between the job demand and one's capacity. Job burnout, on the other hand, usually originates from the individual's recognition of the imbalance between the job input and returns, in which emotion plays a significant role. Thirdly, occupational pressure could be a simultaneous reaction, while job burnout is a long-term gradual process of development and evolvement.1 .3 The Measurement of Job BurnoutThere are numerous tools for the measurement of job burnout, among which the most influential and most commonly used should be the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). In all the published empirical studies on job burnout, more than 90% research papers and reports used MBI as measurement tools. MBI include three sub-inventories: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and efficacy, totaling 22 items. Emotional exhaustion sub-inventory includes 9 item, the depersonalization sub-inventory, 5 items. In these two sub-inventories, the higher the individual scores, the higher his level of burnout. The efficacy sub-inventory include 8 items, the higher the individual scores, the lower his level of burnout. These items follow a 7-grading system ranging from "never" "several times yearly" "once a month or less". "several times monthly" "once a week" "several times weekly" to "everyday". Generally speaking, individuals with a high level of burnout tend to score high on the emotional exhaustion and depersonalization sub-inventory and low on the efficacy sub-inventory.1 .4 Research Status of Job BurnoutThe research on job burnout can be divided into the following stages: (1)Clinical research. In the early stages, most researchers were doctors like Freudenberger. Most of their research was conducted from a clinical approach, as intervention on job burnout cases. They seldom did empirical studies, nor did they care to establish a theoretical framework.(2)Developmental research. Many empirical studies on job burnout appeared in the 1980s. Researchers put forward empirical proof (statistics, questionnaire, interview reactions and clinical cases) on the working mechanism and intervention techniques of job burnout. They also developed standardized measurement tools. These provided later researchers with relatively precise operational definition and assistance in research methodology. The development of Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) has received universal acknowledgment among researchers and marked the beginning of systematic research on job burnout. (3)Integrated research. At the present stage, most job burnout research is still limited on people helping occupations. Among all the variants related to job burnout, more attention is paid on job-satisfaction, occupational pressure, job expectation, personal relations in the work place, workload, etc.91 .5 Research Status of Teacher BurnoutCompared with burnout research in other occupations, teacher burnout claims numerous peculiarities. The homogeneity of the service target (students) is far larger than that of other occupations. Research shows that teachers are faced with much higher occupational stress than the average population. Are teachers more susceptible to job burnout? Most empirical studies to date didn't found enough evidence to support this. Teachers get similar marks as other professions on all three MBI inventories. But they exhibit a unique feature in time. Farber(1984, 1985) found that the occupational pressure and job burnout of American teachers exhibit different developmental modes in different stages. When viewed on a yearly basis, most teachers feel relatively moderate pressure and burnout; but when viewed at different stages of the school year, they show a clear type of changes, rising at September and October, declining at January, then rise at March and May again. Many demographical variations are closely connected with the onset of teacher burnout. Many researches indicate that male teachers display a higher susceptibility to job burnout than their female counterpart; teachers under the age of 40 are easier target of job burnout than older teachers; teachers responsible for senior grades, or teaching large classes with large numbers of students feels j ob-burnout more easily due to high professional pressure. When it comes to the influence of gender upon the three dimensions of job burnout, consensus can only be reached on the depersonalization dimension, that is, male teachers in primary and middle schools gets considerably higher marks than their female counterparts. For the dimension of emotional exhaustion, some researches show that among primary and university teachers, females rate higher than males (Byrne, 1991)，but Anderson&Iwanicki (1984) found opposite results. Other researches indicate that gender distinctions are not significant in this dimension. Many researches found that younger teachers display higher levels of emotional exhaustion than senior teachers. In other dimensions, conclusions are different. In 1993, Pderabissi et al. found in a cross-cultural comparative study involving primary and middle school teachers in Italy and France that age place considerable influence on the dimensions of depersonalization and emotional exhaustion. Teachers in these two countries show considerable differences in the dimension of depersonalization before the age of 30; while after 30, such differences tend to decrease. On the contrary, in the dimension of emotional exhaustion, before the age of 30, the differences are not so apparent; after 30, such differences tend to increase. In addition, teaching experience, marital status, difference in class, grade and student type may also contribute to teacher burnout in general and different dimensions in particular.Job-burnout could be traced to individual, organizational and social elements. Teacher burnout may take place when the above-mentioned elements combine to induce a perception of imbalance on the part of the teacher. Among these, the individual element, particularly personal character and background play crucial part. In the same job context, under identical management conditions, individuals with similar educational background and teaching experience could react differently to the same origin of stress. There are sufficient researches and statistics to indicate that individual element is behind such differences (Cichon&Koff, 1980; Farber, 1991). Generally speaking, an individual's reaction to stress is the result of interaction between the stress and his personal characters. Many researches indicate that, certain personal characters are easier targets to job burnout. They are: unrealistic hopes and expectations, lower self-esteem and judgment, diffidence, the lack of clear knowledge and objective evaluation upon oneself, etc. Teachers often have altruistic motives. They care about others sincerely and are more idealistic than the average population. They have strong self-respect and tend to set unrealistically high goals, which may lead to the loss of identity and eventually lead to job burnout.Chapter 2 A Study on Job Burnout of Nanjing Middle School Teachers2. 1 Research ObjectivesIn recent years, there is a growing number of empirical studies on teachers' burnout in China. However, compared with the large number of teachers in China, the present research status is far from satisfying. Chinese society is undergoing unprecedented changes and education is developing dramatically. Right now, curriculum reform in basic education poses great challenges to teachers, "teachers facing enormous pressure" is becoming an inescapable fact.In view of these, the objectives of the present research are: 1)find out the relationships between job burnout degrees and demographic features, namely gender, individual personalities, age differences, marital status, teaching experience and educational background; 2) find out the fundamental reasons behind teachers' burnout as perceived by middle school teachers themselves, this will be done by way of interviews and follow -up analysis;3) put forward possible solutions to teachers' burnout.2. 2 Research Methods2.2.1 Subjects In this research, I randomly picked 150 teachers from 6 middle schools in Nanjing, and conducted research on job burnout status. We handed out 150 copies of all three questionnaires and got 113 effective copies in return. These teachers are from schools of different levels. Nanjing No. 2, No.4 and No.8 Middle School are usually considered mediocre; Nanjing N0. 1 and N0.13 Middle school are municipally key middle schools; and Middle School Attached to Nanjing Normal University is provincial key middle school and enjoys national acclaim. These middle schools span 4 districts and could be representative of the general picture of middle school education in Nanjing.Among the teachers surveyed, there are 84 female teachers (or 74%) and 27 male teachers (or 24%) indicating a severe gender imbalance among middle school teachers.2. 2. 2 Research InstrumentsMaslach and Jackson's definition of job-burnout is the most oft-quoted in numerous research literatures. Here job burnout is defined as "the individual's symptoms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and efficacy in occupational areas with people as the service target." Therefore the present research is conducted using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI revised edition), which measures the degree of emotional exhaustion; Eysenck Personality Quest (EPQ), which measures the degree of depersonalization; General Efficacy Survey (GES), which measures the degree of efficacy. Teachers taking this survey are also required to include part of their personal data related to the objective of this research.Eysenck Personality Quest (EPQ) (adult version) is formulated by Dr. Eysenck, head of Psychology Department of the University of London's Institute of Psychiatry. He thinks that personality is influenced by four basic elements: extrovertness (E), neurosis (N), psychosis (P) and lie (L). Personality is displayed by the individual's different tendencies and levels in these four elements. EPQ is one of the most commonly used inventorie