Welko Tomic

Burnout among Teachers Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions Compared

The aim of this study was to explore students’ and teachers’ perceptions of teacher burnout in relation to the occurrence of disruptive student classroom behaviour and the teachers’ competence to cope with this kind of behaviour. First, the study shows that the Maslach Burnout Inventory, the Coping with Disruptive Behaviour Scale and the Perceived Disruptive Behaviour Scale could be adapted to students to report perceived burnout symptoms among their teachers, the occurrence of perceived disruptive student behaviour and the students’ perception of their teachers’ competence to cope with disruptive student behaviour. Second, students’ perceptions do not differ according to their age. Third, we found that there was a significant difference between the perceptions of male and female students in respect of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, but not in respect of personal accomplishment. Fourth, according to the students’ perceptions, a considerable percentage of variance in each of the three burnout dimensions was explained by teachers’ competence to cope with student disruptive behaviour and perceived disruptive student behaviour. Finally, with respect to the teachers’ self-reports, it appeared that teachers’ and students’ reports differed significantly with respect to depersonalization, personal accomplishment and the competence to cope with disruptive student behaviour. The hierarchical regression analyses of the teachers’ data showed that the competence to cope with disruptive student behaviour significantly contributed to depersonalization and personal accomplishment, whereas the teachers’ age was significantly related with personal accomplishment. Although the students’ perceptions and the teachers’ self-reports on the teachers’ well-being differed on some dimensions, the students’ information may contribute valid information on some aspects of teachers’ mental health and classroom processes.

A review of creativity within organizations from a psychological perspective

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to survey the main creativity models, mediators as well as the enhancers of organizational creativity, all from a psychological perspective. In addition, the paper seeks to identify gaps in knowledge of organizational creativity. Aspects of creativity that require closer inspection are described.Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature on creativity within organizations from a psychological perspective was undertaken. A large number of research papers, mainly published after 1985 covering creativity and/or innovation, were identified and critically evaluated for relevance to the papers purpose, and were judged on sufficient scholarship in order to create a narrative literature review.Findings – Despite the great amount of psychological research on creativity and innovation, only a few models and theories appear to be defined. Moreover, their predictive value and incorporation of possible influencing factors is limited. In general, it can be concluded tha...

The Factorial Validity of Scores on the Teacher Interpersonal Self-Efficacy Scale

The present study examined the factorial validity of scores on the Teacher Interpersonal Self-Efficacy Scale across two samples of 416 teachers each. Following self-efficacy theory, which posits that self-efficacy beliefs are linked to specific activities, it was hypothesized that the three Teacher Interpersonal Self-Efficacy subscales comprised three different activities linked to teacher self-efficacy beliefs. Confirmatory factor analysis results from the two samples supported the hypothesis by showing an adequate fit of a three-factor oblique model. This model fits the data better than either a two-factor or one-factor alternate model. Scores from the three subscales yielded coefficient alphas in excess of .90.

BURNOUT AMONG DUTCH REFORMED PASTORS

The present study examined the degree of burnout among Dutch reformed pastors and aspects that may be conducive to the onset of burnout. They were asked to report how difficult they found their tasks and what options they had to alleviate the pressure of work they experienced. Compared with other human service professionals the results show that pastors have relatively high scores on emotional exhaustion and relatively low scores on depersonalization. Pastors have relatively low scores on personal accomplishment. Those who say they are experiencing severe pressure of work appear to have high scores on the three burnout dimensions. Role ambiguity and lack of social support appear to intensify reported feelings of burnout. This article concludes by discussing some of the pastors own suggestions as to how to relieve work pressure.

A Test of the Factorial Validity of the Teacher Efficacy Scale

67 T psychological and educational literature devotes much attention to the concept of teacher efficacy, which is usually described as ‘the extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance’ (Bergman et al., 1977, p. 137). In a review of virtually all sources dated between 1974 and 1997 that used the term ‘teacher efficacy’ Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998) identified over 100 articles, conference papers and books that refer somehow or other to teacher efficacy. Down through the years the concept of teacher efficacy has been connected with many important educational variables such as student achievement, student attitudes to school, student attitudes to the subject matter being taught, student attitudes to the teacher, teachers’ classroom behaviours, teachers’ attitudes to teaching, teacher stress and burn-out, and teachers’ willingness to implement innovation (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Many measurement instruments have been developed to assess teacher efficacy, based on two areas of research (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). The first one is grounded in Rotter’s social learning theory of internal versus external control (1966). According to this theory, teachers who believe that they are competent to teach difficult or unmotivated students are considered to have internal control, whereas teachers who believe that the environment has more influence on student learning than their own teaching ability are considered to have external control. The Rand organisation, the first to conduct research on teacher efficacy, developed two items to measure a teacher’s locus of control (Armor et al., 1976). The statement that indicates that environmental factors overwhelm a teacher’s power to influence student learning was labelled ‘general teaching efficacy’. The other, labelled ‘personal teaching efficacy’, indicates the importance of a teacher’s ability to overcome factors that could make learning difficult for students. In the course of time several other instruments were developed to measure teacher efficacy in the Rotter tradition, including Teacher Locus of Control (Rose and Medway, 1981), Responsibility for Student Achievement (Guskey, 1981) and the Webb Efficacy Scale (Ashton et al., 1982). The second area of research on teacher efficacy is grounded in Bandura’s social cognitive theory and his construct of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977). A test of the factorial validity of the Teacher Efficacy Scale

Existential fulfillment and burnout among principals and teachers

The aim of the current study was to determine the prevalence of burnout in primary education teachers and primary school principals and to explore the relationship of existential fulfillment to self‐reported burnout scores. Random samples of 215 teachers and 514 principals participated in a cross‐sectional study using an anonymous, mailed survey. Two questionnaires were used in both studies. The Dutch version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory for teachers was used to assess the teachers’ and principals’ burnout level. Second, existential fulfillment was measured by the Längle, Orgler and Kundi Existence Scale. The results of the present study indicated that teachers’ and principals’ existential fulfillment is related to their burnout level. Lack of existential fulfillment was an important burnout determinant. Unfortunately, this concept has been neglected to date. Existential fulfillment may be a significant and usable point of departure for devising psychological interventions aimed at teachers and principals.

ON THE EFFECTS OF TRAINING INDUCTIVE REASONING: HOW FAR DOES IT TRANSFER AND HOW LONG DO THE EFFECTS PERSIST?

Using the same program, two training experiments have been conducted in a Dutch and in a German elementary school. The common expectation was that training in inductive reasoning would transfer both on intelligence tests measuring inductive reasoning and on math performance. Furthermore, it was expected that the training effects would persist for at least some months after training had ended. In experiment 1 (N=34), a rather short training period turned out to be effective with respect to the intelligence test performance but not with respect to math performance. In experiment 2 (N=23), the amount of training in inductive reasoning was systematically varied. It could be shown that transfer on intelligence test as well as on math performance was linearly dependent on the amount of prior training. The training effects were found to persist between four and nine months after training.RésuméDeux entraînements expérimentaux utilisant le même programme ont été conduits dans une école élémentaire hollandaise et allemande. On s’attendait à ce que l’entraînement au raisonnement inductif ait des effets positifs sur la réussite à des tests de raisonnement inductif et sur les performances en mathématiques. On s’attendait par ailleurs à ce que les effets se maintiennent dans les mois suivant l’entraînement. Dans l’expérience 1 (N=34), un entraînement d’une durée relativement limitée eu des effets sur les performances aux tests de raisonnement mais n’en eu pas sur les performances en mathématiques. Dans l’expérience 2 (N=23), on a fait varier systématiquement la durée de l’entraînement. On a constaté que les effets aussi bien au test de raisonnement qu’en mathématiques dépendaient de façon linéaire de la durée des entraînements préalables. Les effets persistent entre quatre et neuf mois après la fin de l’entraînement.

TRAINING IN MEASUREMENT

Abstract The study investigated the effects of Obuchovas (1966, 1972) method of teaching children how to measure. The subjects were 30 kindergarten children who showed no pretest knowledge of either conservation or seriation. Children from the training condition (n = 15) received 3 1/2 weeks of training. Training appeared to be highly effective. A broad near-far transfer was observed; that is, skills were transferred to conservation tasks not taught in training. Far-far transfer (i.e., transfer to concepts not included in training) was also observed, because the children were able to solve a broad range of seriation tasks for which they had received no training. This is a noteworthy result, because far-far transfer has rarely been reported in training research. These effects persisted for 4 months. The educational importance of this result is that by means of a broadly designed course of training, strong and long-lasting near-far and far-far transfer effects may be induced. Training did not, however, evo...

A confirmatory factor analysis of scores on the teacher efficacy scale

Validity studies on the Teacher Efficacy Scale provide us with neither clear evidence nor clear solutions to the factorial structure or the theoretical concepts underlying the scale’s items. This study tests different factor structures of the Teacher Efficacy Scale as found in the literature using confirmatory factor analysis on data from a sample of 540 practicing teachers. Four factorial models were formulated based on theoretical analysis and on the results of several validity studies of the Teacher Efficacy Scale. In accordance with Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy theory, the results revealed that the fit of the four-factor oblique model was significantly better than that of the other factorial models. However, the fit of the four-factor model did not reach the recommended criterion of adequately fitting models. After eliminating three poorly loaded items, the model’s fit improved significantly but insufficiently to reach the fit criterion. It was concluded that the Teacher Efficacy Scale in its curren...

The Influence of a Teacher Training Program on Student Perception of Classroom Climate

ABSTRACT Many studies of classroom climate demonstrate effects on student learning outcomes. In this study the effect of a short in‐service teacher training program on pupil perceptions of the classroom climate is investigated. Two conditions are compared: in the first condition the teachers participated in the training program at the beginning of the school year; in the second condittion the teachers participated in January. It appeared from the results that pupils did not perceive a difference between teachers in the first condition and teachers in the second, with respect to the topics which were the focus of training (classroom management and instruction). However, a difference in the perception of the teacher/pupil relationships was found in favor of the teachers in the first condition.