Burnout in the teaching profession: an exploratory study

Bibliography: p. 139-146.This exploratory study was conducted to determine the extent and the nature of burnout among the group of helping professionals who are working in the field of teaching. It attempted to assess the extent and degree of teacher burnout as measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory with respect to certain variables and to evaluate teachers' perceived causes, coping strategies, and alleviation factors through a set of open-ended questions. It was hypothesized that there would be no signif­icant relationship between teacher burnout as measured by the MBI and educational levels, sex, marital status, length of experience, and age. Further hypothesizing stated that there would be no significant differences between the Maslach Burnout subscales of emotional ex­haustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplish­ment. The study also attempted to build a profile of teacher burnout by discussing the causes, coping stra­tegies, and alleviation factors perceived by teachers with respect to the independent variables above. In order to test the hypotheses and to build the profile of teacher burnout, 135 teachers from two rural school divisions were sampled. None of the null hy-potheses were accepted. Significance was found between the demographic variables and the subscales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Specifically, sex corre­lated with emotional exhaustion in terms of frequency and intensity, age with frequency of emotional exhaus­tion, marital status with frequency of depersonaliza­tion, educational level with intensity of depersonal­ization, and, length of service with frequencies of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. The coping skills being used to offset burnout included colleagual relations, family and friends, healthy activities, substance use, avoidance, and the inability to cope. The causes and alleviation factors attributed to burnout syndrome were similar. They included politics and public opinions, clerical activities, student related concerns, administrative ineffectiveness, alienation, and role incongruencies. The findings permitted a number of observations with regard to the state of teacher burnout in rural areas. It also suggested implications for future research, which warrant further examination, and practical considera­tions for the possible alleviation of job-related stress and burnout among teachers

Mesozoic sedimentary cover sequences of the Congo Basin in the Kasai region, Democratic Republic of Congo

The Congo Basin represents one of the largest and least studied continental sedimentary basins in the world. The stratigraphy of cover sequences across the basin is poorly resolved and a somewhat simple stratigraphy has generally been applied with gross subdivision of the Mesozoic-Cenozoic cover sequences into a number weakly correlated units. Although these subdivisions are useful for broad, regional-scale correlations, investigation of drill cores and outcrop in the shallow, southern Kasai part of the basin, from Tshikapa to Kabinda, reveals considerable facies, provenance and thickness variations, suggesting a more complex depositional and stratigraphic history than previously recognized. This study now permits the subdivision of the sedimentary cover in the Kasai portion of the Congo Basin into five distinct depositional sequences consisting of (1) P1: Permo-Carboniferous glacio-lacustrine deposits correlative to the Lukuga Group; (2) J1: Jurassic-age arid to semi-arid laminated shales and siltstones and aeolian sandstones, interpreted as ephemeral lake and sand dune sequences with interspersed loess deposits and rare fluvial channel sequences (considered part of the historic Lualaba-Lubilash Supergroup—the lacustrine facies likely correlates with the Stanleyville Group, DRC and the Continental Intercalar Group, Angola); (3) C1 & C2: Lower Cretaceous locally heavy mineral-rich fluvial sandstone deposits and variably present basal conglomerate (correlated to the Loia Group, DRC and the Calonda Formation, Angola); (4) C3 & C4: Upper Cretaceous conglomerates of alluvial fan origin that grade upward into laminated shales and siltstones or well-sorted and rounded, fined grained sandstones representative of a semi-arid to arid depositional setting dominated by ephemeral lakes and small aeolian dunes, (equated to the Kwango Group, DRC and Angola) and (5) T1: fluvial, aeolian and lacustrine sediments of Paleogene age (correlated with portions of the Kalahari Group). The results convincingly suggest that this part of the Congo Basin is more structurally complex than previously appreciated, with multiple fault-bounded basement highs and depocenters that strongly influenced regional sedimentation patterns. Prolonged and sporadic displacement appears to have taken place along these faults, leading to heavily bisected basin morphology with uneven thickness and depth distributions between sequences. The deposition of Cretaceous sequences was coeval with two episodes of kimberlite emplacement, the first at ~120–130 Ma in northern Angola, and the second at ~70–80 Ma in the DRC, with gravel horizons within the Cretaceous fluvial successions (C1 and C3) known for their alluvial diamond concentration. The models developed provide a regional context for evaluation of alluvial diamond source areas and prospectivity