This paper is aimed at helping school administrators support early childhood educators in preventing and/or dealing with teacher burnout. This study included kindergarten teachers from public and private schools in Parañaque City. The researcher used the explanatory sequential mixed methods design, which is a two-phased model of collecting data. For the first phase of data collection, the participants accomplished the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES), in which their mean scores and frequency levels from each burnout scale—emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment—were determined. It was found that the 34 kindergarten teachers who took the MBI-ES had an average frequency level of “a few times a week” in emotional exhaustion, almost “never” in depersonalization, and about “once a week” in personal accomplishment. Those with the highest mean scores and had at least one frequency level higher in emotional exhaustion and/or depersonalization and/or those with the lowest mean scores and had at least one frequency level lower in personal accomplishment than the average frequency levels were interviewed. For the second phase of data collection, a case study approach was conducted among the nine interviewees, in which the individual and cross-case findings were analyzed via thematic analysis.
Findings revealed the various factors that caused the burnout experience among the kindergarten teacher participants due to mismatches in different areas of worklife, increased job demands, and insufficient job resources. The participants shared that the beginning of the school year was very challenging with the full implementation of online education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also discussed how burnout affected the kindergarten teachers in the personal and professional aspects of their lives. There were those who experienced heavy workload and being in a negative work environment; however, it was also found that most of the respondents were provided with support and were able to cope through the interventions provided by their school leaders and administrators via certain programs and practices. The participants also had their own ways of coping from stress or burnout through utilizing various problem-focused and emotion-focused coping techniques.
This study elaborated on how school administrators can essentially influence the teachers’ burnout experience and how they can support early childhood educators working from home, as a consequence of the pandemic, to help them prevent and/or deal with burnout. School administrators can prepare and plan ahead, collaborate with the teachers, develop and strengthen the teachers’ support system, provide teachers opportunities to be psychologically detached from work, and provide interventions that can help strengthen the teachers’ coping skills and address their specific needs, may they be in the technical, instructional, or emotional aspect, to make interventions really effective.
This study can benefit the school administrators and the early childhood educators, who are encouraged to communicate and collaborate with one another in taking care of the teachers’ well-being and providing effective interventions and a positive work environment to make teaching in the early childhood education setting a fulfilling experience, even during the pandemic. It is recommended to conduct teacher burnout studies among early childhood educators from other levels and during the implementation of blended and face-to-face learning to support the teachers in the new normal.
Keywords: teacher burnout, school administration, early childhood educators, interventions, coping techniques, online education, COVID-19 pandemi
