Campus Location
Dallas Campus (Online)
Date of Award
12-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Department
Organizational Leadership
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Committee Chair or Primary Advisor
Timothy Atkinson
Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor
Heather Rasmussen
Third Committee Member or Committee Reader
Gary Railsback
Abstract
Abstract As teachers make their way back to the classroom for the 2023–2024 school year, teacher burnout is manifesting itself mentally, physically, and emotionally. In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 epidemic a global pandemic, which forced unwanted change in many organizations, especially education (Pressley, 2021). In the state of emergency schools were forced to close and new teaching methods were erected abruptly. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation describes the professions of teaching as one of the most stressful occupations in the United States. Although stress is inevitable, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new stressors and demands that have negatively impacted teachers’ and caused rising rates in mental health, coping, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, attrition, and turnover (OzamizEtxebarria et al., 2021; Pressley, 2021). Three years after the pandemic entered the United States, chronic stress and burnout have continued to wreak havoc on the education system, forcing many teachers to leave the profession and add to the teacher shortage crisis today. The immense uncertainty of the pandemic has resulted in unmanageable work stress, and many teachers are choosing to leave the classroom. In the midst of uncertainty, teachers had to adjust to increased job responsibilities, little to no administrative support, and less resources. Required to accept alternative teaching environments, technology challenges, and emergent safety protocols, teachers have been forced to cope and overcome adversity. The reality of teaching has changed dramatically, especially from before the COVID-19 pandemic. For many the added stress has negatively impacted the physical and psychological health of teachers, which can lead to negative effects on the classroom environment (Hurley, 2021). In this qualitative, phenomenological study, the focus was to gain a better understanding of teacher burnout during vi the COVID-19 pandemic through the lived experiences of teachers and discover if coping and meaningful work were factors that influenced their experience. Keywords: stress, burnout, COVID-19, pandemic, phenomenology, coping, meaningful work
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Garcia, Rita Marie, "Understanding Burnout Through the Lens of Teachers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Phenomenological Study" (2023). Digital Commons @ ACU, Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 722.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/722