Burnout and Stress Management Competency among Secondary Teachers

This study aims to determine the level of burnout and the competency level of the teachers in managing stress utilizing and adapting both Maslach’s tool to assess burnout levels in three dimensions and the Stress Management Competency Tool by Health Services Executive to determine the teacher’s competency levels to one hundred three teachers from four public high schools in Mandaue City Division, Mandaue City Philippines, employing the proportionate random sampling. The years of teaching experience and number of preparations were determined, then correlated to the specific burnout and stress management competency levels; eventually treated statistically using Chi Square Method with Yate’s Correction for cells less than five in the contingency table.

The results revealed that most teachers are experiencing a low level of emotional exhaustion and a moderate level of depersonalization and feelings of lack of accomplishment. The competency levels of the teachers were found to be reasonable in all the four components of the stress management skill. The years of teaching is related to some aspects of Maslach’s Dimensions which may even affect a teacher’s ability to manage stress; A Determinants of Burnout Model was formulated describing the association between Stress Management Competency and Burnout and Years of Experience and Burnout are both inverse.

In the Philippines, teaching is highly regarded profession. Teachers do too many tasks like making lesson plans, teaching students, computing grades, making visual aids, checking students’ works, and filling-out forms required by Department of Education (DepEd) and many others [1]. Moreover teachers encounter the emotional, psychological and social aspects which might be the reasons of changing jobs or staying away with declining quality of work gradually leading the academic future of the country at stake. Going beyond the borders of the school includes having to deal with the effects of family problems-separation, economic constraints and many other problems playing major roles in transferring ill e motions from the students to the teachers. If emotional resources become drained, then the teachers feel exhausted, or burned out [1] or else, teachers can also do their part by drawing on one of their professional skills, namely an ability to engage with people [2]. It is not something one could choose out of scarcity of choice knowing it requires a great deal of patience and dedication. Existence of burnout and a lack of ability to manage stress reducing the interest of the worker, compromising the quality of its job. Otherwise may not create local organization conflict and simple personal complexity even to the educational system in general [3].

Stress and burnout are interrelated but under normal conditions can be an adaptive response to difficult situations, while burnout is a behavioural response to stress that is debilitating, costly and problematic which could make a workplace insecure, lead to higher rate of turnover, high absenteeism and low productivity [2]. Furthermore, the American Psychological Association stated that there are no easy way to manage burnout and stress, but they offered coping strategies to combat these problems as well as school based programs such as seminars and workshops.

This study shall facilitate teacher strength in the stress management competencies of the teachers as to addressing the gap between burnout experience and stress management skills.

The study is anchored on the theory of Maslach called the Generalized Burnout Theory in 1996 and used the Management Competency Framework on workplace stress devised by the Health Services Executive in 2009. The Maslach Burnout Theory shall provide the level of burnout among secondary teachers in three dimensions: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of interest and Stress Management Competency Framework theory on the levels of stress management competencies among the secondary teachers on four dimensions: managing emotions, communicating expectations, managing the individual and managing difficult situations. This profile includes years of teaching experience, number of hours on stress-related seminars attended and number of preparations.

This study aimed to assess the relationship between burnout and stress management competency among the secondary teachers of Mandaue City Division in the school year 2017-2018. More specifically, it seeks to answer professional characteristics of the teachers in terms of years of teaching experience, number of hours on stress-related seminars attended; and number of preparations; then, the level of teachers’ burnout in terms of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishments; the teachers’ level of competency on stress management in terms of managing emotions and having integrity, managing and communicating existing and future work, managing the individuals within the team, and reasoning or managing difficult situations; finally, the relationship between burnout and professional characteristics, between stress management competency and professional characteristics; and, burnout and stress management competency.

Maslach’s theory stated that job burnout is a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job comprising an overwhelming feelings of exhaustion, feelings of cynicism or detachment from the job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and failure. Herbert Freudenberger devised the term burn-out as the consequence of severe stress and high ideals in “helping” professions while it is applied to careerists, celebrities, overworked employees and homemakers. As a result, it is not clear what it really means and how it could be diagnosed. This also makes it impossible to say how common it is [4]. Burnout as a multifaceted phenomenon with symptoms that are often exhibited in areas like physical, intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual [5], mitigate physical and mental health problems for too much teacher responsibilities [4].

Not all people [6] experience the same level of burnout, from mild to serious. In the teaching profession, burnout has a number of severe problems such as absenteeism, low commitment, ailments and health related factors, inappropriate conduct and low job performance. High workload contributes to burnout according to a number of studies like teachers working up to 60 hours per week in British Columbia and Canada [7], engaging much student discipline by 46.7 Arkansas teachers [8], so that, two-thirds of new teachers will leave their field within four years (Byrne, 1998), 20% to 30% after three years [9] (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Relationship between burnout and stress management.

The burnout is characterized by a variety symptoms like: (1) exhaustion- feeling drained and emotionally empty, unable to cope, tired and down and absence of enough energy; (2) alienation from activities- starts to feel cynical about their working conditions and their co-workers; (3) reduced performance- feels very negative about their tasks, find it hard to concentrate and are listless and lacks creativity. Burnout was associated with personality characteristics and job stressors the relatively contributed to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and reduced personal accomplishment primary teachers [10], both personality and work-related stressors were associated with burnout dimensions. Managing student misbehaviour and time constraints were found to systematically predict dimensions of burnout. As per Beer & Beer in Burnout and Stress, Depression and Self-Esteem of Teachers, stress profile for teachers and staff indicated statistically that teaching in regular grade school experienced less burnout, and stress no sex difference in particular than high school teachers. Anderson stated that people who are involved in human services and educational institutions are often demanded to spend a considerable amount of time to spend with other people with interpersonal interaction centred on transferring knowledge or are focused on problems which led to emergence of other feelings such as: anger, embarrassment, fear, or despair which include teaching professions its fair share of job stress and pressure. Farber, observed in a study on Stress and burnout in the American Teacher” utilizing 59% of the teachers who have been teaching for four years, that understanding and addressing problems of teacher stress and burnout current efforts to restructure American Education cannot succeed. Coupled with increasing public criticism and low pay often make the job of teaching untenable and no easy solutions like workshops. Burn-out and stress took many forms like for a social worker or as a guidance counsellor. This occurs because the children in the classrooms may also have problems of an “adult-sized”. Teachers may find themselves dealing with the drastic effects of parent’s separation, economic constraints, violence which are something more than a teacher could handle creating stress and even exhaustion [11] Stress could elicit a holistic response or a combination of cognitive, emotional, physical and behavioural responses, a resulting lose health though others may feel more powerful, resilient and compassionate. A comprehensive stress management strategy is important protective factor for successful and satisfying work of teachers and other professions as well. Mindfulness can facilitate the person to replenish his or her internal resources and increase their psychosocial hardiness and resilience. When faced with stressful situations in a school, mindfulness helps us to be aware and be connected with whatever is happening inside and around us. On the other side, the diverse competencies will give strength to initiate change when appropriate. Professional burnout is not simply the result of being paid less or working too much, can be the result of prolonged stress, and emotional fatigue, feeling isolated and disrespected affecting job performance which may even result in physical illness and other implications. Any changes in life may be stressful [12]. Sometimes, stress is useful but at times if stress is too long, it could bring about bad effects like headache, upset stomach and back pain [13]. Koustelios revealed that stress, example role conflict and role ambiguity, were not highly correlated with teacher’s burnout. Job satisfaction was identified as the only significant predictor for depersonalization and emotional exhaustion subscales, while satisfaction with the job itself and satisfaction with promotion were significant predictors for Personal Accomplishment subscale. Friedman investigated the association between perceived burnout among teachers and self-efficacy, a three-dimensional conceptualization: instruction, discipline and consideration which revealed that self-efficacy was inversely correlated with perceived burnout.

In any teaching and learning setting, both the teacher and the learner including in the context of education are self-efficacy and burnout. In a longitudinal study on the effects of perceived school climate and teacher efficacy in behaviour management on job satisfaction and burnout among the 642 secondary school teachers [14], positive school climate effect on job satisfaction, partly mediated by self-efficacy positively and negatively impacted on burnout [15], though self-efficacy of the participants has a reverse relationship with their burnout level [16].

Kokkinos described mood instability, ill personality traits as characteristics of a burned out teacher in the presence of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of accomplishments while teachers who are extroverted, highly conscientious, show a positive outlook in life and have a stable mood and would likely experience personal satisfaction and lower chances of burnout. On the other hand, Johns stressed out that burnout is a negative affective response occurring as a result of chronic work stress. While the early theories of burnout focused exclusively on work-related stressors, Omrod on his book Human Learning stated that short periods of intensive work resulting in success and acknowledgement rarely lead to burnout, chronic stress, too. It boosts one’s self-worth, diminishes the sense of accomplishment, and drains up emotional resources. It builds a division between a teaching profession and the professional environment. It is a vicious circle: the more serious the burnout, the stronger the isolation becomes.

Burnout is a common reaction to job stress, reduces the motivation and the effectiveness of many human service providers leading to organizational burnout in human service settings Cherniss, negative coping methods, higher level of stress, decreased levels of empathy, and poorer general mental health were significant predictors of increased burnout [17], lack of money, caring for family members, aging, and family-work conflicts. Occupational stressors included documentation requirements, a lack of time to complete paperwork, and difficulty with clients while personal stress as Organizational stress included managing relationships with co-workers, adapting to change, working within a complex management structure, lack of diversity within management, and experiences associated with racism [18].

On the other hand, burnout solutions and coaching includes psychotherapy and alleviating stress is through enjoyable activities, reasonable salary, proper work conditions [19,20].

For several years, burnout has been accepted as an occupational hazard for many types of profession- human services, education and health care. The therapeutic relationship that providers give to their recipients requires an on-going and intense level of personal and emotional contact which may be rewarding and self-fulfilling but quite stressful. Occupations more oriented to “high-touch” customer service, the phenomenon of burnout has become relevant for these jobs as well [21], requires intimate human to human interaction, rewarding, but, draining, could be detrimental to both personal and social functioning, quitting jobs if not employing minimal service and quality of work [22]. Similarly, IT workers in industries including healthcare, software, education, and manufacturing were affected with organizational politics and menial tasks interfering at work are most strongly related to burnout while role ambiguity, and conflict, job security, high volume of work, having reasonable promotion prospects, having a bossy manager, and feeling fairly rewarded are all significantly related to burnout [23]. Omrod noted that burnout can occur when passion gave meaning, identity, inspiration and enthusiasm of committed people at work may become deeply disillusioned with a job or career , then phased out and unpleasant things crowd in.

Greenglass and Burke presented their comparison between Canadian and Dutch teacher’s burnout using Maslach Burnout Inventory. Scores of Canadians and Dutch teachers were compared and indicated that overall Canadian teachers have higher scores on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization than their Dutch peers. Across countries, sex and the type of school appeared significantly related to burnout. Male rated higher on Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization than women [23].

In Turkey, Ozkan, and Quant argued that occupational stress is an important factor in determining the life satisfaction and burnout levels of accountants particularly a negative impact on life satisfaction and a positive impact on the three dimensions of burnout [24]. Omrod exhaustion was assumed to develop ahead of the other dimensions in response to high demands and overload precipitated towards detachment and negative reactions to people and the job (depersonalization) which may proceed to feelings of failure or inadequacy, or a feeling of professional inefficiency.                Related to the depersonalization, a burnout syndrome, a negative feeling manifested towards another person as worthy of personal troubles, feeling unhappy about themselves, and dissatisfied on the accomplishments of the job.. Badawy pointed out the serious effects of job burnout on both the personal life of a person and productivity which include the characteristic of the work environment and burnout, as assessed using Work Environment Scale (WES) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). It confirmed the proposed relationships among the seven components of work environment, namely: involvement, work cohesion, supervisor’s support, autonomy, work pressure, physical comfort, and innovation and, stress, and burnout components [25].

Fimian & Blanton studied classroom stress and burnout among gifted and talented students and cross-validated Student Stress Inventory (SSI) with Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) eventually indicated factorial validity showing that some stress and burnout factors were evident between stress, burnout, and tedium and, to a degree, quality of school life variables among gifted and talented students [26].

Studies about burnout and stress have emerged from various parts of the world utilizing various methods and designs establishing causes and the effects on the person and on the practice of the profession. This strengthened the premise that our educational frontrunners are vulnerable to stress and burnout which adversely affects the quality of the educational system.

Design, locus, sampling and respondents

This study utilized a descriptive-survey design. The researchers intend to gather data regarding the extent of current burnout and stress management conditions of the teacher [27], to analyse and measure the association of specific variables in order to predict or explain certain phenomenon [28]. This research utilizing a quantitative design employed mathematical models or statistical methods in order to determine their relationships [29]. To attempt to determine the extent of the relationship between the burnout level and the stress management competency level of the secondary teachers in Mandaue City Division, Cebu, Philippines for the School Year 2016- 1017. The City of Mandaue has twenty seven barangays with twenty three high school departments but randomly selected to have successfully involved 47 out of 64 respondents from Don Gerardo Llamera Memorial National High school, 19 out of 40 from Jagobiao National High school, 13 out of 16 from Tingub National High school with nineteen (19) high school teachers and 13 out of 16 from Pagsabungan National High school. The inclusion of the four schools has no inclusion-exclusion criteria except for being regular- permanent status of the teacher- respondents in Mandaue City Division and proportionate random sampling design to have one hundred three (103) high school teachers of the one hundred thirty nine (139) total high school teachers. The qualified respondents: a) must be actively teaching, b) a bona fide teacher of the identified schools c) with provision of an implied consent.

This research recognizes trends and patterns in data. The variables are not manipulated; rather, they are only identified and are studied as they occur in a natural setting. A description of the current status of the teacher’s burnout and stress management competency were made, correlated burnout level and stress, and management competency of the secondary teachers.

Instruments

The study determined the responses to the research questions through the utilization of two tools, namely: Maslach’s Burnout Inventory and the Stress Management Competency Tool. On the first part of the tool, profiling questions were required which are characteristic of a person’s professional status: years of teaching experience, number of hours on stress-related seminars attended and their number of preparations.

Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was validated by the extensive research that has been conducted in the more than twenty-five years since its initial publication. Several studies have performed validity tests on these tools such as the study made in their study entitled Maslach Burnout Inventory: Factorial validity and Invariance among Romanian Healthcare Professionals. Also, the US National Library of Medicine conducted a validity test on the Maslach tool in their study, “Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of Maslach Tool”.

The Maslach’s Burnout Inventory tool addresses three general scales: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishments. It is composed of three sections with 22 items all in all, answerable by checking an option coded namely: never (0), a few times per year (1), once a month(2), a few time per month(2), once a week(4), a few times per week (5) and every day(6) proceeded with certain guidelines on section A and B of the tool. A score of 17 or less and 5 or less respectively is considered as a low level burnout. A score of 18-29 on section A is moderate burnout; beyond 30 is considered high level burnout. For section B, a score of 6-11is moderate burnout while a score of more than 12 is high burnout. Inversely, on section C, the score of 33 or less is high level burn-out, 34-39 is moderate burnout, while obtaining a score of more than 40 is low level burnout.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in United Kingdom devised the manager’s competency for preventing and reducing stress can be geared towards identifying the management competencies in preventing and dealing with work related stress. Moreover, it allows managers to assess whether they currently possess the behaviours identified as effective for preventing and reducing stress at work and helps managers reflect on their behaviour and management styles (Health services Executive, 1996). The Stress Management Competency Indicator tool comprised four areas, namely: managing emotions and having integrity, managing and communicating existing and future work, managing the individual within the team and managing difficult situations. Each area is composed of twelve to twenty three items depicting a certain behaviour or competency. To answer the tool, the respondents were expected to tick a scale of one to five namely strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), slightly agree(3), agree(4) and strongly agree(5). To interpret the mean scores, 75% or below is “development need”, 76% to 89% is a reasonable level and 90% is effective.

The study transmittal letters and consent were distributed to the respondents, at the same time to the school principals and the schools division superintendent of Mandaue City Division with questionnaire and implied consent shall be duly signed by the respondents without further requirements. The distribution of questionnaires was set on either lunch breaks from twelve noon to one in the afternoon, at dismissal time after five in the afternoon or at a time set by the teacher himself or herself ensuring no interruption of classes with the ensured visibility or connectivity of the researcher in order to address concerns or questions from the respondents. No reward or incentives were given in exchange, but the researcher committed to express gratitude for their participation withheld with utmost confidentiality and secrecy.

The professional characteristics of the respondents were tabulated and counted in order to determine its percentage, tabulated in contingency tables to be treated with Chi-square with Yate’s Correction when certain cells in the table less than the frequency of five to remove statistical biases.

Table 1: The Professional Characteristics of the Teachers In Terms of Years of Teaching Experience and their Number of Preparations.

Almost half of respondents or 48% has a teaching experience of three years or less which is most probably due to the mass hiring of teachers in the last few years instituted by the Department of Education. In particular, in the year 2016, 39,002 and in the year 2017, 55,349 positions were funded in the national budget all throughout the nation. 20% of the respondents have been serving for more than three years to six years, 27% are on the profession for more than nine years and 13% represented by teachers teaching for six to nine years. Jensen reported that new teachers spend more time than experienced teachers keeping order in the classroom. It was noted as well that newbies are lower in terms of self-efficacy than experienced teachers and provide less actual teaching and learning in their classes.

Then it also shows the number of respondents who have attended seminars in which the topic or content is about stress. Surprisingly, almost none of the respondents were immersed on any symposia or seminars which are related to stress management which may have been overlooked by the administrators of the public education but does not discount the fact that the teachers may have been exposed to other seminars for purposes of professional development. In Work life Balance, the low exposure to stress related seminars implies that teachers are deprived of opportunities to assess their personal levels of stress, determine its root causes and recognize their own patterns of stress reaction and discover new ways of dealing with stressful situations, people and attitudes.

The third part shows the teachers’ number of preparations or subjects taught with most teachers teaching more than one preparation in school. In fact none of them are assigned with only one preparation. A little more than half of the respondents 50% are handling two preparations, 44% are handling three to four, four of the respondents were noted to have been handling five to six, while one was handling seven preparations implying the number of teachers in the system is insufficient despite the massive hiring of teachers knowingly the massive increase in the number of students as well. This magnitude of student population has been seen on the report made by Rappler that some teachers are holding three to four shift classes in order to accommodate the students who wish to enrol resulting to double shift policy in 2004. However, it is observed that teachers teach the same subject at different grade levels. For instance, a math teacher may teach four preparations for Math 7, Math 8, Math 9 and math 10 entails not a real burden the inherent mastery or specialization of the subject. Deped’s objective of specialization matching order upon selection and hiring of teachers has taken effect.

Table 3 shows the dominant dimension of burnout that is experienced by the respondents. Of the 103 respondents, 53 of them have experienced burnout on at least one of the three dimensions of burnout, dominantly with lack of interest with 27 out of 53. This implies that when a teacher is burned out, the most widely affected in the person is her ability to appreciate the job performance due to tire. Then teachers tend to deviate from the ideal practice becoming marginal or settling for something less to get job done with unlikely satisfaction. On particularly instance as observed, mass promotion allows students to be passed to the next level without accountability. Based on DepEd Order No. 73 S. 2012, promotion and retention is made on a per subject basis and not on year level compelling teachers to promote unequipped students. This practice created a low morale on teachers which may lead to the leniency of the teachers.

Emotional exhaustion is the least dominant form of burnout experienced by the teachers. Specifically, 2 % has it as the dominant component most likely attributed to the presence of support systems available in the surroundings. When a person becomes upset, being able to vent it out to peers, to family, friends helped ease the exhaustion out. If a person is drained emotionally, social support could refill the emptiness and bring back the person to whole again. Marin & Ramirez stated that the role of three sources of social support: kin, co-workers, and supervisors were correlated on the emotional exhaustion of the nursing staff which confirmed the main effect of kin and the buffering effect of co-workers and supervisors. More immensely, the innovations employed in the educational system have prevented exhaustion among teachers. The surge in computerization, institutionalization of required forms and availability of digital audio visual equipment made teaching job a little lighter [31].

The second part of Table 4 shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of managing and communicating future and existing work at a reasonable level which entails proactive work management, problem solving and an empowering attitude. This cluster in Stress management is all about managers managing proactively. In the academic literature, being proactive is referred to as anticipatory, change oriented and self-initiated in which managers or leaders would have to act in advance of a future situation to allow them to plan and organize their work and the work of others, rather than working reactively. 54% of the respondents manifest a reasonable or fair level of ability to manage their work and the work of others proactively. These teachers fairly encourage students to participate in class and fairly deal with problems as soon as they arise. The teacher’s reasonable level of competence in managing stress specifically on this “communication” component could be attributed to some practices in the schools where supervisors or administrators observe teachers and provide them with a pre and post conference to communicate to them their strengths and inadequacies. Communicating the lessons to the students is also strengthened through the advent of multimedia equipment. Laptops or personal computers have evolved to become a personal necessity among the teachers. In a particular school, classrooms were installed with projectors to make teachers efficient in communicating both the objectives and the content of the lessons to the students. Also, information dissemination has become more efficient. Memoranda, orders and notices arrive urgently through the advent of internet connection and technology. In the case of student delinquency, follow-ups are made easy through cellular or mobile phones messaging, internet connectivity and social media. This allows teachers to contact parents to communicate anything with regards to student’s performance efficiently. Furthermore, 20% of the respondents need more training in order to develop their stress management skills. On the other hand, 26% of the teachers manifest an effective or high degree of stress management competency. These effective teachers communicate objectives to students and develop action plans, monitor the student’s workload on an on-going basis, encourage students to review organizing work.

The third part of the table shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of managing an individual within the team which points to the human side of people management. Traditional leadership models generally believed that leaders treat their subordinates as equal, based on the idea that core set of behaviour needed to be demonstrated to all subordinates. This implies that any behaviour will be the same or shall be effective for every employee which is contrary to a wide research base stating that not all employees react the same way to the same stimulus [33]. This specific component of management comprised teacher’s accessibility, sociability and empathy.

The table depicts that 6-7% of the respondents, at a reasonable level of ability to manage the individual members of the team. These teachers deal fairly when students ask for help and make an effort to find out what motivates their students. This dominating number of teachers with a reasonable level of competence could be traced towards those aspects that make a teacher accessible to students and to parents. The PTA (Parents-Teachers-Association) has been mobilized nowadays, formed a federation even at the regional level. Also, connectivity through phones and internet has made teachers even more accessible to students. Schools, as well, have been made child-friendly for both elementary and high schools. With this, the child’s rights become respected and the schools are made to work towards seeking all children to go to school. This ensures an accessible link between the student and their parents. Moreover, 13% of them have a high degree of capacity to avoid inflicting stress among their subordinates. These teachers prefer to speak to students personally rather than use emails. Teachers can promptly respond and are readily available follow-up conference, treat the students fairly, socialize and laugh together at work. On the contrary, 20% of the respondents need to develop management skills. These teachers do not make any effort to ask if students are fine, listen to students who ask for help, and not at all interested in their students’ life outside work.

Finally, Reasoning and Managing Difficult Situations is the only competency among the four that refers to rare behaviours manifested teacher or managers during a difficult situation particularly conflict in the team or through incidents of bullying and harassment. These situations demand management of behaviour, focus and attention to ensure that situations do not escalate. The fourth portion of table 4 shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of reasoning or managing difficult situations reveals 47% of the respondents belong to the “reasonable category’ to deal with conflicts heads on objectively and properly. With the implementation of the Anti-bullying law, teachers become more empowered to address conflicts in class and reduce the incidences of bullying behaviour through awareness activities and incorporation of the information into the class discussions. Based on the DepEd Memorandum 5, S. 2017, the school has the job to address bullying either off-campus, in campus or cyber bullying. The different preventive programs created a positive school climate, periodic assessment and monitoring of student’s perception of bullying, conduct of symposia on how to respond to bullying and ensure coordination with local government units. Also, conflicts in schools are reduced through the support of DepEd in its launching of the declaration of schools as “zones of peace” stressing out importance that schools and learning centers aid students to learn a range of core competencies prescribed and to perform with utmost necessity to make schools peaceful and secure.

The table also depicts that 25% of the teachers needs to develop their managerial skills in terms of resolving conflicts and in attending to difficult situations in which a teacher may fail to seek for medical attention. Furthermore, 28% of the respondents possess a highly equipped character to resolve difficult situations at the workplace. This type of teacher addresses bullying and takes ultimate responsibility supporting students as they go through the experience.

Table 5 shows X² (12.77) is greater than X²_.05,6(12.59), thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is significant relationship between burnout and the years of teaching experience implying that the years of teaching experience of teacher has an effect or an association with the level or degree of emotional burnout. The years that a person gained in the teaching profession must also be an opportunity to learn and to adopt for methods to refuel self and prevent being drained. Remembering one’s emotions over time is at the core of human life experience and all have emotional memories that are vivid and lasting. After all, experience is the best teacher and best for experienced teachers to act as mentors to those new in the teaching profession. Brewer stated the correlation between years of experience and emotional exhaustion revealed is negative. New teachers need a lot of things to know, such as what textbooks to use, communicate with parents, deal with students with behavioural problems, and deal with the colleagues who may also add more pressure. In some instances, young teachers are left in their classrooms alone with so much to do with a little support.

On the other hand, lack of interest or sense of accomplishment and the years of teaching experience revealed that the X²(15.01) is greater than the X²_.05,6(12.59) to mean that the years in teaching has a bearing on the degree of burnout experienced by the teacher, more specifically is being satisfied with their work performance. An experienced teacher is more likely satisfied with his job and the work output becomes comparably improved over time. On the contrary, a new teacher still learns how to perfect and to go through a course of experience by mastering the subject matter knowing that most teachers teach the same subject/s every another year reducing the preparation time for a certain lesson, improvement in skills as one repeatedly practices a job, developing maturity and gaining wisdom. Gesinde & Adejumo studied the effects of age and work experience on job satisfaction and depersonalization of primary school observed the significant positive relationship between age and work experience to job satisfaction.

Among the three components of burnout based on Maslach’s theory, depersonalization and the number of years of experience has no bearing since the X² (1.02) is lesser than the X²_.05,6 (12.59). This implies that as one increases his years in the profession, the depersonalization of a person is not at all affected since this specific burnout experience is based on the quality of the job and not on the length of time that one indulges into but not in the length of tenure. Similarly, Gesinde & Adejumo, depersonalization was not significantly related to the years of experience.

The second part of the table depicts the relationship between burnout and the teacher’s number of preparations. All of the computed X² of the three components, namely, emotional exhaustion X² (2.89), depersonalization X² (2.37), lack of interest X²(0.84) are lesser than the X²_.05,4 (9.488) Though teachers in the public institutions are mostly given at least two preparations with some up to six, this does not caused any burnout to the teachers. This is a statistical proof that burnout, in all its three dimensions are not at all associated with the number of preparations of the teachers. Jacobs & Dodd in their study entitled, “Student Burnout as a Function of Personality, Social Support and Workload revealed that the last aspect of the variable which is workload has a very little influence over burnout with vocational and academic workloads. Nevertheless, this coincides with the fact the teachers are assigned to subjects aligned to their specific field of specializations. Moreover, the continuous hiring and selection of teacher applicants in the public schools more likely address the previous mismatched. This method ensures that the students receive learning or concepts from the best resource persons and these newly hired teachers are ascertained to teach according to their field specialization. Burnout may not as well be an issue knowing, these subjects are all Mathematics. At the same time, the secondary schools in Mandaue City Division are considered medium sized schools based on student population and teaching faculty so that distribution of loads become efficient and subjects are more likely to be given to teachers who specialize the subject.

The table on the first rows revealed that the X² comp (12.95) is greater than the critical value, X²_.05,6, (12.59) There is a significant relationship between years of teaching experience and managing emotions implying that a person’s emotion matures as one ages in the practice of his profession and maturity must be a strong product of experience. Duli (2016) observed that the years of work experience is an important predictor of burnout and there was a negative correlation between the two variables. Years of teaching increases, then, emotional exhaustion is reduced. A teacher becomes proactive as a result of predictability and cycle of routine activities considering foreseen unwanted events as threat but rather an opportunity towards promotion and positive personal growth. In matters of professional integrity, seniority plays a certain degree of respectability and authority compared to new teachers in the organization so that oftentimes administrative positions are often designated to those who have gained much experience on that field, an utmost consideration.

On the contrary, the number of years that one indulges in teaching has nothing to do with the teacher’s competency in managing and communicating future and existing work (X² = 2.35), ability to manage individual students within the team or class (X² = 2.71) and Managing difficult Situations which are all lesser than the critical value (X² _{.05, 4}= 12.59). The teacher’s security of tenure is not a guarantee competence in managing stressful classroom situations. Work Management, Management of Individual and Conflict Management are definitely aspects of management that require skills training technically and academically. Unlike the emotional component of stress management, these three aspects are technical in nature not merely an effect of tenure. Furthermore, the teacher’s management needed among the high school students are not as much as those required of among the learners in the elementary level.

On the other hand, with regard to tenure, the classroom climate is a minimal opportunity to enhance a teacher’s skill in conflict management. According to Schneiderman, Ironson & Siegel, the determinant of stress management skills of workers are not indicated by the length of experience and by their volume of work but conclusively with efficiency of the teacher in time management. It was found out that stress competency is significantly related to time management skills was not significant towards years of experience [34].

In Part B of the table, Number of preparations, it reveals that X²_comp (3.62; 4.87, 4.07 and 2.17) of Managing emotions & having integrity, Managing and communicating existing and future work, Managing the individual within the team and Managing difficult situations, respectively are all lesser than the critical value X² _.05,4 (9.49) thus, the null hypothesis is “fail to reject”. This means that there is no evidence of the relationship. The teacher’s ability to manage and avoid stress in the class is not in any way affected by their teaching loads knowing that teaching loads are aligned with their fields of mastery plus the computerization of grade computation. This scraps the myth that teachers are loaded so much with work. Schneiderman told that the determinants of stress management skills of workers are neither indicated by the length of experience nor by their volume of work.

Table 3 shows the dominant dimension of burnout that is experienced by the respondents. Of the 103 respondents, 53 of them have experienced burnout on at least one of the three dimensions of burnout, dominantly with lack of interest with 27 out of 53. This implies that when a teacher is burned out, the most widely affected in the person is her ability to appreciate the job performance due to tire. Then teachers tend to deviate from the ideal practice becoming marginal or settling for something less to get job done with unlikely satisfaction. On particularly instance as observed, mass promotion allows students to be passed to the next level without accountability. Based on DepEd Order No. 73 S. 2012, promotion and retention is made on a per subject basis and not on year level compelling teachers to promote unequipped students. This practice created a low morale on teachers which may lead to the leniency of the teachers.

Emotional exhaustion is the least dominant form of burnout experienced by the teachers. Specifically, 2 % has it as the dominant component most likely attributed to the presence of support systems available in the surroundings. When a person becomes upset, being able to vent it out to peers, to family, friends helped ease the exhaustion out. If a person is drained emotionally, social support could refill the emptiness and bring back the person to whole again. Marin & Ramirez stated that the role of three sources of social support: kin, co-workers, and supervisors were correlated on the emotional exhaustion of the nursing staff which confirmed the main effect of kin and the buffering effect of co-workers and supervisors. More immensely, the innovations employed in the educational system have prevented exhaustion among teachers. The surge in computerization, institutionalization of required forms and availability of digital audio visual equipment made teaching job a little lighter [31].

The second part of Table 4 shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of managing and communicating future and existing work at a reasonable level which entails proactive work management, problem solving and an empowering attitude. This cluster in Stress management is all about managers managing proactively. In the academic literature, being proactive is referred to as anticipatory, change oriented and self-initiated in which managers or leaders would have to act in advance of a future situation to allow them to plan and organize their work and the work of others, rather than working reactively. 54% of the respondents manifest a reasonable or fair level of ability to manage their work and the work of others proactively. These teachers fairly encourage students to participate in class and fairly deal with problems as soon as they arise. The teacher’s reasonable level of competence in managing stress specifically on this “communication” component could be attributed to some practices in the schools where supervisors or administrators observe teachers and provide them with a pre and post conference to communicate to them their strengths and inadequacies. Communicating the lessons to the students is also strengthened through the advent of multimedia equipment. Laptops or personal computers have evolved to become a personal necessity among the teachers. In a particular school, classrooms were installed with projectors to make teachers efficient in communicating both the objectives and the content of the lessons to the students. Also, information dissemination has become more efficient. Memoranda, orders and notices arrive urgently through the advent of internet connection and technology. In the case of student delinquency, follow-ups are made easy through cellular or mobile phones messaging, internet connectivity and social media. This allows teachers to contact parents to communicate anything with regards to student’s performance efficiently. Furthermore, 20% of the respondents need more training in order to develop their stress management skills. On the other hand, 26% of the teachers manifest an effective or high degree of stress management competency. These effective teachers communicate objectives to students and develop action plans, monitor the student’s workload on an on-going basis, encourage students to review organizing work.

The third part of the table shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of managing an individual within the team which points to the human side of people management. Traditional leadership models generally believed that leaders treat their subordinates as equal, based on the idea that core set of behaviour needed to be demonstrated to all subordinates. This implies that any behaviour will be the same or shall be effective for every employee which is contrary to a wide research base stating that not all employees react the same way to the same stimulus [33]. This specific component of management comprised teacher’s accessibility, sociability and empathy.

The table depicts that 6-7% of the respondents, at a reasonable level of ability to manage the individual members of the team. These teachers deal fairly when students ask for help and make an effort to find out what motivates their students. This dominating number of teachers with a reasonable level of competence could be traced towards those aspects that make a teacher accessible to students and to parents. The PTA (Parents-Teachers-Association) has been mobilized nowadays, formed a federation even at the regional level. Also, connectivity through phones and internet has made teachers even more accessible to students. Schools, as well, have been made child-friendly for both elementary and high schools. With this, the child’s rights become respected and the schools are made to work towards seeking all children to go to school. This ensures an accessible link between the student and their parents. Moreover, 13% of them have a high degree of capacity to avoid inflicting stress among their subordinates. These teachers prefer to speak to students personally rather than use emails. Teachers can promptly respond and are readily available follow-up conference, treat the students fairly, socialize and laugh together at work. On the contrary, 20% of the respondents need to develop management skills. These teachers do not make any effort to ask if students are fine, listen to students who ask for help, and not at all interested in their students’ life outside work.

Finally, Reasoning and Managing Difficult Situations is the only competency among the four that refers to rare behaviours manifested teacher or managers during a difficult situation particularly conflict in the team or through incidents of bullying and harassment. These situations demand management of behaviour, focus and attention to ensure that situations do not escalate. The fourth portion of table 4 shows the stress management competency level of the teachers in terms of reasoning or managing difficult situations reveals 47% of the respondents belong to the “reasonable category’ to deal with conflicts heads on objectively and properly. With the implementation of the Anti-bullying law, teachers become more empowered to address conflicts in class and reduce the incidences of bullying behaviour through awareness activities and incorporation of the information into the class discussions. Based on the DepEd Memorandum 5, S. 2017, the school has the job to address bullying either off-campus, in campus or cyber bullying. The different preventive programs created a positive school climate, periodic assessment and monitoring of student’s perception of bullying, conduct of symposia on how to respond to bullying and ensure coordination with local government units. Also, conflicts in schools are reduced through the support of DepEd in its launching of the declaration of schools as “zones of peace” stressing out importance that schools and learning centers aid students to learn a range of core competencies prescribed and to perform with utmost necessity to make schools peaceful and secure.

The table also depicts that 25% of the teachers needs to develop their managerial skills in terms of resolving conflicts and in attending to difficult situations in which a teacher may fail to seek 

Table 5 shows X² (12.77) is greater than X²_.05,6(12.59), thus, the null hypothesis is rejected. There is significant relationship between burnout and the years of teaching experience implying that the years of teaching experience of teacher has an effect or an association with the level or degree of emotional burnout. The years that a person gained in the teaching profession must also be an opportunity to learn and to adopt for methods to refuel self and prevent being drained. Remembering one’s emotions over time is at the core of human life experience and all have emotional memories that are vivid and lasting. After all, experience is the best teacher and best for experienced teachers to act as mentors to those new in the teaching profession. Brewer stated the correlation between years of experience and emotional exhaustion revealed is negative. New teachers need a lot of things to know, such as what textbooks to use, communicate with parents, deal with students with behavioural problems, and deal with the colleagues who may also add more pressure. In some instances, young teachers are left in their classrooms alone with so much to do with a little support.

On the other hand, lack of interest or sense of accomplishment and the years of teaching experience revealed that the X²(15.01) is greater than the X²_.05,6(12.59) to mean that the years in teaching has a bearing on the degree of burnout experienced by the teacher, more specifically is being satisfied with their work performance. An experienced teacher is more likely satisfied with his job and the work output becomes comparably improved over time. On the contrary, a new teacher still learns how to perfect and to go through a course of experience by mastering the subject matter knowing that most teachers teach the same subject/s every another year reducing the preparation time for a certain lesson, improvement in skills as one repeatedly practices a job, developing maturity and gaining wisdom. Gesinde & Adejumo studied the effects of age and work experience on job satisfaction and depersonalization of primary school observed the significant positive relationship between age and work experience to job satisfaction.

Among the three components of burnout based on Maslach’s theory, depersonalization and the number of years of experience has no bearing since the X² (1.02) is lesser than the X²_.05,6 (12.59). This implies that as one increases his years in the profession, the depersonalization of a person is not at all affected since this specific burnout experience is based on the quality of the job and not on the length of time that one indulges into but not in the length of tenure. Similarly, Gesinde & Adejumo, depersonalization was not significantly related to the years of experience.

The second part of the table depicts the relationship between burnout and the teacher’s number of preparations. All of the computed X² of the three components, namely, emotional exhaustion X² (2.89), depersonalization X² (2.37), lack of interest X²(0.84) are lesser than the X²_.05,4 (9.488) Though teachers in the public institutions are mostly given at least two preparations with some up to six, this does not caused any burnout to the teachers. This is a statistical proof that burnout, in all its three dimensions are not at all associated with the number of preparations of the teachers. Jacobs & Dodd in their study entitled, “Student Burnout as a Function of Personality, Social Support and Workload revealed that the last aspect of the variable which is workload has a very little influence over burnout with vocational and academic workloads. Nevertheless, this coincides with the fact the teachers are assigned to subjects aligned to their specific field of specializations. Moreover, the continuous hiring and selection of teacher applicants in the public schools more likely address the previous mismatched. This method ensures that the students receive learning or concepts from the best resource persons and these newly hired teachers are ascertained to teach according to their field specialization. Burnout may not as well be an issue knowing, these subjects are all Mathematics. At the same time, the secondary schools in Mandaue City Division are considered medium sized schools based on student population and teaching faculty so that distribution of loads become efficient and subjects are more likely to be given to teachers who specialize the subject.

The table on the first rows revealed that the X² comp (12.95) is greater than the critical value, X²_.05,6, (12.59) There is a significant relationship between years of teaching experience and managing emotions implying that a person’s emotion matures as one ages in the practice of his profession and maturity must be a strong product of experience. Duli (2016) observed that the years of work experience is an important predictor of burnout and there was a negative correlation between the two variables. Years of teaching increases, then, emotional exhaustion is reduced. A teacher becomes proactive as a result of predictability and cycle of routine activities considering foreseen unwanted events as threat but rather an opportunity towards promotion and positive personal growth. In matters of professional integrity, seniority plays a certain degree of respectability and authority compared to new teachers in the organization so that oftentimes administrative positions are often designated to those who have gained much experience on that field, an utmost consideration.

On the contrary, the number of years that one indulges in teaching has nothing to do with the teacher’s competency in managing and communicating future and existing work (X² = 2.35), ability to manage individual students within the team or class (X² = 2.71) and Managing difficult Situations which are all lesser than the critical value (X² _{.05, 4}= 12.59). The teacher’s security of tenure is not a guarantee competence in managing stressful classroom situations. Work Management, Management of Individual and Conflict Management are definitely aspects of management that require skills training technically and academically. Unlike the emotional component of stress management, these three aspects are technical in nature not merely an effect of tenure. Furthermore, the teacher’s management needed among the high school students are not as much as those required of among the learners in the elementary level.

On the other hand, with regard to tenure, the classroom climate is a minimal opportunity to enhance a teacher’s skill in conflict management. According to Schneiderman, Ironson & Siegel, the determinant of stress management skills of workers are not indicated by the length of experience and by their volume of work but conclusively with efficiency of the teacher in time management. It was found out that stress competency is significantly related to time management skills was not significant towards years of experience [34].

In Part B of the table, Number of preparations, it reveals that X²_comp (3.62; 4.87, 4.07 and 2.17) of Managing emotions & having integrity, Managing and communicating existing and future work, Managing the individual within the team and Managing difficult situations, respectively are all lesser than the critical value X² _.05,4 (9.49) thus, the null hypothesis is “fail to reject”. This means that there is no evidence of the relationship. The teacher’s ability to manage and avoid stress in the class is not in any way affected by their teaching loads knowing that teaching loads are aligned with their fields of mastery plus the computerization of grade computation. This scraps the myth that teachers are loaded so much with work. Schneiderman told that the determinants of stress management skills of workers are neither indicated by the length of experience nor by their volume of work.

The third portion of Table 7 shows the relationship between lack of accomplishments and stress management competency in which managing emotions and having integrity (X²= 5.42), managing and communicating existing work (X²= 7.84), and managing difficult situation (X² = 6.51). Since all computed X² values are lesser than the tabled value (X²_{.05, 4}= 9.49, the null hypothesis is rejected. Competent in managing emotions, managing existing work and managing difficult situation do not guarantee that a teacher will always be satisfied with job outputs. Lack of accomplishment and managing the individual with X² (9.79) is greater than the critical value (X²= 9.49) entails that there is an association and significant. Cris (2013) revealed that utilizing the burnout scale and conflict resolution survey tool, job satisfaction is associated with conflict management in work areas could improve satisfaction in the workplace.

Seemingly, the three different components are self-directed and group-oriented in nature, whereas “managing the individual” pertains to literally one and that competent at the level of managing a single person as being a unique to learn to appreciate his own uniqueness through solitary encounter which yields appreciation from the students becoming a source of a sense of accomplishment and worthiness in the field of work. The results of this study yielded a similar result to that of Chris Lloyd revealed that managing people in an institution positively correlates with a person’s sense of fulfilment in the performance of the jobs, or job satisfaction is proportional to the level of the worker’s ability to manage stress.

The years of experience of the teachers positively correlates with Stress Management Competency while burnout defers. Secondary school teachers in Mandaue City Division are most probably in the dynamic transformation phase mitigating burnout and stress among teachers. This transformation phase is the shift the earlier practices, management and policies which may include adaptation of the new trends particularly in educational technology, policy making and implementation based of laws of the land, personal and professional development through annual in-service trainings , and financial capacitation of the teachers through Salary Grade Standardization which seemingly proved that Filipino teachers in some parts of the world are able to perform well when motivated with better salary. Likewise, the Department of Education shall endlessly support the teachers to be efficient and effective especially in the empowerment of teachers in terms of technology which has contributed much to the speed-up facility of teachers in disposing their responsibilities, a reasonable cause to sustain teacher computer literacy and instructional materials adequacy. Finally, programs to promulgate classroom discipline so that teachers can smoothly go through their lessons every day. Truly, experience is the best teacher.

The Determinants of Burnout Model depicts that the burnout experience of a person is affected by the number of years of teaching experience and competency in managing stress. Burnout becomes preventable for a wise worker as years pass by and as experience broadens The two dimensions of Maslach’s theory (depersonalization and emotional exhaustion) were related to teaching years significantly so that Department of Education must devise programs or a system to reduce the turnover rate of the teaching profession.

Burnout and Stress Management Competencies are not completely related, limited only to the feelings of lack of accomplishment and managing the individual within the team. Appreciation of the uniqueness of the person as seen on teacher competence on managing the learner as an individual is a way to appreciate of one’s uniqueness in which job satisfaction stems accessibility, sociability and empathy which are key ingredients in being happy and satisfied at work.

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with a financial interest in or financial with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript

There is no conflict of interest.

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