Contribution of Gender, Marital Status, and Age to English Language Teachers' Burnout - 6 - Research article abstract and study design

Oct 15, 2026

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Teaching is a stressful profession and is linked to teachers’ burnout, typically characterized by high emotional exhaustion and depersonalization alongside low personal accomplishment. Research on teacher burnout remains inconsistent, motivating a Malaysia-based survey of 315 randomly selected English language teachers. The study tests how gender, age, and marital status affect burnout scores using Maslach’s Burnout Inventory, and reports significant differences across these groups, with higher burnout among female, older, and married teachers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Research questions and null hypotheses

Literature review

Burnout among English language teachers

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 Vol. 5 No. 6; December 2014 Copyright © Australian International Academic Centre, Australia Contribution of Gender, Marital Status, and Age to English Language Teachers’Burnout Seyedehhava Mousavy Faculty of Educational Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia E-mail: [saharmsv333@gmail.com](saharmsv333@gmail.com) Vahid Nimehchisalem (Corresponding Author) English Language Department, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Selangor, Malaysia [E-mails: vahid@upm.edu.my](E-mails: vahid@upm.edu.my); [nimechie@gmail.com](nimechie@gmail.com) Doi:10 .7575/aiac.alls.v. 5n.6p.39 URL: [http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.39](http://dx.doi.org/10.7575/aiac.alls.v.5n.6p.39) Received: 08/08/2014 Accepted: 27/09/2014 Abstract Teaching is a stressful job and can lead to teachers’burnout. Teachers feel burned out when they experience high levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization but low levels of personal accomplishment (Maslach, 1999) . A wealth of research is available on this subject but the findings are inconsistent. The present study surveyed the level of burnout among a randomly selected group of English language teachers (n = 315) in Malaysia. It also investigated whether these teachers’ gender, age and marital status could significantly contribute to their burnout levels. Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986) was used to collect the data. According to the results, the teachers suffered from significantly high levels of burnout in reference to their PA scores. In comparison with the male teachers, female teachers reported significantly higher levels of burnout considering their emotional exhaustion (p = .008), depersonalization (p = .002) and personal accomplishment (p = .000) . Additionally, older teachers (aged ≤ 40) were significantly more burned out than their younger colleagues (aged ≥ 30), regarding their depersonalization (p = .001) and personal achievement (p = .000) mean scores. Finally, married teachers indicated significantly higher levels of burnout compared with those who were not married. The study is expected to have useful implications for teachers, administrators, and researchers. Keywords: burnout, emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, depersonalization, English language teachers 1. Introduction Job burnout results from a stressful work environment. Teaching profession is associated with burnout because it is a stressful job (King & Hegadoren, 2002; Kyriacou, 1989) . Burnout is an important problem for teachers since it may affect their physical and psychological well-being negatively as well as the future of their job. It has a negative impact on the school system in addition to the undesirable consequences on the teachers themselves, but the biggest concern is its effect on the main target of the teaching profession; that is, the student. Teachers who are burned out may be less concerned about their students’needs and may lack the energy needed to handle their behaviour problems themselves (Evers, Tomic, & Brouwers, 2004) . Teachers that are burned out may experience one or more of the three components of the burnout syndrome (Maslach, 1999; Maslach & Schaufeli, 1993) . Usually, burnout starts with the feeling of being emotionally overextended and drained by the intense contact with students, parents and colleagues (emotional exhaustion, referred to as EE onwards); then, it may lead the teacher to negative attitudes and cynical responses toward the students (depersonalization, referred to as DP in this paper) . Finally, burnout can also result in teachers’negative evaluation of their performance and achievement in their job (personal accomplishment, referred to as PA onwards) (Maslach, 1999) . Burnout produces physical and emotional exhaustion, detachment, and loss of job satisfaction (Kokkinos, Panayiotou, & Davazoglou, 2005; L

FAQs

What causes teacher burnout according to the introduction?

Teacher burnout is presented as a result of a stressful work environment, with teaching linked to burnout because it is inherently stressful.

Which burnout components are discussed in the study framework?

The study describes three components: emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and personal accomplishment (PA).

How do gender, age, and marital status relate to burnout results?

Female teachers report higher burnout levels across emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment, older teachers show higher burnout in depersonalization and personal achievement, and married teachers show higher burnout than those not married.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Cipher