Teacher Stress and Burnout: Associations of Student Relationships and Stress Management Strategies

Education is highly valued in our society, and teaching is regarded as a necessary and impactful job. Students are influenced not only by the knowledge they retain, but also by the connections they build with their instructors and peers, as well as the classroom environment. Reciprocally, teachers are impacted by the classroom environment which is determined by the students within it. While all teachers have a heavy workload and may be prone to moments of exhaustion, teachers dealing with difficult students are increasingly at risk of burnout (Aloe et. al., 2014). Despite the available research on teacher burnout, there is little exploration on the factors that protect against teacher stress. While interventions have been conducted to help mitigate burnout, they have been time consuming and difficult to implement in everyday practice. In this study, elementary school teachers from a variety of schools participated in a survey that assessed their stress levels, rewarding and challenging aspects of their job, relationships with students, and their stress-management strategies. This data was used to establish the connection between stress-management/mindfulness practice, quality of student-teacher relationships, stress levels and attitudes towards teaching. Results revealed significant correlations between the practice of stress management strategies, student-teacher closeness and stress levels (both overall and relating specifically to student misbehavior). As the practice of stress management strategies increased, stress levels decreased. Similarly, the closer teachers felt to their students, the less that student misbehavior stressed them out. Teachers felt most rewarded by seeing student growth, and most stressed out by their overall workload and lack of time.