Burnout: Testing for the Validity, Replication, and Invariance of Causal Structure Across Elementary, Intermediate, and Secondary Teachers

The study investigated the impact of organizational (role ambiguity, role conflict, work overload, classroom climate, decision making, superior support,’ peer support) and personality (self-esteem, external locus of control) factors on three facets of burnout—Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and reduced Personal Accomplishment within one conceptual framework. Participants were full-time elementary (n = 1203), intermediate (n = 410), and secondary teachers (n = 1431). A hypothesized model of burnout was first tested and crossvalidated for each teaching panel; common causal paths were then tested for group-invariance. Results were consistent across groups in revealing the importance of (a) role conflict, work overload, classroom climate, decision making, and peer support as organizational determinants of teacher burnout, (b) self-esteem and external locus of control as important mediators of teacher burnout, and (c) the absence of role ambiguity and superior support in the causal process. Findings demonstrated that interpretations of burnout as a undimensional construct are not meaningful.