The Interplay Between Attitude Towards Intelligence, Ambiguity Tolerance, and Job Burnout: The Case of Afghan EFL Teachers

The present study seeks to examine how and to what extent Afghan English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' attitude towards intelligence and their ambiguity tolerance affected their levels of burnout in the teaching profession. To conduct the study, 154 Afghan EFL teachers were requested to answer the items in three questionnaires: Language Teachers' Conceptions of Intelligence Scale (LTCI-S), Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale-II (MSTAT-II), and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The obtained data was examined using descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, correlation, and path analysis. Findings of the analyses indicated there were significant relationships among teachers' attitude to intelligence, their tolerance of ambiguity, and their perceived level of job burnout. In addition, our findings revealed that two dimensions of attitude about intelligence—increasibility and applied English language teaching (ELT)—were negatively correlated with two aspects of burnout—emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. Besides, it was found that teachers with higher levels of tolerance for ambiguity experienced significantly lower levels of all three dimensions of teacher burnout. Implications of the research for the teaching profession will be discussed.