RESEARCH ARTICLE
At-Risk Teachers: The Association Between Burnout Levels and Emotional Appraisal Processes
Caterina Fiorilli1, *, Alessandro Pepe2, Ilaria Buonomo1, 3, Ottavia Albanese2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 10
First Page: 127
Last Page: 139
Publisher ID: TOPSYJ-10-127
DOI: 10.2174/1874350101710010127
Article History:
Received Date: 09/05/2017Revision Received Date: 21/06/2017
Acceptance Date: 14/07/2017
Electronic publication date: 15/08/2017
Collection year: 2017

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Teachers are at-risk of burnout due to continuous emotional demands. Existing research suggests that there is a strong relationship between the burnout phenomenon and teachers’ propensity to experience unpleasant emotions.
Objective:
The current study examined whether teachers' levels of burnout affect the process by which they appraise school-life events that elicit negative emotions.
Methods:
Participants were 316 school teachers. Teachers' appraisal of both students' negative emotion intensity (SAE) and their own negative emotion intensity (TAE) was evaluated via the Emotional Competence Questionnaire. Teachers' burnout levels were measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The main hypothesis was tested by using SEM to assess a full model.
Results:
The findings suggest that burnout compromises teachers’ appraisal of both their students’ and their own negative emotion intensity.
Conclusion:
We discuss how our main findings may be interpreted and explore their implications for educational settings.