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This study investigated the demographic, intrapersonal, and organizational factors associated with burnout among a population of school counselors in the northeastern United States (n = 78). Three hierarchical regression analyses were completed to determine the amount of variance that each cluster contributed to the 3 subscales on the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES; C. M. Maslach, S. E. Jackson, & M. P. Leiter, 1996): Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment. The final models accounted for 45%, 30%, and 42% of the overall variation on each subscale, respectively.
Professional school counselors are asked to perform multiple duties as part of their daily work. Some of these duties match the descriptions set forth by national standards for school counseling programs, whereas others do not (Dahir, 2001). As a result, school counselors are constantly asked to make decisions about how to best perform their jobs. Numerous studies indicate that school counselors feel pulled in too many directions and are reporting high levels of stress (Moracco, Butcke, & McEwen, 1984; Pierson-Hubeny & Archambault, 1987; Sears & Navin, 1983; Stickel, 1991). This presents a concern because of the connections made between stress and well-being (Zarski, Bubenzer, & West, 1986). Stress has also been linked to burnout (Keegan, 1986; Watkins, 1983). Consequently, increased levels of stress and burnout can lead to ineffective delivery of services, exhaustion, physical complaints, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse (Huebner & Huberty, 1984; Reiner & Hartshorne, 1982). The concern is that as stress increases, not only do school counselors experience negative consequences, so too do those with whom they work. BurnoutBurnout is most frequently understood as a pattern of negative symptoms that relates directly to all areas of functioning (Savicki & Cooley, 1982). In conceptualizing burnout, Patrick (1979) made an early attempt to categorize its many symptoms into four different realms: physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. Maslach and Jackson (1981) subsequently developed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) to measure the dimensions of burnout. This scale assesses burnout across three dimensions: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization, and Personal Accomplishment. Emotional Exhaustion is characterized by symptoms of physical and emotional depletion. Depersonalization describes a lack of empathy and emotional distance from the clients with whom one works. Finally, Personal Accomplishment describes feelings of satisfaction and competence in one's job.
Handy (1988) wrote, "the psychological literature on occupational stress usually defines stress as an individually based, affect-ladened experience caused by subjectively perceived stressors" (p. 353). Although Maslach (1993) has admitted similarities between the constructs of job stress and burnout, she argued that the three-component model of bum-out is what distinguishes it from the construct of stress developed in the literature. With its emphasis on emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and the symptoms of de-personalization, she contended that the burnout construct contributes something unique to existing bodies of literature.
Burnout among school counselors has been correlated with demographic variables (Hansen, 1967; Moracco et al., 1984; Parker, 1982; Sears & Navin, 1983; Stickel, 1991), individual personality attributes (Cummings & Nail, 1983;Wiggins, 1984), and organizational issues (Butcke, Moracco, & McEwen, 1984; Kendrick, Chandler, & Hatcher, 1994;Pierson-Hubeny & Archambault, 1987; Stickel, 1991;Thompson & Powers, 1983). However, no existing study of school counselors has attempted to examine all of these correlates simultaneously. By approaching burnout from this multidimensional perspective, a more comprehensive understanding of the elements associated with burnout can be developed. Thus the purpose of this study is to investigate the multiple variables and factors associated with burnout among school counselors by combining and analyzing demographic, intrapersonal, and organizational elements simultaneously. Each of these dimensions is reviewed in the following sections.
Although some studies of burnout have focused specifically on school counselors, the body of literature on burnout specific to this particular population is still quite scant. For that reason, additional studies in related areas of inquiry are included. We paid particular attention to studies focusing on school-based populations. These studies included those done with teachers and also those done with other school-based mental health providers (e.g., school psychologists). Student/counselor ratio has been significantly and positively correlated with the Emotional Exhaustion subscale on the MBI (Kendrick et al., 1994; Stickel, 1991). Furthermore, studies have found evidence to support the idea that those who are younger seem to report higher levels of stress and burnout (Huberty & Huebner, 1988; Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Moracco et al., 1984). However, there is no conclusive evidence to support the claim that any particular demographic variable correlates with burnout in all instances. Additionally, although virtually all studies continue to request demographic information on school counselor setting (urban, rural, suburban), gender, and division level (elementary, middle, high school), there appears to be no evidence supporting any statistically significant associations between these variables and burnout.
Although their article was largely conceptual in nature, Savicki and Cooley (1982) noted two different strands in the research on burnout. Environmental contributors (referred to as organizational variables herein) have received the bulk of the attention in the empirical literature. The second strand, individual or intrapersonal factors associated with burnout, has received very little research attention. For that reason, there is little to support claims that an individual's intrapersonal process has anything to do with how individuals experience burnout. However, Savicki and Cooley argued on theoretical grounds that one's locus of control may indeed have a direct impact on the degree of burnout experienced. Citing literature that focused on coping styles among those experiencing physical illness (studies by Cooley & Keesey and Kobassa), Savicki and Cooley reported that "particular coping approaches may cause certain individuals to be resistant to burnout" (p. 417).
Wiggins's (1984) investigation of the relationship between school counselor personality and job satisfaction provides some evidence to support Savicki and Cooley's (1982) theoretical claim. Using Holland's Vocational Preference Inventory and a job satisfaction inventory, one of the study's findings indicated that congruence (the fit between one's personality and the job environment) was positively correlated with job satisfaction. Although this study did not focus on burnout per se, the fact that such traits contributed to job satisfaction is provocative. Could these factors also contribute to job dissatisfaction? Subsequently, could job dissatisfaction lead to higher levels of burnout?
More recently, Lambie (2002) investigated another intrapersonal factor, ego development, in an attempt to determine whether differences along this dimension would correlate with individual differences in the degree of bum-out experienced among school counselors. This study failed to find a link between the level of ego development and burnout, but this was largely due to the fact that there was minimal variability among the respondents in terms of ego development. However, the study does mark a move in the direction suggested by Savicki and Cooley (1982).
Finally, in a study of California school psychologists, Sandoval (1993) found evidence to support the claim that intrapersonal factors (in this case, personality dimensions from the California Psychological Inventory) were related to bum-out among school psychologists. However, the authors cautioned readers to view the results with some reservations due to the low sample size (n = 50). Although this line of inquiry regarding intrapersonal factors and burnout has not yielded definitive results, these early findings are suggestive.
A review of the literature on school counselor job satisfaction reveals a number of pertinent organizational factors that contribute to school counselor stress and, thus, potentially to burnout. In this body of literature, role conflict is a frequently mentioned construct (Moracco et al., 1984;Pierson-Hubeny&Archambault, 1987; Sears&Navin, 1983;Stickle, 1991; Thompson & Powers, 1983). Referring to an original study by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal, Thompson and Powers (1983) reported the definition of role conflict as "the simultaneous occurrence of two or more role pressures so that compliance with one would make it more difficult to comply with the other" (p. 239).
School counselors also frequently report a great deal of confusion about what is actually expected of them in their job. Termed role ambiguity and frequently cited in the literature on school counselor stress (Moracco et al., 1984; Pierson-Hubeny & Archambault, 1987; Sears & Navin, 1983; Stickle, 1991;Thompson & Powers, 1983), this construct was defined by Kahn et al. as "an incomplete sort of role sending, where the information necessary to carry out one's job is not available or incomplete" (as cited in Thompson & Powers, 1983, p. 239). In other words, role ambiguity is the difficulty that people experience as they try to understand and delineate their job roles when the requirements of that job are not clearly defined.
A third factor attributed to school counselor stress is professional job overload (Butcke et al., 1984; Sears & Navin, 1983). Job overload exists when there is a sense on the part of the individual that there is too much to realistically accomplish given existing time and resource constraints. Lynch (as cited in Butcke et al., 1884) linked job overload to stress among a sample of male school counselors.
Finally, in a comprehensive dissertation study designed to identify stressors specific to the school counseling profession. Gray (1982) reported additional organizational stress factors that may be associated with burnout, including lack of decision-making authority, financial security, counselor-teacher professional relationships, and counselor-principal professional relationships.
Research Questions For this study, we asked the following research questions:
- What is the level of burnout reported by a sample of school counselors from a large state in the northeastern United States?
- What amount of variance do the three independent variable sets (demographic, intrapersonal, and organizational) contribute both separately and together to outcome dimensions of burnout as measured by the MBI-ES?
- What are the most influential predictors of burnout among the three variable sets?
Kevin Wilkerson and James Bellini Continue at part II
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