Abstract

The study uses the framework of professional well-being of teachers to study the peculiarities of their professional position in Russian schools. The information base of the study is the data of the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations[1] for the 2015-2016 academic year. The teacher's questionnaire includes a separate questionnaire on the professional well-being of teachers. The methodology of EFA and CFA of the questionnaire structure is used in the work. Based on the answers of teachers, there are five groups of teachers with different professional positions. The analysis of the groups shows that deformation of a professional position correlates with: the social context in which the school works, the characteristics of the territory, the work with disadvantaged children, high workload not related to teaching, and low involvement in making decisions about school life. At the same time, the following factors do not show a significant connection with grouping: the salary, the length of service or the age of the teacher. In addition, the results of psychometric analysis of teacher well-being questionnaire in the framework of the Classical Test Theory.

[1] https://memo.hse.ru/en/

Introduction

The professional well-being of teachers is in the center of researchers attention (Barber, Chijoke, & Mourshed, 2010; McKenzie, Santiago, & OECD, 2005). It has been established that professional well-being is crucial in the relationship of teachers “with oneself” (“self-efficacy”), with children and colleagues (R. M. Klassen et al., 2009; R. Klassen & Tze, 2014). The emotional state and contentment of teachers are linked to their motivation, pedagogical installation and performance, which lead to the academic performance of students, their emotional well-being, engagement and better social mobility (Klusmann, Kunter, Trautwein, Lüdtke, & Baumert, 2008; OECD, 2016).

Low level of professional well-being can turn into burnout. Bullough & Baughman (1996) have shown that teachers who may face burnout feel like losers, believe that they were mistaken in their choice of profession and are disappointed that real experience does not correspond to the ideals and hopes with which they came to school (Bullough & Baughman, 1996). LeCompte и Dworkin (1991) view burnout as an extreme degree of alienation from the accepted role and place emphasis on a teacher experiencing the futility of his\her efforts, the inability to influence students (Day & Gu, 2013; LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991; Troman & Woods, 2001).

A key factor in analyzing the causes of burnout is stress, which teachers experience for a long time. (Boyle, Borg, Falzon, & Baglioni, 1995; Collie, Shapka, & Perry, 2012). At the same time, the level of stress and the nature of professional well-being varies depending on factors of the school climate, (Collie et al., 2012), relationships in the professional community, and relationship with the director.  (Price & Moolenaar, 2015).

Based on this data, we built our research. The purpose of our study is to analyze the aspects of professional well-being of Russian teachers, to consider possible forms of deformation of their professional position, to determine which conditions of teachers' activities create the risk of burnout, or, vice versa, contribute to the preservation of enthusiasm, involvement in work, and resistance to stress.

The survey covers 8 federal districts (Moscow is allocated as an independent object). The information base of the study is the data of the Monitoring of Education Markets and Organizations* for the 2015-2016 academic year. The teacher's questionnaire in that study includes a separate questionnaire on the professional well-being of teachers. The sample of 2014 people representative at the state level. EFA and CFA methodology was carried out and showed that 12 items of the separate questionnaire are well factorized into 4 factors. This makes it possible to calculate the factor score of each of the factors for each respondent (Gorsuch, 2003). Teachers who get the highest scores (top quartile) in any factor were identified as a separate group. Thus, there were 4 groups of teachers that received names according to the meaning of the items which made up each factor: “formalists” (F1), “enthusiasts” (F2), “pessimists” (F3), “dissatisfied” (with the administration) (F4). In addition, in every group except enthusiasts, there were teachers who were strongly agreed with the statement “I found (a) that I made a mistake by becoming a teacher”. Those teachers demonstrate the greatest degree of frustration in choosing a profession and form one more group — “burned out”. The article also analyzes the psychometric qualities of the target block as a separate scale. *https://memo.hse.ru/en/

An analysis of the risk factors for burnout has shown that the social context is a strong stress factor for teachers. The likelihood of professional burnout increases when teachers work in public schools with a large proportion of socially disadvantaged children. Other factors associated with burnout are high teaching load, low involvement in decision-making at the school level, and a significant amount of non-teaching load. The study did not find a connection between grouping and wages, working experience and the age of teachers with their professional well-being, but at the same time, there is a connection between professional well-being and teachers’ expectations about students. The results of the analysis suggest that the observed manifestations of the deformation of the professional position not only have a different character of trouble but also indicate its degree. Those who show signs of a conflict of professional identification are in the state of the deepest professional disadvantage, which we have identified as burnout. Teachers assigned to the groups of "formalists" and "pessimists" are in a better professional state. The least dramatic is the state of the teachers in the group of “dissatisfied”, whose loss of enthusiasm is least pronounced and is typical for Moscow teachers. Group of “enthusiasts” shows the most prosperous professional state. The results are important for making management decisions both at the school level and the education system as a whole, and not only the Russian one since the findings confirm and complement the data of studies conducted in other countries. We strongly believe that our research is well suited to the conference because teachers' professional health is closely connected with educational equity all over the world. Our work may lead to a different understanding and studying of professional well-being.

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