The teaching profession is considered to be potentially extremely stressful, especially in the critical phase of entering the profession after teacher training (Dicke et al. 2015). However, the amount of stress that is triggered by working as a teacher depends not only on characteristics of the occupation, but also on how teachers perceive and react to their situation individually. Building on this, the proposed contribution investigates the effects of occupational self-regulation on the emotional exhaustion of (prospective) teachers.

The theoretical foundation of the investigation is the Conservation of Resources Theory (COR, Hobfoll 1988; Westman et al. 2005; Hobfoll 1991) that is considered a major explanatory model for understanding the stress process at work (Westman et al. 2005). Emotional exhaustion, which is examined in this study, is understood as a consequence of stress that “involves feelings of being emotionally drained and depleted of emotional resources” (Klusmann et al. 2008). According to COR it is argued that emotional exhaustion, as one of the core dimensions of burnout, is a result of the ongoing loss of resources or the failure to gain fresh resources after significant resource investments (Buchwald & Hobfoll 2004).

The ability of occupational self-regulation is considered a personal resource of high importance both for the regeneration after resource investments (recovery after a stressful day at work) and the re-investment of resources (ongoing work engagement) to gain new resources and protect against further resource loss (Hobfoll et al. 1997; Buchwald & Hobfoll 2013; Westman et al. 2005). Consequently, people with health-promoting patterns of self-regulation – meaning high resilience and moderate or high, but not excessive work engagement – are better prepared to work as a teacher without feeling emotional exhausted. As teachers with potentially harmful patterns of occupational self-regulation – meaning low resilience combined with low or excessively high work engagement – lack these crucial resources, a spiral of loss may occur and their emotional exhaustion eventually increases. In short, it is expected that the emotional exhaustion of (prospective) teachers with a potentially harmful pattern of occupational self-regulation will not only be higher in the first place, but also to increase in the long run.

The analyses are based on data from the starting cohort “First-Year Students” of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS; Blossfeld & Maurice 2011). Three panel waves from the years 2016, 2017 and 2019 are taken into account. The analysis sample includes (prospective) teachers who have completed the first part of German teacher training by 2016 and participated in all three panel waves (N=409). While the first part of teacher training takes place at universities, the second part is a special feature of German teacher training that aims to help prospective teachers to gain practical experience (for more on this preparatory service, see Klusmann et al. 2008 and Dicke et al. 2015). To measure occupational self-regulation, a short scale of the Occupational Stress and Coping Inventory (AVEM; Schaarschmidt & Fischer 2001b) was applied in a web-based survey in 2016. The AVEM short scale comprises two dimensions each for work engagement and resilience to occupational stress. All scale scores demonstrated good internal consistency (α ranged from .77 to .82). The instrument enables the identification of four patterns of self-regulation that are relevant predictors for teachers’ well-being and health, quality of teaching and students’ motivation (e.g., Klusmann et al. 2008). The patterns are considered to be relatively stable dispositions (Schaarschmidt & Fischer 2001a). Emotional exhaustion was measured using a German translation of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach et al. 1986) by Enzmann & Kleiber (1989) in two telephone interviews in 2017 and 2019. The internal consistency of the four-item scale is high (α=.81 for both measurement times).

After preliminary analyses – including CFA that succesfully confirmed the factorial structure of all constructs – the four patterns of self-regulatory behavior were empirically identified using latent profile analysis. The first pattern is characterized by high scores on both the resilience and work engagement subscales (relative to the mean of the total sample). That biggest group of the sample (36%) is called H-type (healthy). The second type U (unambitious; 26%) is characterized by high resilience and low engagement. While these two patterns are considered health-promoting, the following two patterns are potentially harmful for teachers’ mental health. The A-type (excessively ambitious, “workaholic”; 16%) reports low resilience and very high work engagement; the R-type (resigned, “burnout at risk”; 22%) has low scores on both resilience and engagement. Mean scores on emotional exhaustion confirmed that participants with potentially harmful self-regulatory patterns present themselves more exhausted (type A: M2017=2.16 and M2019=2.03; type B: M2017=2.36 and M2019=2.18) than participants with health-promoting patterns (Type H: M2017=1.89 and M2019=1.88; Type U: M2017=1.90; M2019=1.79) for both measurement times. Across all groups, a slight decrease in exhaustion can be detected. To investigate the impact of self-regulatory patterns on the development of emotional exhaustion over time in more detail, a latent Change Analysis will be applied. Results will be presented and discussed. The identification of risk types in relation to professional self-regulation can not only help to detect potential health risks early on, but also to develop both prevention and intervention programs such as stress management training for the less resilient types A and B (Klusmann et al. 2008; Dicke et al. 2015).

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