The initial years of teaching are a critical period in teachers’ careers characterized by stress and high rates of attrition (Borman & Dowling, 2008). The provision of adequate support to teachers during their early career is important for the development of their professional competence in a complex school environment and, subsequently, for their plans to remain in the profession (Schuck et al., 2018). This is a particularly important aspect of teacher policy in light of the widespread concern about teacher shortages in many European countries, where a number of qualified teachers plan to leave the profession within the first five years of teaching (EEPN, 2019).  The research on individual and contextual determinants of teacher well-being and future career plans is therefore of growing importance for European teacher policy. 

Recent studies underline the important role of personality (Kim, Jörg, & Klassen, 2019) in a number of relevant teacher outcomes. However, there is a lack of research exploring the contribution of personality dimensions to various aspects of early-career teachers’ well-being and teaching performance.

Meta-analytic findings demonstrated significant relations between five personality dimensions and evaluated teaching performance (Klassen & Tze, 2014). Specifically, teachers’ extraversion, conscientiousness and openness show moderately positive relations to teacher effectiveness as reflected in students’ evaluations of teaching. Accumulated evidence suggests that all five personality dimensions have important implications for various aspects of teaching quality, particularly interpersonal relations and support provided to students, and for aspects of teachers’ occupational well-being, such as enthusiasm and burnout. Existing findings indicate that personality dimensions are related to teacher self-efficacy (Djigić, Stojiljković, & Dosković, 2014) and to teacher outcomes such as teaching effectiveness and burnout. Meta-analytic data also indicate that teacher burnout seems to be most strongly associated with neuroticism (Kim, Jörg, & Klassen, 2019; Roloff, Kirstges, Grund & Klusmann, 2022). Also, a summary of research findings indicates that self-efficacy is related to teacher well-being (Bardach, Klassen & Perry, 2021).

However, evidence on the role of teacher personality in teaching and teacher well-being is still scarce and calls for research from various educational contexts. In recent years, Croatian educational system has been increasingly witnessing the problem of attracting and retaining qualified teachers in schools. Croatian teachers report a disproportionately lower self-efficacy regarding their ability to promote the value of learning among their students (OECD, 2014). They perceive their profession as demanding and important, and express high job satisfaction but predominantly feel that teaching is not valued in society. They also report a number of difficulties that burden the teaching profession, generated by inadequate educational policy (Burić, Slišković & Macuka, 2018). Our study aims to fill in the gap in the existing research, expanding studies on the role of personality and self-efficacy in burnout of early-career teachers to improve the understanding of the mechanisms that would efficiently support the retention and well-being of teachers in Croatian schools. Our focus on teachers at the beginning of their careers is of particular importance as they are at risk for burnout and, consequently, leaving the profession.

The aim of this research is to explore the nature of the contributions of early-career teachers’ personality and self-efficacy to the prediction of teacher burnout. 

This survey is part of the research project “The role of personality, motivation and socio-emotional competencies in early-career teachers' occupational well-being” funded by Croatian Science Foundation. The research was conducted during the first academic term of school year 2022/2023, from October 2022 to January 2023. Research participants are 484 early-career teachers with up to 5 years of teaching experience employed in lower secondary schools in Croatia. Teachers participated in the survey by completing an online questionnaire. We sent participation invitations to school principals who forwarded an e-mail with a survey link to early-career teachers working in their schools. The research was conducted according to ethical standards and with the approval obtained by the Ethics Committee of the authors’ institution. We used BFI-2 (Soto & John, 2017) to measure teachers’ personality. BFI-2 consists of 60 items and answers are given on a five-point Likert scale, providing results for both 5 broad personality traits and 15 personality facets. For the purpose of this study, we used results of the five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience) and all scales demonstrated high reliability with Cronbach’s alpha scores 0.84, 0.81, 0.89, 0.88, and 0.82, respectively. To measure teachers’ self-efficacy, we used Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) adapted for TALIS (OECD, 2019). Scale consists of 13 items and answers are given on a 4-point scale (Not at all - A lot). Results are provided for three dimensions of teacher self-efficacy (in student engagement, in instructional strategies and in classroom management) and all subscales had adequate reliability, with Cronbach’s alphas measuring 0.75, 0.74, and 0.84, respectively. We measured teacher burnout with Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT; Schaufeli, De Witte & Desart, 2020). BAT consists of 23 items with a 5-point frequency scale (never – always) and measures four core burnout symptoms (exhaustion, emotional impairment, cognitive impairment and mental distance) as well as one total score. For the purpose of this study, we used total score as an indicator of teachers’ burnout level. The scale demonstrated high reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.94. We tested a hierarchical regression model with five personality dimensions as predictors in the first step, three self-efficacy dimensions in the second step, and burnout as a criterion variable.

Personality and self-efficacy explained 45% of variance in burnout. Personality traits alone explained 43.6% of burnout variance with significant independent contribution of all traits except extraversion. Early-career teachers who are more emotionally stable, agreeable, open to experience and conscientious, experience lower levels of burnout. Self-efficacy additionally explained significant 2.2% of burnout variance, but only self-efficacy in classroom management had significant independent contribution. Early-career teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy in classroom management experience lower levels of burnout. Our results suggest that the personality of early-career teachers could play an important role in the prevention of burnout. Teachers with higher neuroticism, lower agreeableness, conscientiousness and openness to experience are at greater risk of experiencing burnout. Early-career teachers’ self-efficacy in classroom management also plays an important role in the prediction of burnout. Teachers who lack the skills to keep their students focused on their academic tasks and to prevent disruptive behaviors in their classrooms report higher levels of burnout. Hence, burnout interventions centered on early-career teachers should take into account their personality profiles. These interventions should focus on supporting the development of adequate coping mechanisms as well as self-regulating and relational skills that could help early-career teachers to cope with the demands of their everyday teaching.

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