Development of a group counseling program to improve interpersonal skills with colleagues and managers of psychologically exhausted secondary school teachers

Objectives In this study, a group counseling program was developed and applied to improve psychologically exhausted secondary teachers' interpersonal skills with colleagues and managers to analyze their effects. Methods To this end, 310 secondary school teachers nationwide were subjected to a teacher psychological exhaustion test (TBI), and 10 out of 40 people who showed more than a boundary (T≥55) in psychological exhaustion results and sub-areas were selected as experimental groups and control groups. Results In order to measure interpersonal skills for 20 secondary school teachers who participated in the program, a modified interpersonal skills test was conducted to suit the characteristics of secondary school teachers. The comparison of the effectiveness of changes in the five sub-areas of pre-post interpersonal skills and interpersonal skills of the experimental group and the control group was analyzed by Mixed ANOVA. Conclusions As a result of the analysis, the interpersonal skills of the experimental group who participated in the group counseling program to improve the interpersonal skills of psychologically exhausted secondary teachers with colleagues and managers were significantly improved. In addition, as a result of reviewing the experience reports of the group members and the observations of the counselor, it was confirmed that this program was positive for improving the interpersonal skills of psychologically exhausted secondary teachers. Therefore, the program developed in this study can be seen as effective in improving the interpersonal skills of psychologically exhausted secondary teachers with colleagues and managers.