Studying the role of emotional intelligence in the manifestation of teachers’ professional burnout

Introduction. Professional burnout is one of the most common deformations in pedagogical activity. However, a number of scholarly studies have revealed that developed emotional intelligence helps to cope more easily with difficult situations and reduce emotional stress experienced by pedagogues. The purpose of the study: to identify the role of emotional intelligence (its components) in the manifestation of teachers’ professional burnout symptoms. Materials and methods. The survey involved 1,054 teachers from organisations of different educational levels representing different regions of the Russian Federation. The research methods included Maslach Burnout Inventory adapted by N.E. Vodopyanova, and D.V. Lyusin’s EmIn questionnaire. The methods of mathematical statistics included descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis with consecutive exclusion of predictors. Results. Analysing the response from 1,054 teachers, it became possible to conclude that at least 19.8% of the respondents demonstrated an exhaustive spectrum of professional burnout symptoms at a high level; the most widespread was the depersonalisation symptom highly expressed by 74.5% of the teachers; 40% of the teachers demonstrated the emotional exhaustion symptom; 33.6% had the symptom of reduced professional achievements. KEYWORDS The obtained results make it possible to assert that professional burnout proved to be a common phenomenon in the selected sample of teachers representing educational organisations of different levels and profiles. Emotional intelligence components act as stable predictors of professional burnout symptoms (account for about 35% of the total variance of the dependent variable). Intrapersonal emotional intelligence indicators serve as inhibitors of all professional burnout symptoms; interpersonal intelligence indicators can be negatively correlated with the severity of pedagogues’ professional burnout (as concerns symptoms of depersonalisation and reduction of professional achievements), or act as a direct predictor of emotional exhaustion. Conclusion. It has been proved that professional burnout symptoms are widespread in the selected sample of Russian pedagogues; some regression models have been deduced which point to a relatively low role of indicators of emotional intelligence components for emotional burnout symptoms (exhaustion and depersonalisation); it has been proved that interpersonal emotional intelligence and professional burnout are not characterised by unambiguous interrelations: the development of the former’s particular components can also create conditions for the aggravation of professional burnout symptoms.