Burnout and Teachers’ Engagement: The Perspective of Pre-Service Teachers Who Works with Students with Learning Difficulties in Kindergarten

This study sets out to quantitatively evaluate the perceptions of pre-service teachers who work with children with LDs in kindergartens, in relation to engagement, burnout, relationships and prediction. The study participants are made up of 103 pre-service teachers working with kindergarten pupils with LDs. All the teachers were students from two Saudi universities, where both universities offer bachelor’s degrees in early childhood education. The current study used both the Engagement Teachers Scale (ETS) and the Malach Burnout Inventory-Arabic Version (MBI-AV). Our study findings demonstrate that pre-service teachers who work with kindergarten students with LDs have high levels of engagement and low levels of burnout. However, several major differences were identified between their perceptions of their ETS and its belonging domains- teachers’ cognitive engagement and teachers’ social engagements regarding workshops. The results did not find a major difference between pre-service teachers’ burnout and their GPA (grade point average) and attending workshops, nor did they discover a link between ETS and GPA. In contrast, a strong negative relationship was established between emotional exhaustion and ETS, and emotional exhaustion and ETS. It was determined that depersonalization has a major negative correlation with teachers’ social engagement with students, teachers’ cognitive engagement and ETS. The study found a strong negative link between MBI-AV and ETS and with ETS-four belonging domains. In addition, the study found that MBI-AV and its domain reduce personal achievement and can predict levels of engagement among teachers.