Personality Traits and Professional Burnout of Pre-School and Early Childhood Teachers and School Counsellors. The Mediating Role of Professional Self-Efficacy

Professional burnout is a widespread phenomenon among preschool and early childhood teachers and school counsellors. Many factors predisposing to its emergence and progression are present in the nature of this profession. These include, among others, ever-increasing social expectations, a decline in the prestige of the profession, an increasing amount of bureaucratic work, heavy overload and responsibility. As a result, school counsellors and teachers may experience the chronic pressure to meet demands, while at the same time having a sense of doing important work based on helping other people. All of this, with low self-efficacy beliefs, exacerbated by parents’ demanding attitudes, may translate into the occurrence of professional burnout in the described group. Consequently, professional burnout among school counsellors and teachers became the subject of a self-study. The aim of this study was to attempt to identify the relationship between personality traits and professional burnout and to determine whether self-efficacy acts as a mediator of this in relationship. Fifty-eight professionally active school counsellors and teachers participated in the study. Research tools such as the LBQ, IPIP-BFM-20, SVOSES and the author’s sociodemographic survey questionnaire were used. Correlates among personality traits with such dimensions of workaholism as perceived lack of professional efficacy, psychophysical exhaustion and disillusionment were identified. Furthermore, it was revealed that self-efficacy acts as a mediator in the relationship between emotional Stability and psychophysical exhaustion of school counsellors and teachers. The study was exploratory, as no attempt has been made so far to arrangements mediators in the relationship between personality traits and burnout in the described group. Therefore, it is very important to further explore the topic undertaken.