Understanding the Root Causes and Relationships of Educator Stress: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the landscape of education has shifted dramatically as teachers and schools adjusted and adapted to the unprecedented challenges. Teachers were required to modify nearly every aspect of their practice, and this resulted in heightened levels of stress and burnout. This elevated stress and burnout contributed to a nationwide teacher shortage (Steiner and Woo, 2021). To address this mass departure, it is crucial to identify the relationships of variables that cause teacher stress. This research utilized the Actor Network Theory (ANT) to uncover the various “actors” that contributed to increased teacher stress and burnout. Eleven secondary teachers were evaluated using Maslach’s Burnout Inventory (MBI), and those indicating elevated burnout levels were interviewed in a semi-structured format to identify the specific stressors and explore the relationships between these factors and their impact on teacher stress leading to burnout.