Özet:

Together with professional and occupational knowledge, teaching is a profession that requires the characteristics such as self-sacrifice, tolerance, updating yourself constantly and applying the profession willingly. However, teaching is also a risky profession that can affect teachers’ mental health due to some stress factors. This susceptibility can reduce teachers’, who are very important for students, effectiveness towards their students, their profession, their care for others, affection and professional role that requires responsibilities. In the literature, these kinds of problems, namely dissipation or a situation, such as mental or physical energy loss, which characterizes sometimes with physical conditions as a result of excessive demands, were described as ‘burnout’. As a result of teachers burnout it is obviously seen that the results are not related just with themselves but also with their process in teaching as it is taught that they need help. Many studies have been conducted to show teachers’ burnout because of the fact that professional responsibilities of teaching and particular applications of it may result in burnout syndrome. Although there have been many studies conducted about burnout and teachers’ burnout in abroad, studies regarding the issue have been increasing recently in Turkey. The problems that increase teachers’ stress level are not limited with only these reasons. Apart from that, there are other expectations that should be fulfilled by teachers. Nowadays, teachers are expected to prepare individuals for a changing technological society constantly and immediately and to deal with social problems (Akçamete, Kaner and Sucuoğlu, 2001). Teachers’ burnout is characterized by emotional, mental and physiological dimensions (Kyriacou, 1987). In comparison to other professionals (such as, nurses, doctors, lawyers, and etc.), the burnout level of kindergarten and primary school teachers showed high level of emotional burnout and lack of achievement and low level of insensitivity. In literature, there are several studies to identify stress factors of teachers. The following variables come out as stress factors that associated with burnout: excessive number of students, deficiency in student growth, excessive work load, role conflict, lack of communication among colleagues, low salaries, status, inadequacy of time, source and material, the need for perception as a professional (Guglielmi and Tatrow, 1998; Kyriacou, 1987; Kyriacou and Sutcliffe, 1979), teachers’ age and gender, time period that teachers worked in the same work place, number of students whom the teachers worked with, grade level of students, teachers’ education level, characteristics of students, students’ age, teacher-student conflicts and etc. (Tuğrul and Çelik, 2002). Burnout issue which is critical for cognitive, physical and affective domains is a trending research area in recent years in our country. In the last 15 years, many significant changes occurred in the country as well as about education. Some examples for the changes in education are extending the period of compulsory education to 8 years in the academic year 1997-1998, the new curricula introduced in the academic year 2005-2006, increasing the number of universities to 200 by the 97 new universities established in the last decade, 60-month old children’s going to primary school after the change known to public as ‘4+4+4’, and free wearing-style application in schools. It is inevitable that these changes also affect the community of teachers, approximately 700 thousands in number. In this context, the study aims at presenting the burnout status of 1st grade primary school classroom teachers. Maslach Burnout Inventory adapted into Turkish was used in the research. The sample of the study composed of the primary school classroom teachers representing different socio-economic levels at 13 schools in Istanbul. The results of the study showed that burnout level of the 1st grade primary school classroom teachers is in the middle level and very close to high level of burnout, changes in the education system more increases the burnout level of 63% of primary school teachers, the burnout level of the teachers does not differ significantly according to the variables of sex, classroom size, seniority, age of teacher, age of student, and yet for the marital status variable there is a significant difference in favor of single classroom teachers.

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