Burnout among ESL practitioners in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Abstract

This purpose of this research is to investigate the issue of burnout among ESL practitioners in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in terms of the three dimensions of burnout and its relationship with four selected demographic characteristics. Apart from that, the level of job satisfaction which is related to burnout was also examined with its relationship (general satisfaction) to all three levels of burnouts. The four selected demographic factors are age, marital status, health condition and academic rank were used as the variables. The three dimensions of burnout as cited in Maslach et.al (1996, 2001) are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment. The respondents of this research consisted of total 17 ESL UTM practitioners who answered the questionnaire and 3 ESL practitioners of different academic ranks (interview session) from Language Academy. The research is survey-correlational study with questionnaire and semistructured interview used as instruments. The questionnaire used in this research was adapted from Rush’s study (2003) which comprised of demographic data questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory–Education Survey (MBI-ES) and Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ). A number of statistical analyses were employed in order to analyze the data including descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation and ANOVA one-way. The results indicated that majority of the respondents experienced moderate level of burnout in all three Maslach’s burnout dimensions (EE, DP and PA) with no significant relationship between all three dimensions with marital status, health condition and academic rank except for significant relationship between age and depersonalization dimension. Besides that, majority of ESL UTM practitioners experienced moderate level of job satisfaction and no significant relationship were found between general satisfaction sub-scale and all three burnout dimensions (EE, DP and PA).