Teacher satisfaction and burnout during COVID-19: what organizational factors help?

ABSTRACT

When an external crisis exacerbates an internal crisis, do organizational factors still matter? Given the crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and teacher burnout, it may be unlikely for organizational decisions to matter. However, this research using a representative sample of US K-12 teachers (n = 1,061 teachers instructing youths aged 5 to 18) presents important insights into how school organizations matter during times of crises. Although there is a crisis of teachers feeling burned out and intending to leave the profession, organizational factors still make a difference. In particular, organizational support and satisfaction with school decisions were associated with greater personal satisfaction and reduced burnout. Despite unions’ demands to suspend in-person instruction, this instructional modality was associated with higher teacher motivation and greater satisfaction with school decision. We explore broader implications in terms of education during internal and external crises, and the role of organizational intentionality during these times.

Acknowlegments

The author would like to acknowledge that this research received support from the RAND American Educator Panel Scholarship. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the organization. The author thanks David Grant, Mallika Bhandarkar, Julia Kaufman, and Elizabeth Steiner for their support and encouragement of this work. All remaining errors are the author’s alone.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the RAND Corporation.

Notes on contributors

Jose Eos Trinidad

Jose Eos Trinidad is with the Departments of Sociology and Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. He is also with the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Ateneo de Manila University. His research intersects organizational sociology, education policy, and quantitative methods.