The Emotional Side of Teaching Conceptions: Exploring the Relationship between Conceptions of Teaching and Teacher Burnout, Well-Being, and Resilience

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of teaching and several indicators of their emotional experience. With a sample of 200 teachers, the study identifies three dimensions of teaching conceptions, “student-centeredness,” “educational purpose,” and “projection into the future.” Statistical analysis revealed that student-centeredness is negatively correlated with teachers’ resilience and well-being. Additionally, we found that well-being and sense of personal accomplishment are significantly lower, and depersonalization significantly higher, when the educational purpose is psychosocial learning as opposed to academic learning. We also found some differences in conceptions of teaching among different countries and among different educational levels. These results may have useful implications for teacher education and for the management of educational reforms.