The relationship between the undesired student behavior in the classroom and teachers' level of burnout

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the in-class undesired student behavior and the teachers? level of burnout; to reveal how the level of burnout varies depending on the personal and professional variables and to determine which of the undesired student behavior have a significant influence on teachers? level of burnout. For this purpose, 500 primary school teachers in the centre of Şanlıurfa have been given a questionnaire between 2007 and 2008. Of all the questionnaires, 405 have been evaluated. This study is a descriptive one to describe the current situation. A qualitative approach has been followed for the study. This research is based on the data collected through a scale including personal and professional information questionnaire of the frequency of the undesired student conduct in classroom and the Maslach Inventory of burnout.In this research, the frequencies, percentages, standard deviation and the mean of the data collected about teachers? personal and professional characteristics and the in-class undesired student behavior as well as the level of teachers? burnout has been calculated and interpreted by means of related tables. In terms of the analysis of the independent variables, gender and the branches have been applied to t-test and the difference has been interpreted by comparing the means. For the independent variable, professional seniority, a one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) has been conducted and the groups causing the difference has been found 0, 05 by means of the Tukey HSD test. In order to determine the level of the relationship between the in-class undesired student behavior and the teachers? level of burnout, a correlation analysis has been applied. On the other hand, a multiple linear regression analysis has been used to determine which undesired behavior in the classroom is more influential on the teachers? burnout.Below are the results of the current study:1. The undesired in-class student behavior that teachers mostly come across is ?complaining about his/her friends? and the least common one is ?sleeping? in the classroom.2. Teachers? views on the frequency of the undesired student behavior in the classroom are as follows:A statistically significant difference in terms of the gender is only seen in harming friends?, classroom?s and teachers? belongings. However, there isno significant difference in other behaviors.As for the branch, five behaviors show significant difference while no significant is seen for other behaviors. Among the significantly different behaviors, the undesired student behavior is encountered more commonly by branch teachers other than classroom teachers..A significant difference is also seen about the professional seniority. The undesired student behavior is more common in the classrooms of teachers, who have recently started teaching and the ones moving towards their teaching career,3. Teachers often experience ?emotional burnout?, sometimes experience ?desensitization? and rarely experience ?personal failure?.4. When teachers? level of burnout is compared in terms of gender, branch and seniority,Emotional burnout, desensitization and personal failure do not show significant difference in terms of gender.Points of emotional burnout and desensitization do not reveal significant differences in terms of branch but personal failure points show significant differences in terms of branch. Branch teachers experience much more personal failure than the classroom teachers.Points of emotional burnout, desensitization and personal failure yield significant differences in terms of seniority. Teachers working for 18-23 years experience emotional burnout the most and those working for 12-17 years experience it the least. The group experiencing the desensitization the most has been working for 18-23 and more than 24 years and teacher working for 6-11 years experience it the least. Personal failure has been mostly experienced by teachers with an experience of 6-11 years while the ones who experience it the least have been working for 18-23 years.5. A reasonably weak, positive and meaningful relationship has been found between in-class undesired student behavior and teachers? emotional burnout, desensitization and personal failure. The more frequent these undesired student behavior appears, the more teachers? emotional burnout, desensitization and personal failure are seen.6. As for the effects of the frequency of the in-class undesired student behavior on teachers? complaining about his/her friends, being interested in other things than the lesson, not doing the assigned work, making irrelevant comments, playing with objects all the time, entering and leaving the classroom noisily have a meaningful effect on the emotional burnout.Making irrelevant comments, interrupting the flow of the lesson, being interested in other things than the lesson, not doing the assigned work and speaking out without permission have a meaningful influence on desensitization.Using his/her friends? commodities without asking for a permission, complaining about friends, not keeping the class environment clean and harming his/her friends?, classroom?s and teacher?s commodities have a meaningful influence on personal failure.