The relationship between trust in the teacher and school burnout: A research on secondary school students

This study primarily aimed to determine the level of middle school students' trust in teachers and school burnout. Students' trust in teachers and school burnout were also examined in terms of gender, grade level and desire to drop out of school variables. The population of the study consists of 34308 students studying at the middle schools located in Malatya province during the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 689 students selected from the population using stratified sampling method. "Trust in Teachers Scale" and "School Burnout Scale" were conducted to the participants. Firstly, basic descriptive statistical calculations were used to analyze the data obtained. In terms of gender and desire to drop out of school variables, t-test for independent groups was applied. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied for the grade level variable. Lastly simple linear regression analysis was conducted to determine whether trust in teachers is a significant predictor of school burnout. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined that students had low levels of burnout and high levels of trust in teachers. In the sub-dimensions of burnout, it was determined that students experienced the most burnout due to family, followed by the feeling of inadequacy at school, loss of interest in school and burnout due to school activities. It was determined that there were negative and moderately significant relationships between trust in teachers and all sub-dimensions of school burnout. Considering the gender variable, it was determined that male students had higher burnout levels than female students in the dimensions of exhaustion from school activities and loss of interest in school, while there was no significant difference in terms of trust in teachers. For the grade level variable, it was determined that as the grade level increased, school burnout also increased and trust in teachers decreased. Compared to the student who do not have a desire to quit school, student having a desire to quit school trusted their teachers more and experienced less burnout. Finally, it was detected that trust in teachers explained 26.3% of the total variance of school burnout. Keywords: Teacher trust, school burnout, middle school students