The impact of teachers' participation in recreational activities on the levels of burnout

In this study, it is aimed to examine the impact of teachers' participation in leisure activities on burnout levels. In the research, teachers working in the city of Kocaeli during the 2020-2021 academic year were determined as a sample group and 425 teachers were reached. The descriptive survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. In the research, the data was collected through Personal Information Form; the Leisure Time Participation questionnaire that were prepared by Avcı (2009), and Maslach Burnout Scale that was created by Maslach, Jackson and Schwab for educators, then adapted to Turkish by Şahin and İnce (2015).The analysis of the obtained data was carried out using the SPSS 25.0 package program. Kolmogrov Smirnov and Shapiro Wilk tests were performed to determine whether the data were normally distributed and it was seen that the data were not normally distributed. For this reason, non-parametric tests were used. Data were analyzed using Chi-square test, Mann Whitney U test, and Kruskall Wallis tests. First of all, it was examined whether there was a significant difference between the participation of teachers in leisure activities and the sub-dimensions of burnout, and it was determined that there was a significant difference with the sub-dimensions of Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Achievement. It was concluded that while there was no significant difference among teachers' participation in leisure time activities and variables of gender, educational status, and the institution they worked at; there was a significant difference among teachers' participation in leisure time activities and variables of marital status, age, professional seniority, perceived economic status, weekly course load. When the burnout levels of the teachers were examined, it was seen that there was a significant difference with the variables of age, gender, professional seniority, educational status, the institution they worked at, and there was no significant difference with the variables of marital status, perceived economic status, weekly course load. The important results obtained from the study are that emotional exhaustion and depersonalization are higher in teachers between the ages of 20-24 and with a seniority of 1-5 years; male teachers experience more burnout than female teachers; more frequent participation in recreational activities is effective in experiencing less burnout, and there is significant difference among the situation of recreational activities have positive effects on personality and sub-dimension of personal achievement. Keywords: Leisure, Recreation, Burnout, Teacher