“Running on fumes”: emotional exhaustion and burnout of teachers following a natural disaster

Abstract

This study reports on the emotional exhaustion and burnout of five teachers who acted as first responders when a large earthquake struck their city during school hours. Eighteen months after the earthquake, these teachers recounted, then discussed their earthquake experiences. Teachers used a mood meter (Brackett and Kremenitzer, Creating emotionally literate classrooms: an introduction to the RULER approach to social and emotional learning, Dude Publishing, New York, 2011) to indicate their core affect for three situations; in the early aftermath of the earthquake (recollected); at the time of the interview, and in their present teaching. They also completed a series of questionnaires, including the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (Watson et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 54(6):1063–1070, 1988), and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, Adapted for Teachers (Milfont et al. in Soc Indic Res 89(1):169–177, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-007-9229-9). The mood meter was a valuable tool for tracking the core affect of a group of teachers as a whole, over time and in different contexts. Generally, teachers showed improved core affect over time. However, the mood meter also revealed individual variations and differences in core affect over time and in different contexts. The findings revealed the individual nature of teachers’ current emotional exhaustion and burnout in response to the unique antecedents that each teacher experienced during this period. With a new and innovative use of the mood meter as part of the interview process, it has revealed insightful qualitative data for understanding and making sense of the teachers’ emotional responses and ways to interpret these. Overall, this study confirms the importance and value of within-teacher experiential research examining the experiences, emotional exhaustion and burnout of individual teachers.