Dissertation Summary
The chosen dissertation was written by Kaya (2008) who focused on the problems and experiences of general education teachers working in Turkey. The research was conducted in an urban center in Turkey in 2008. The researcher was paying focused attention to the connection existing between “burnout and classroom and teacher factors” (Kaya, 2008, p. 7). During the research, the author was focusing on three important questions shaping the study. First, the paper studies the degree of burnout among teachers “teaching in inclusion classrooms in Turkey” (Kaya, 2008, p. 9). Also, it focuses on the specific factors about the working process and characteristics of participants that can be used to predict burnout in teachers working in Turkey. The third research question touches upon the existence of perceived challenges associated with this profession.
The sample studied during the research included almost six thousand elementary school teachers from Turkey. Data collection methods used during the research include the use of two survey tools (MBI and EBES). As for the data analysis methods chosen by the researcher, there are five of them: “descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, independent t-test, stepwise multiple regression, and qualitative analysis” (Kaya, 2008, p. 7). Having analyzed the collected data, the researcher concluded that both age and teacher experience could be called the variables predicting burnout in Turkish teachers. In terms of the perceived work-related difficulties, a lot of the participants reported that it was difficult for them to use individualized strategies in classes with large numbers of students. The given dissertation is important to the proposed research as it demonstrates the practical significance of inclusion policy and provides an example of the proper use of quantitative research methods and data collection tools. Therefore, a lot of conclusions presented in the dissertation can help to study the topic of burnout in intellectual disability teachers in Saudi Arabia.
Dissertation Critique
Among the key concepts and terms used by the author of the chosen dissertation, there are employee burnout, inclusion classrooms, and the history of disability education in the country where the research was conducted. As for the key notions that the proposed research will utilize, they include intellectual disability, occupational burnout, and the impact of important characteristics of special education teachers in Saudi Arabia on the levels of burnout that they experience. The most important term that needs to be discussed in this section is employee burnout and the way that it is defined in the two works that are compared.
Generalizing the information on employee burnout that acts as a primary term in his research, the author of the dissertation acknowledges that no definition would be accepted by all researchers in the field due to the difference of opinions concerning the dimensions and signs of burnout. At the same time, the author believes that the majority of researchers appreciate the idea concerning burnout dimensions forwarded by Maslach in the twentieth century. According to the latter, occupational burnout presents a combination of three factors that include “emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal achievement” (Kaya, 2008, p. 13). The proposed research will use the definition proposed by Maslach as it presents the most comprehensive one. Importantly, the proposed research will use numerous sources whose authors rely on the theoretical knowledge discussed by Maslach.
In terms of the topic and research questions of the discussed dissertation and the proposed research, the most significant difference between these two works is presented by location and population. The dissertation, the author reports, remains the first work in Turkey that studies a wide range of variables and their connection to the phenomenon of occupational burnout. The author proves the significance of the work stating that the previous studies “did not include inclusion related variables” (Kaya, 2008, p. 9). The research questions identified in the dissertation focus on the way that teachers in Turkey perceive themselves in connection with the three dimensions of burnout, teacher and classroom characteristics predicting burnout, and the perceived work-related challenges reported by teachers. As for the proposed research, it will focus on burnout in special education teachers with a different cultural background – the research will be conducted in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.
The proposed study will focus on four variables and the way that they influence burnout rates whereas the dissertation utilizes a larger number of variables. This is because the phenomenon of teacher burnout in specialists from Saudi Arabia has not been thoroughly studied yet. At the same time, the author of the discussed dissertation refers to some studies conducted in countries with similar cultures such as the UAE. According to the findings, male education specialists from the country were “less positive towards inclusion” than their female colleagues, and the negative perception of inclusion was more manifested in less experienced education specialists (Kaya, 2008, p. 26). Nevertheless, the situation for special education teachers in Saudi Arabia has not been studied, and this is why the proposed research will be unique. Due to the presence of a knowledge gap related to occupational burnout in intellectual disability teachers in the country, the findings will also possess practical significance.
Unlike the chosen dissertation, the proposed study will use four sub-questions guiding the research process. As for the latter, they refer to the impact that four variables have on burnout levels in intellectual disability teachers in Saudi Arabia. The variables that will be studied are the following: the gender of disability teachers, their academic degree, the level of teaching, and the number of years that participants work as special education teachers. As is clear from the research questions, the proposed study and the dissertation are extremely different in terms of study variables that are identified. Thus, the proposed research will not include some of the variables related to inclusion classrooms such as the types of disabilities that students have, resources used by teachers, and the number of students with individual plans taught by the participants.
The sample chosen for the discussed dissertation includes almost six thousand participants working in inclusion classrooms in Turkey. About the proposed research, it is planned to survey at least five hundred special education teachers from Qassim in Saudi Arabia. The sampling strategy used by the author of the dissertation is random, and the proposed research is also going to use random sampling that is one of the popular quantitative sampling strategies. Using this strategy, researchers are required to assign numbers to participants instead of using their details during the stage of data analysis. The given strategy was chosen for the proposed research to give an equal chance to all teachers to make their contribution to the research. Due to this strategy, each teacher in Qassim will have an “equal probability of being selected from the population” (Creswell, 2012, p. 143).
As for the tools for data collection used by the author of the dissertation, they include MBI with more than twenty statements helping to measure burnout levels using three dimensions. The researcher has chosen this tool due to its reliability and proven effectiveness. Also, the researcher was using the survey that was created for the particular research; the latter was aimed at collecting demographic data and the information on the classroom environment. It is clear from the results reported by the researcher that the combination of two data survey tools helped her to conduct an in-depth analysis of factors affecting burnout rates. The second tool used by the researcher includes questions related to teachers’ previous experience, personal details, degrees earned, professional licenses, and the level of teaching. Also, it touches upon the types of inclusion classrooms that they can use, the number of students they teach (including students who have IEPs), and types of disabilities that the latter have.
The attention is also paid to specific materials that teachers can use to support children with special needs. To study the system of special education applied in different schools, the researcher also included the questions concerning the participants’ collaboration with other professionals helping children with special needs. In the end, the respondents are supposed to identify the most important work-related challenges that they face. The proposed research will use MBI (1982) to measure burnout among special education teachers whereas the dissertation studies general education teachers as well. The tool is known to “have the strongest psychometric properties”, and it uses three subscales to measure burnout rates about three dimensions presented by reduced performance, exhaustion, and cynicism (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001, p. 401). Also, there will be a demographic survey that will be distributed with the help of the Survey Monkey service after the approval of the Ministry of Education. The author of the dissertation analyzes data with the help of the ANOVA test, qualitative analysis, t-test, and other tools. To analyze the data that will be collected within the frame of the proposed research, it is planned to perform a multiple regression analysis using SPSS software.
The limitations identified by Kaya (2008) include the possible influence of “the official endorsement of the government” on data credibility and the lack of open-ended questions in the survey (p. 157). The latter, the researcher believes, can prevent researchers from identifying unknown factors that can also be responsible for growing burnout rates. As for the challenges that the proposed study may encounter, there is a danger that the respondents’ answers will be influenced by their sense of guilt or the position of the unwillingness to share their negative experiences.
The Proposed Research Study
The proposed research study is expected to improve the state of knowledge concerning occupational burnout among intellectual disability teachers in Saudi Arabia. In particular, the desired results are to indicate whether burnout in this group of special education teachers is predicted by the following variables: gender, the level of teaching, degrees earned, and professional experience. In terms of setting chosen for the proposed research, the study will be conducted in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.
The sampling strategy chosen for the proposed research is one of the subtypes of probability sampling – simple random sampling. They discussed strategy is often regarded as “the most popular and rigorous form” of probability sampling (Creswell, 2012, p. 143). The chosen sampling strategy possesses numerous advantages that make it appropriate for the proposed study. To begin with, using this sampling strategy, it is easier for researchers to analyze data as they are not required to divide the sample into a few groups. Another important advantage that needs to be mentioned is strictly interconnected with the purpose of the proposed research. Considering the necessity to study the situation with a burnout in special education teachers in Saudi Arabia and fill the knowledge gap that exists in the field, the research is aimed at identifying the relationships between burnout and four independent variables. At the same time, simple random sampling is regarded as an appropriate strategy allowing to generalize results and single out the most obvious tendencies.
The proposed study is going to use a combination of two data collection tools such as MBI and a survey helping to analyze personal details and the professional situation of teachers in Qassim. A demographic survey will be distributed with the help of Survey Monkey that is a popular website helping to develop and conduct surveys. The use of the Internet for “electronic data collection” is extremely popular in quantitative research as it has numerous advantages related to costs and the speed of data analysis (Creswell, 2012, p. 156). The use of multiple regression analysis is appropriate for the proposed research as it will help to describe the connection between each independent variable identified and burnout in special education teachers in Saudi Arabia.
References
Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
Kaya, O. (2008). Inclusion and burnout: Examining general education teachers’ experiences in Turkey. Web.
Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 397-422.