Burnout represents a state of mental and physical fatigue, which continuously received more social attention and acceptance throughout the last decades. Following the ICD-10 Burnout is related to life-management problems showing moderate to high correlations with several psychological and physical disorders. The three main symptoms are represented by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and performance loss (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leitner, 2001).

 

Research of the last two decades revealed high stress levels and burnout rates for teachers of different school-types and different subjects. This effect was mainly caused by specific job characteristics (e.g. unilateral goal definitions, profession’s value in society, lack of resources to reach goals) and individual personality traits (a.o., keeping distance, optimism, intrinsic motivation). So far, research has remained fragmented in clarifying the role of physical education, which requires contrary needs and conditions (e.g. subject, method of knowledge transfer, resources in terms of locations, grading systems) than other subjects.

The current research project is aimed to analyze the characteristics of teachers’ stress and burnout level as well as the correlation with motivational factors and personality traits in the context of physical education. The purpose is to examine the interaction of personality traits and situational factors leading to burnout and to identify individual resources preventing burnout.