Centre for Positive Psychology and Education

While the role of student misbehaviour and teacher self-efficacy in teacher burnout are well known there is now a pressing need to determine the processes by which they influence teacher stress and the degree to which these processes are pertinent for all early career teachers. The current research integrates prior findings on teacher teacher’s efficacy, occupational stressors and burnout hypothesizing a moderated mediation model (Preacher, Rucker & Hayes, 2007) where (a) self efficacy in classroom management predicts emotional exhaustion via classroom disruptions, (b) self efficacy buffers the negative direct relationship of classroom disruptions and emotional exhaustion and (c) the level of self efficacy interacts with the proposed mediation (suggested in [a]). In a sample of 1227 German pre-service teachers results of structural equation modelling generally supported these assumptions. The proposed mediation, moderation and mediated moderation proved to be significant, even when introducing important covariates to the model. Implications for teacher pre-service training, based on the results, are discussed.

Therese Dicke studied psychology at the University of Oldenburg and the University of Trier in Germany, graduating in 2008. After working in the HR department of an international logistics company for approximately 2 years she decided to pursue an academic career and started working as a PHD student and research assistant at the Department of Instructional Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen in 2010. Her main research interests are teacher’s stress, motivation and resources, classroom management and just recently self regulated learning. She will be working at the Centre of Positive Psychology and Education (CPPE) of the University of Western Sydney as a visiting researcher from May to the end of July 2012.

• Classroom management, classroom incidents, and strain - Presentation (opens in a new window)