What Causes Burnout in Special School Physical Education Teachers? Evidence from China

Special physical education is considered a challenging process concerned with the development of the physical and mental health of students with physical disabilities. Special physical education teachers face pressures from society, parents, schools, and themselves, which can easily lead to burnout and increase levels of teacher attrition. In our paper, we explore the significant effects of role and job stress (divided into role ambiguity and conflict, and stressors and stress responses, respectively), teaching efficacy (divided into general and personal teaching efficacy), job satisfaction (divided into internal and external job satisfaction), and social support (divided into objective and subjective support) on burnout (divided into emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment). We chose to conduct an empirical analysis using data from different regions of China. Our study results showed that role conflict, general teaching efficacy, job satisfaction, and objective support were the main factors influencing burnout among special physical education teachers in China. Stressors were the main factors influencing emotional exhaustion. General teaching efficacy, job stress, and role conflict significantly influenced depersonalization. Internal job satisfaction and personal teaching efficacy mainly influenced feelings of reduced personal accomplishment. Attributes such as seniority, marriage status, gender, academic titles, and education level also affected burnout. Additionally, we verified that there are regional disparities in the factors influencing burnout. Finally, our study of burnout among special physical education teachers could improve the physical and mental health of students with physical disabilities.