Professional Burnout and Job Satisfaction among Physical Education Teachers in Greece

Aims: Nowadays, teachers in Greece are facing rapidly changing working conditions with increased workload and working hours, severe pay cuts and high taxation. The purpose of the present work was to evaluate burnout and job satisfaction among Physical Education teachers in Primary Public schools in Greece.
Study Design: A survey of Physical Education teachers (n =132) received a questionnaire and responded to the survey (n =105, 79.5% response).
Place and Duration of Study: This work was carried out in the region of West Greece, in Primary Education Schools during the school year 2012-2013.
Methodology: A Pearson Correlation (results analysed with SPSS) was used to investigate possible correlations between the examined parameters.
Results: The results indicate that teachers exhibited moderate levels of job satisfaction (64.66 ±8.09), high levels of emotional exhaustion (26.14±9.37), low depersonalization (1.69±0.79) and personal accomplishment (38.61±5.36). Job satisfaction was inversely related with burnout (-0.433, P<0.05) but not related with demograppic parameters, such as age and gender. On the contrary, gender had a significant effect on the levels of emotional exhaustion (0.225, P=0.021) while family status had a significant effect on the personal accomplishment (0.272, P=0.004). Teachers were mostly satisfied with their working conditions, the work itself, their colleagues and mostly dissatisfied with working hours, salary issues and low prospects of professional development.
Conclusion: It is obvious that cut in salaries, decreased job security and deterioration of the working conditions had an impact on the previously established “heaven” of Public Servants in Greece. This information could be used by School Managers and the Greek Government for intiating correcting actions to reverse the trend exhibited in the present work.