Exploring the Relationship between Burnout and Critical Thinking Skills among Iranian University Professors Teaching TEFL

Abstract

The profession as a teacher involves experiencing a number of challenges which naturally lead to emotional tiredness and lack of reward, technically known as burnout (Colomeischi, 2015). The goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship between burnout and critical thinking ability. To this end, a sample of 40 professors of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) filed at a number of universities in Iran was chosen. Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was employed to assess the participants' burnout level, which is specifically evaluated by measuring three subscales of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal achievement. In addition, the measures of the participants' critical thinking skills were obtained via Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). The Pearson correlation coefficient analysis indicated that emotional exhaustion and depersonalization strongly and negatively correlated with critical thinking ability. However, a strong and positive relationship was found between personal achievement and critical thinking skills.