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The role of time perspectives in Language Teachers’ Burnout

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Abstract

The present study attempted to investigate the role of time perspectives in language teachers’ burnout and its three dimensions, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. For this purpose, a group of 302 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers were asked to fill out Zimbardo’s Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) along with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). The results of correlations demonstrated significantly positive relationships between burnout, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization with the past negative and present fatalistic time perspectives (p < .01), and significantly negative ones with past positive, present hedonistic, and future perspectives (p < .01). On the other hand, personal accomplishment had a significantly negative relationship with past negative and present fatalistic (p < .01), and a significantly positive relationship with past positive, present hedonistic, and future perspectives (p < .01). Furthermore, according to what structural equation modeling (SEM) showed, language teachers having a negative outlook on the past and a fatalistic perspective of the future were more likely to experience emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and burnout in general; whereas those with past positive, present hedonistic, and also future time perspectives were more likely to feel personal accomplishment in their career. Finally, the findings were discussed, and the potential implications were drawn.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to the editor and anonymous reviewers of this manuscript who assisted us to fine-tune the paper. Our thanks also go to the participants who took part in this study.

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  1. English Language Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

    Elham Naji Meidani, Reza Pishghadam & Golshan Shakeebaee

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  1. Elham Naji Meidani
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Correspondence to Reza Pishghadam.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Appendix A: Sample items of ZTPI

Past negative:

I often think of what I should have done differently in my life.

Past positive:

It gives me pleasure to think about my past.

Present hedonistic:

I try to live my life as fully as possible, one day at a time.

Present fatalistic:

My life path is controlled by forces I cannot influence.

Future:

I believe that a person’s day should be planned ahead each morning.

Appendix B: Sample items of the MBI

Emotional exhaustion.

I feel emotionally drained from my work.

Depersonalization

I do not really care what happens to some students.

Personal accomplishment.

I deal very effectively with the problems of my students.

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Meidani, E.N., Pishghadam, R. & Shakeebaee, G. The role of time perspectives in Language Teachers’ Burnout. Curr Psychol 40, 5145–5155 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00456-x

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