EFL Teachers’ Perfectionism as a Predictor of Job Burnout

Teacher burnout has been identified as a serious issue within the teacher population. The consequences of teacher burnout are witnessed on the student, teacher, and society. Many teachers suffer from burnout, and perfectionism is a personality characteristic that has been associated with burnout. While the correlates and consequences of teacher burnout have been studied, few investigations have examined perfectionism and teacher burnout. Thus, the present study was designed to examine whether perfectionism could be a predictor of burnout in EFL teachers. Also, it specifically examined if perfectionism components (conscientious perfectionism, self-evaluative perfectionism) predicted burnout dimensions (depersonalization, emotional exhaustion). This investigation was conducted in a number of language institutes in Tehran and 95 EFL teachers were selected through convenience sampling. The participants received a set of questionnaires including Demographics, Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey(MBI-ES), and the Perfectionism Inventory (PI). The data were analyzed through running Spearman’s rho Correlations and Regression analyses. The results indicated that the self-evaluative perfectionism component was a significant predictor of burnout dimensions (depersonalization and emotional exhaustion) in EFL teachers.