Depersonalization or Cynicism, Efficacy or Inefficacy: What are the Dimensions of Teacher Burnout?

The aims of the present study were: (1) to investigate the role of efficacy beliefs using negatively worded inefficacy items instead of positive ones; (2) to establish whether depersonalization and cynism can be considered two different dimensions of the teacher burnout syndrome. Our results showed that compared with efficacy beliefs inefficacy beliefs relate more strongly to the other burnout dimensions. Moreover, using partial disaggregation method, we found a better fit for the four-factor model with separate depersonalization and cynism dimensions, than for the three-factor model in which depersonalization and cynism were collapsed into one factor. It is concluded that future research on teacher burnout should use the inefficacy scale as the “third dimension” of burnout, rather than efficacy, and include the cynism and depersonalization constructs.