Date

7-22-2025

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Patricia Ferrin

Keywords

special education, private school, only special education populated students, special education teacher burnout, Maslach Burnout Inventory

Disciplines

Special Education and Teaching

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative, hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore how special education teachers describe their burnout experiences when teaching at a special education populated school in Connecticut. The theory guiding this study was Maslach’s Burnout Inventory Theory which examines teacher burnout experiences through the three lenses of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment. Hermeneutic phenomenology explicitly focuses on the lived experience, the participant's perspective and experiences, and the researcher's opinion and knowledge on the topic (Alsaigh & Coyne 2021; Bynum & Varpio, 2017). This study was specifically looking at the experiences of special education teachers at Burger Elementary School, a private only special educated populated school in Connecticut. Special education teachers participated in journal prompts, individual interviews and focus groups to collect appropriate data. Through these data collection methods Braun and Clark will take the forefront of the analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006), and then Van Kaam and horizontalization will be embedded thoroughly within each form of data collection. The findings of this study show that time, lack of support, non educational activities and feeling undervalued were all factors of feeling burnout.

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