Date
8-6-2025
Department
School of Behavioral Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)
Chair
Pamela Moore
Keywords
school psychologists, work-life balance, burnout, turnover intentions, virtual school psychologists
Disciplines
Educational Psychology
Recommended Citation
Storti, Brittany Leigh, "A Quantitative Examination of School Psychologists and the Relationships between Work-Life Balance, Burnout, and Turnover Intentions" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7328.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7328
Abstract
Research for the past twenty-five years has documented that there is a national shortage of school psychologists across the United States. It is vital to study the magnitude of school psychologists working in the educational field and the impact of work-life balance has on burnout and turnover intentions. The study surveyed 75 school psychologists who work in a brick-and-mortar, hybrid, and virtual setting across the United States to compare the relationships and to determine if there is a difference between turnover intentions based on work setting. A moderation analysis and an ANOVA determined that the research failed to reject the null hypothesis for all research questions. Indicating that work-life balance was not a significant moderator in the relationships and that no difference was found in turnover intentions of school psychologists who work in brick-and-mortar, virtually, or hybrid setting. Consistent with expectations, burnout and the subscales, depersonalization and emotional exhaustion, had a significant positive effect on turnover intentions, and personal accomplishment had a significant negative effect on turnover intentions. Furthermore, work-life balance had a significant effect on turnover intentions only in the models with personal accomplishment and depersonalization. Implications include that school psychologists continue to be stretched thin across the schools and students they serve and highlights the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout before symptoms reach a chronic level and impact retention. Future researchers may consider replicating the study with a larger population specifically between groups, exploring a mediation analysis, or further examining additional factors impacting the relationships.
