Relación entre la motivación y el compromiso del alumnado en educación física y el burnout del docente

Abstract

The main goal of this study was to analyze the autonomous motivation and the behavioural engagement in physical education students according to burnout experienced by their teachers. The study sample consisted of 644 physical students (302 boys and 342 girls) ages from 11 to 18 (M = 14.29, SD = 1.37) belonging to 28 different classes. Physical education teachers for these groups took also part in the study (14 men and 14 women). Teachers were from 27 to 59 years old (M = 39.43, SD = 9.08). Firstly, teachers sample was split into three equally distributed groups according to their burnout levels (low burnout, average burnout, high burnout). Secondly, students taught by teachers in the low burnout group were compared to students taught by teachers in the high burnout group. Mann Whitney test revealed that students whose teacher reported lower burnout levels showed higher scores in intrinsic motivation, identified regulation and behavioural engagement. These findings suggest the incidence of teachers mental state on the environment they develop on their lessons, and, in turn, on students motivation and behaviour. Thus it is pointed out there is a need to prevent teachers of suffering burnout and that this could be done by improving teachers’ work conditions.