Korean Educational Development Institute(KEDI)

As Macau is one of the cities with high students’ grade retention rate, the local teachers, therefore, have a considerably heavy workload to prepare the students to achieve the requirements of a particular academic setting. This study examined 173 full-time in-service secondary school teachers at Macau via questionnaire. The result shows in-service teachers feel emotional exhaustion in teaching students. However, teachers perceive their competence in teaching and would not depersonalize the students as an object. Moreover, significant variations are found among the three factors of burnout for teachers. That is, teachers experience higher emotional exhaustion than reduced personal accomplishment and depersonalisation. By reviewing previous studies about teachers’ burnout as compared to the present findings, an upward trend of teachers’ emotional exhaustion is suggested. The increase of emotional exhausting could be related to the launch of new policies in terms of enhancing the professionalism of teachers. Needs for achievement, which is negatively correlated to burnout, is found to be a powerful predictor. Organisational socialisation in terms of training, understanding, co-worker support, and future prospects are discovered to have negative correlations to burnout. Particularly, understanding and future prospect are found to be the negative predictors of reduced personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion, respectively. The results and implications are interpreted for teachers’ professional development and school administration.