Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Special Education Director Burnout in Montana 87
significantly correlated. The strongest positive correlation, considered to be a medium effect
size, was between personal accomplishment and total number of years in education (r (37) =
.35, p = .027). Special education directors with more years of experience in education were
more likely to have higher levels of personal accomplishment.
Table 4. Inter-correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations for EE Level, DP Level, PA
Level, and Total Number of Years in Education (N = 39).
Variable 1 2 3 4 M SD
1. EE Level -- .(a) -.09 -.04 2.97 .16
2. Dp Level -- -- .(a) .(a) 3.00 .00
3. PA Level -- -- -- .35* 2.64 .71
4. Total Years in Education -- -- -- -- 2.72 .97
*p < 0.05
(a) Cannot be computed because at least one of the variables is constant
To investigate whether perceived levels of burnout differed based on the gender of a
special education director, a chi-square analysis was used. Table 5 shows the Pearson chisquare
results. The gender of a special education director was not demonstrated to be
significantly different on perceived levels of burnout for emotional exhaustion (x² = .71, df =
21 N = 39, p > .05), nor for personal achievement (x² = 1.73, df = 2, N = 39, p > .05).
Depersonalization was constant. Phi was .135 for emotional exhaustion and .211 for personal
achievement, thus the effect size was considered to be small or smaller than typical based on
work of Cohen and Manion (1994).
Table 5. Chi-square Analysis of Levels of Burnout and Gender.
Variable n Male Female x² p
EE Level .71 > .05
Moderate 1 0 1
High 38 16 22
Totals 39 16 23
Dp Level .(a) --
High 39 16 23
Totals 39 16 23
PA Level 1.73 >.05
Low 5 1 4
Moderate 4 1 3
High 30 14 16
Totals 39 16 23
(a) No statistics are computed because Dp Level was a constant
A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to analyze any
correlations between the dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and
personal accomplishment. Two sets of variables were significantly correlated (see Table 6).
The strongest positive correlation, which would be considered a much larger than typical
effect size, was between depersonalization and personal accomplishment (r (37) = .80, p <
.001). Depersonalization levels were also positively correlated to levels of emotional