Socio affective variables and the efficiency in teaching

Abstract

It is evident that there is a high rate of discomfort in the teaching profession. Different types of variables (individual, social and organizational) influence teachers, causing them to face many situations with high uncertainty. The consequences are chronic work stress, burnout syndrome, and burnout and mobbing. Maslach and Jackson (1981) establish criteria for the evaluation of this syndrome. In 1996 the MBI-GS Scale was built by Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach and Jackson to measure burnout in all types of work regardless of the tasks performed in it. It was adapted to the Spanish version by Salanova, Schaufeli, Llorens, Grau and Peiró, in the year 2000. The MBI-GS consists of three dimensions: exhaustion, cynicism and professional efficiency. On the other hand, in the last years many studies are using the theoretical framework of the Mental Molds, as an explanatory factor of the human behavior in different areas. This theory allows to evaluate in an operative way the different ways of understanding the world and the life, and with high predictive validity, being able to predict the adaptation or the subjective well-being, the success or the failure of the general schooling, the mathematics or the chess In greater proportion than CI or other indicator (Hernández, 2005, Hernández-Guanir and Rodríguez-Mateo, 2006). This study aims to explore those socio-affective variables that may be related to the factors that define the wearer’s syndrome. It starts with the idea that in order to be an effective teacher it is necessary that the individual has a series of mental molds that support him in his daily professional work. To this end, this study was carried out in a secondary school with a sample of 40 teachers who have been evaluated with the help of two instruments: the MBI-GS and the Test of Cognitive-Emotional Strategies MOLDS (Hernández-Guanir, 2010). The results support the initial hypotheses that mark a positive correlation between the socio-affective variables of teachers and their effectiveness as teachers. Several linear regressions have also been performed, the results of which show that it is possible to obtain exploratory predictive models of two dimensions of the MBI-GS (cynicism and efficacy) through the most significant models that the model gives, confirming the predictive validity of the theory of Mental Molds.