Early childhood educator's burnout: A systematic review of the determinants and effectiveness of interventions

Joanne Ng
Australian Education Research Organisation, Australia
Marg Rogers
University of New England, Australia
Courtney McNamara
Newcastle University, United Kingdom

Early childhood educators have a high risk of burnout, leading to a high turnover rate and, potentially, poor educational outcomes for young children. In this systematic review, we investigate the causes of burnout, and the effectiveness of interventions that seek to reduce burnout among educators. We searched Web of Science and ProQuest for relevant studies. Articles were included if they were peer-reviewed, written in English, and examined either causes of burnout or the effectiveness of interventions aimed to reduce burnout among early childhood educators. Of the 39 studies included in the final sample, 37 examined causes of burnout and two examined interventions. Burnout risk was more significant among teachers with low social capital, poor health status and lower wages. At a service-related level, weak or incoherent organisational structure, weak professional relationships, low professional status, and a lack of career progression and professional training opportunities were all linked to a higher risk of early educator burnout. Coaching, reflection and counselling-based interventions were found to lower the risk of burnout. These findings build a research-based foundation for interventions to address individual and service related causes of burnout among early childhood educators.
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Authors: Joanne Ng (corresponding author) is a Masters of Research student at Macquarie University, NSW, Australia. She currently works as a Research Project Coordinator at the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), NSW Australia. Her research interests include educator well-being, leadership, mentoring and multilingualism and multiculturalism. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6268-006X Email: joanne.ng@edresearch.edu.au Dr Marg Rogers is a Senior Lecturer in early childhood education in the School of Education, University of New England, NSW, Australia. Her research interests are in families, military families, professionalism and mental health and wellbeing. Marg is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Manna Institute which is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education through the Regional Research Collaboration Program. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8407-7256 Email: marg.rogers@une.edu.au Dr Courtney McNamara is a Lecturer in Public Health within the Population Health Sciences Institute at Newcastle University, UK. Courtney's primary research interests reside at the intersection of labour markets, social policy, and health. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8754-0509 Email: courtney.mcnamara@newcastle.ac.uk Please cite as: Ng, J., Rogers, M. & McNamara, C. (2023). Early childhood educator's burnout: A systematic review of the determinants and effectiveness of interventions. Issues in Educational Research, 33(1), 173-206. http://www.iier.org.au/iier33/ng.pdf