Features of Personal Distress of Teachers of Special and Inclusive Education

The article presents the results of a study of personal distress and its relationship with indicators of psychological well-being and professional burnout among teachers with different experience of working with students with learning disabilities. The study involved 293 respondents (N=293) from 20 to 65 years old, (average age 34.6±13.2; SE=0.774), with work experience from 6 months to 45 years (average — 11.16; SD=11.13; SE=0.649) of who 94.3% were women. In the empirical sample, three groups of teachers were represented in accordance with the experience of working with students with learning disabilities: 111 people working in a special school (37.8%); teachers working in an inclusive school — 103 people (35.15%); and teachers who have no experience working with students with learning disabilities — 79 people (26.96%). The "Scale of psychological well-being" by K. Riff in the adaptation of P.P. Fesenko, T.D. Shevelenkova, the questionnaire of professional burnout by K. Maslach, S. Jackson (MBI), the multifactorial empathy questionnaire by M. Davis (IRI) methods were used. The results obtained make it possible to say that personal distress is significantly higher among teachers working in inclusive education. Empathic care and decentration are significantly higher in groups of teachers of special and inclusive education compared to teachers without work experience in inclusion. At the same time, there were no differences between groups of teachers in terms of psychological well-being. Emotional exhaustion, empathic care, self-acceptance and autonomy turned out to be significant predictors of the personal distress of teachers with different experience of working with students with learning disabilities.

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