Professional and personal characteristics of hospital school teachers

Context and relevance. Teaching in a hospital school involves the need to simultaneously address educational tasks, support children in difficult life situations, and maintain one’s own professional and emotional stability. Despite growing research interest in hospital education, the psychological characteristics of the professional and personal domain of hospital school teachers remain insufficiently studied. Objective. To assess the characteristics of the professional and personal domain of hospital school teachers and to identify relationships among its components. Hypothesis. It was assumed that there are relationships between indicators of professional demand, work meaningfulness, emotional intelligence, and professional burnout in hospital school teachers, as well as differences in several indicators between teacher groups. Methods and materials. The study involved 162 teachers from educational institutions and structural units providing education for children requiring long-term medical treatment in various regions of Russia (M = 48,39, SD = 13,3, 95% women). The following measures were used: the Professional Demand of the Personality scale (PDPS), the Work Meaningfulness Scale, the Self-Assessment of Pedagogical Thinking, the Style of Pedagogical Communication Inventory (SPCI), the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue SF), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). Cluster analysis, Spearman correlation and Mann-Whitney tests were applied. Results. Two clusters of teachers were identified that differ in the level of professional and personal resources. The first cluster is characterized by higher emotional intelligence, professional demand, work meaningfulness, and self-assessed competence, along with lower burnout, whereas the second cluster shows higher emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, work meaninglessness, and rejection of norms. Professional demand is positively associated with work meaningfulness, emotional intelligence, and self-assessed competence, and negatively associated with work meaninglessness and burnout components. Teachers with more than three years of experience demonstrated higher self-control. Conclusions. The results may be used in developing burnout prevention programs and continuing professional development programs for hospital school teachers.

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