Doctoral Dissertations

Karol Girdler

Date of Award

6-1984

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Philosophy

Major Professor

John W. Lounsbury

Committee Members

William H. Calhoun, Eric Sundstrom, David Harrison

Abstract

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), a measure of job burnout, was analyzed to examine the factor structure and to discriminate it from other work-related measures. The instrument consists of eight scales each measured in frequency and intensity. The administrations of 12 agencies passed out the survey instrument to a total of 211 human service workers in a one-time only measurement. The participants represented a wide variety of human service fields and levels of job responsibility. Twenty-eight percent of the workers were male and 72% female. Participation was voluntary, and surveys were returned by mail. The survey included measures of job satisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, stress symptoms, job involvement, life satisfaction, intention to turnover, and demographic variables. Separate factor structures were derived for each of the eight MBI scales, which closely approximated the factor structure in the original report on the development of the scale (Maslach S Jackson, 1981). The two MBI optional scales were not considered for further analysis. The six remaining scales had fairly high reliability (alpha > .73) as calculated by Cronbach's coefficient alpha. The MBI scales were moderately correlated with intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction, but emerged as discrete factors in a factor analysis. Job satisfaction scores were not significant in multiple regression analyses to predict MBI composite scores. The MBI was distinct from role conflict and ambiguity in the factor analysis, but role items were significant in predicting burnout, especially intensity. The stress symptom checklist and burnout loaded into the same factor, and stress accounted for 34% of the variance in the frequency of feelings of burnout. This finding may be inflated by the similarity of one item between the scales. Job involvement measures showed little relationship to burnout; the subscale of "importance to performance" being the only one to enter the equation to predict burn out scores. The utility of the MBI was compared to a composite of the other scales. The MBI was a significantly better predictor of the stress symptoms than the other scales. The MBI was not as good a predictor of intention to turnover as were the other scales. Results were discussed in terms of a profile of the burned out worker and the integration of the MBI into the job stress research as a criterion variable in a process model.

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