Teachers’ Perceptions of the Organizational Factors Affecting Teacher Burnout in Ontario’s Public Schools
Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
How they used Delve
A PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education used Delve to code 20 semi-structured interviews with Ontario public school teachers, using its code organisation and key-term frequency views to run a six-phase thematic analysis of the organizational drivers of teacher burnout.
“I had initially created a table to organize participant responses as a means of visualizing the emerging themes of the data (Saldaña, 2021). However, I moved to using the Qualitative Data Analysis Software, called Delve, to help me analyze the data more efficiently by allowing me to input the transcripts of the interviews and code the responses more easily. [...] Delve proved advantageous not only for creating and organizing codes but also for identifying key terms and assessing their frequency and pervasiveness across the dataset”
- Field
- Educational leadership and teacher well-being; organizational drivers of teacher burnout in Ontario's publicly funded schools
- Data
- Semi-structured one-on-one Zoom interviews with 20 Ontario public school teachers (from 30+ who expressed interest), plus written member-checking feedback from participants (11 responded in the second round) and an analysis of Ontario Ministry of Education documents addressing teacher burnout
- Approach
- Braun and Clarke six-phase thematic analysis (familiarization, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming, producing the report), with findings then mapped onto an adaptation of the Job Demands-Resources model; two rounds of member checking - transcript review and a second round on preliminary findings - fed back into the analysis
- Data types
- Interviews, Documents
Abstract
Extensive research emphasizes the critical role of teacher quality in education and highlights the far-reaching impact of teacher burnout on educators, students, and entire education systems. Despite the global prevalence and significant consequences of burnout, teacher well-being remains largely overlooked in policy discussions. In Ontario, where mental health concerns are the leading cause of disability claims among teachers, this issue demands urgent attention. This study explores teachers’ perceptions of organizational factors contributing to burnout in Ontario’s publicly funded schools, emphasizing the systemic nature of these challenges. Through qualitative interviews with teachers, it identifies key organizational stressors such as misaligned leadership priorities, increased workloads, and insufficient resources, which are associated with emotional exhaustion, reduced professional efficacy, and attrition. By centering on the voices of teachers, this research provides actionable insights and strategies for mitigating burnout through systemic changes.Keywords Teacher, Teacher burnout, Organizational factors, Impact, Well-being, Ontario, Educators, Public schools, Stress, Leadership, Conditions, Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model
Citation
Kelsey Ann Lewis (2025). Teachers’ Perceptions of the Organizational Factors Affecting Teacher Burnout in Ontario’s Public Schools. TSpace (University of Toronto).