Determine pre-service teachers burnout levels and anxiety of not to be appointed to teacher profession

This study aims to determine the pre-service teachers’ burnout levels, their anxiety about not to be appointed to teacher profession, their academic achievements and the relation of these variables with each other. In accordance with this purpose, this study was designed according to correlational survey model. “It has been found that pre-service teachers’ burnout levels are moderate. It has been concluded that their emotional burnout levels are particularly high. While pre-service teachers’ depersonalization/cynicism levels are close to the average value, it has been seen that their burnout levels on the subject of academic proficiency are low and their anxiety about being not to be appointed to teacher profession is high. Most pre-service teachers’ fear levels on being not to be appointed are also high. Their personal perception level is average. Among the departments, there are differences in variables like burnout levels, anxiety about not being appointed to teacher profession and academic achievement. It has been found that academic average of group is 3.05 point and the grade point average differ between the departments. It has been concluded that burnout levels of those who choose their department willingly are lower than those who choose their department unwillingly. And also, the first group’s grade point average is higher than the second group. Besides that, all pre-service teachers have anxiety about being not to be appointed. When the correlation between pre-service teachers’ burnout levels, their anxiety about not being appointed to teacher profession and their grade point average have been examined, it has been found that there is a negative oriented moderate correlation between their grade point average and their burnout total points, and there is a positive oriented weak correlation between their burnout total points and their anxiety about not to be appointed as teachers.


Introduction
Each occupation that requires specialization, involves a long-term training with significant effort. Teaching profession, too, is an occupation which requires specialization in pedagogical formation, general culture and general ability fields (METK,1973). In Turkey, those who receive certificate from Faculty of Education Pedagogical Formation Certificate Program (PFCP) can have a chance of being a teacher as well as those who graduate from Faculty of Education. However, being graduated from faculty of education of a university or receiving a certificate from PFSP are not enough to service as the government's official teacher. After graduation, teacher candidates have to take an examination called Public Personnel Selection Examination (PPSE) and have to succeed in this exam. In order to take up a position on the permanent staff or on contract staff at schools under Ministry of National Education (MONE), Public Personnel Selection Examination has been carried out since 2002 (CHE, 2007). Pre-service teachers had to succeed in educational sciences, general culture and general proficiency tests until 2013. Since 2013, Teacher profession pedagogical knowledge examination has become yet another grade which pre-service teachers have been expected to be successful. Effect rates of these exams have differed over years. In order to be appointed to teacher profession, pre-service teachers have to succeed in these four exams and in addition to these they have to take an oral exam since 2016 (Karaer, Karaer and Kartal, 2018). PPSE is a critically stressful exam for pre-service teachers (Akpınar, 2013;Arı and Yılmaz, 2015;Atav and Sönmez, 2013;Eskici, 2016;Gündoğdu, Çimen and Turan, 2008).
Teachers who already work at the schools under the MONE, can serve in three different categories. These categories are stated as permanent, contracted, and substitute teacher professions.
Contracted teacher profession has been put into effect in 2005. Since 2016, teacher appointments have been made only by contract. The permanent teacher assignment has been terminated. The teachers who are appointed as a contractor serve as a candidate teacher for one year. In order to remove their candidates, they must be successful in the exam. After working as a contracted teacher for 4 years, they can become permanent teachers (Resmi Gazate, 2016). The practices related to contracted teaching service are carried out on the basis of Article 4, B of the Civil Servant Law no. 657. In addition to this, "regulations for contracted teacher profession employment" was published in official gazette in 3 August 2016. Although teachers working on contract have more advantageous conditions than substitute teachers (salary, job guarantee etc.), it is not wrong to say that they have some disadvantages (like not having seniority and degree, remaining as pre-service teacher etc.) in comparison with teachers working permanently (Karadeniz and Demir, 2010). On the other hand, substitute teachers are paid in exchange for the lecture hours they give in accordance with the Article 89 of the Civil Servants Law No. 657. In other words, when compared with teachers working permanently and on contract, substitute teachers have many disadvantageous conditions particularly like not having a fixed income. Pre-service teachers who want to teach at the state schools and could not get high degrees in PPSE, have to work as substitute teachers.
Pre-service teachers have to complete a lot of stages to become a teacher. While they are preparing for their occupation in their education period, there should be a proper environment that make them feel strong enough to overcome all obstacles, work in solidarity and become academically qualified. On the one hand while they are equipped with the qualifications required by the profession, on the other hand they should not lose their strength and desire for this preparation effort. Otherwise they will have to face the feelings of burnout before they are appointed to teacher profession (Balkıs, Duru, Buluş and Duru, 2011).
"Burnout" is defined in updated online dictionary of Turkish Language Association as "being in the position of loss of strength, being unable to endeavor" (2019). It is observed that the students who reach the burnout point, feel exhausted and develop a sarcastic attitude towards their own work (Küçüksüleymanoğlu and Onuray Eğilmez, 2010;Salanova ect., 2010). While Maslach and Jackson (1985) explaining the burnout, they refer to the emotional burnout which underlines the individual's depletion of the sources where he/she is fed emotionally and he/she has nothing left to offer to others; to the depersonalization (cynicism) which is about the individual's developing negative emotions towards the people he/she works with; and lastly to the personal success in which individual begins to evaluate his/her personal achievements negatively. In the beginning, burnout notion was studied as occupational burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001) but later school burnout has entered into literature on the grounds that in schools there is a whole range of pressure on students where they are expected to be successful (Parker and Salmena-Aro, 2011). It is thought that higher education system which centers upon receiving bachelor's degree and taking exam, requiring constantly being prepared for a course and compulsory attendance, can cause burnout for some undergraduate (Salanova vd, 2010). In their studies, Çam, Deniz and Kurnaz (2014) discover that social support reduces the burnout level and increasing stress level increases burnout level as well and that depersonalization (cynicism) increases as burnout escalates. It is necessary to concentrate upon students' assignment load, their devotion to school and learning motivations (Özdemir, 2015). The academic performance of a student with burnout may decrease (McCarthy,Pretty and Catona, 1990;Yang,2004) and also their selfefficacy perception may weaken (Rahmati, 2015). Therefore, during the process, they need to feel eager and find all the preparations they have done meaningful, and they need to believe that they can cope with all difficulties academically. It is thought that the social support provided to the pre-service teachers in the process will help them to level down their burnout levels and not to create situations that will cause intense stress on them will have a similar effect. (Çam, Deniz and Kurnaz,2014). As mentioned before, to become a teacher, pre-service teachers need to be succeed in an examination called PPSE after they complete prerequisites. There are studies revealing that PPSE creates anxiety on pre-service teachers (Akpınar, 2013;Arı and Yılmaz,2015;Epçaçan, 2016;İnce-Aka and Yılmaz,2018;Eskici, 2016;Gündoğdu, Çimen and Turan, 2018;Şahin, 2011).
Anxiety is defined in updated online dictionary of Turkish Language Association as "worry, being concerned about a thought, sorrow". Anxiety levels of pre-service teacher may increase if they see PPSE as an obstacle that they can not break through. (Karaca,2011). It is thought that appointment statistics are also lead to the notion of non-appointment of pre-service teachers. In 2016, the number of applications to PPSE made by pre-service teachers was 333.532 and 18.506 of these candidates became successful and had the chance of appointment and 315.026 could not be appointed to teacher profession (Kiraz and Kurul, 2018). Each year, the number of candidates waiting to be appointed to teacher profession is increasing considerably. Therefore, pre-service teachers are anxious about their future and they consider the passing the PPSE as a matter of life and death. In that case, increasing anxiety about exam can lead the decrease of success and make it difficult to cope with negative emotions and this state of uncertainty can complicate the life of pre-service teachers (Arı ve Yılmaz, 2015;Akpınar, 2013).
This study attempts to determine the burnout levels and anxiety of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession and whether there is a relationship between grade point averages, burnout levels and appointment anxiety.

Method
The aim of this study is to determine (to describe) the grade point average of pre-service teachers, their burnout and anxiety levels and to establish the relationship between these variables.
This study can be considered as a descriptive study since it has been done to reveal a situation that already exists. In this study, it is aspired to determine the relationship between more than two variables (grade point average, burnout level and anxiety about being not to be appointed to teacher profession). For this reason, it is designed for research in accordance with correlational design (Karasar, 1995: 81-82;Fraenkel and Wallen, 1993:331). Research questions are as follows:

1)
What are the burnout levels of pre-service teachers?
a. Do the burnout levels of pre-service teachers differ to variable of department?
b. Do the burnout levels of pre-service teachers differ from variable of choosing the department willingly?
c. Do pre-service teachers' levels of burnout differ according to variable of being interested in the department?
2) What are the anxiety levels of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession? a. Does the anxiety of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession differ according to variable of department?
b. Does the anxiety of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession differ according to variable of choosing the department willingly?
c. Does the anxiety of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession differ according to variable of being interested in the department?
3) What are the academic achievements of pre-service teachers?

Data Collection Tools
Data in this research was collected with 2 different data collection tools.

1)
The anxiety of pre-service teachers not to be appointed to teacher profession scale: developed by Eskici (2016), this scale consists of 2 sub-dimension and 13 items. There are 10 items in sub-dimension called as "fear not to be appointed to teacher profession" and there are 3 items in sub-

Analysis of Data
Before conducting further tests, normality tests of the data were performed. As seen in Table 2, the skewness and kurtosis values of data are in the desired value range for parametric statistics. (Skewness-Kurtosis values are between +1,5 and -1,5) (Tabachnick and Fidell,1996).

Findings and Review
This section includes statistical findings and reviews on research questions.

1.
The burnout levels of the pre-service teachers were presented in Table 3.  Table 4. The results of the Anova test given in Table 4 indicated that the burnout levels of pre-service teachers (F (6-258) = 9,198, P <0.05) there are significant differences among the groups. According to the results of the Tukey test, performed to find the interdepartmental differences, it has been determined in which sections the differentiations were. It has been found out that in the department of Psychological Counseling and Guidance (1) the burnout levels of pre-service teachers who study at X = 45,28, are lower than the pre-service teachers who study at Social Science Teachings (2)  The T-test results for the research question are presented in Table 5. In Table 5, t-test results are presented according to pre-service teachers' willingly choosing the department variable. It has been found that pre-service teachers who choose their department unwillingly (X= 60,40) have significantly higher burnout levels than pre-service teachers who choose their department willingly (X=49,53), (t(263) = -4,59, p<0,05).
1c) The T-test results for the research question are presented in Table 6. In Table 6, t-test results are presented according to pre-service teachers' loving their department. It has been understood that pre-service teachers who do not love the department they study, have higher burnout levels than the ones who love their department (t(263) = -7,24, p<0,05).
2. Descriptive statistics results for research question are presented in Table 7. According to descriptive statistics presented in Table 7, it has been found that in regard to "anxiety of pre-service teachers' not to be appointed to teacher profession scale" total points, their mean is X= 3.56, in regard to "fear of not to be appointed to teacher profession", their mean is X=3.70, and in regard to "personal perception" their average is X=2.89.
2 a) ANOVA test results for research result is presented in Table 8. Technology Department (7) X=41,84 is lower than the pre-service teachers who study at Social Sciences Teaching Department (2) X= 53,29 and Turkish Language Department (5)X= 54,40.
2 b) T-test results in regard to research question are presented in Table 9. In Table 9, T-test results are given in regard to willingly choosing the department variable. It has been found out that there isn't a significant difference between two groups (t(263) = -,538, p>0,05).
2c) T-test results in regard to research question are presented in Table 9. In Table 10, T-test results are given in regard to loving the department variable. It was found that there isn't a significant difference between two groups (t (263) = -,22, p>0,05).
3. Descriptive statistics for research question are presented in Table 11.   In Table 13, t-test results in regard to willingly choosing the department variable of grade point average of pre-service teachers are presented. It has been found that between two groups there is a significant distinctness in favor of those who choose their department willingly (t(263) = 3,198, p<0,05).   Table 15 shows that there is a negative oriented moderate relationship between the grade point average of pre-service teachers and their burnout total points (Büyüköztürk, 2009, 32). On the other hand there is a positive oriented weak relationship between pre-service teachers' burnout total points and their anxiety about being not to be appointed to teacher profession (Büyüköztürk, 2009: 32).

Conclusion and Discussion
This study aims to determine the pre-service teachers' burnout levels, their anxiety about not to be appointed to teacher profession, their academic achievements and the relation of this variables with each other. At the end of the study, it has been found out that pre-service teachers have moderate burnout, that their burnout levels differ according to department variable, and that pre-service teachers who choose their undergraduate program willingly and who love their undergraduate program have less burnout than others, that all pre-service teachers feel highly anxious about not to be appointed to teacher profession and that their anxiety show differences according to their programs. The grade point averages of pre-service teachers also differentiate according to the variables like choosing the department willingly and loving their department. It has been found out that there is a negative oriented moderate relationship between the grade point average of pre-service teachers and their burnout total points and there is a positive oriented weak relationship between pre-service teachers' burnout total points and their anxiety about being not to be appointed to teacher profession.
Another result of this study is that the burnout level of pre-service teachers is moderate. When determined in terms of sub-dimensions, it has been clearly seen that regarding their emotional burnout and academic efficiency dimensions, their burnout level is above the medium and regarding their academic achievement dimension, their burnout level is below the medium. In other words, preservice teachers feel slightly burnout in the sense of academic efficiency. However, they begin to feel emotionally burnout and indifferent above the medium. There are studies in literature that reach similar results (Çankaya et al., 2012;Köse, Diken and Gül,2017;Balkıs et al., 2011). Study shows that there are significant differences in emotional burnout, depersonalization (cynicism) and academic efficiency sub-dimensions with regards to the department variable of pre-service teachers. One can come across studies in literature that demonstrate the differences between the burnout levels of students who study in different departments (Gündüz, Çapri and Gökçakan, 2012;Ören and Türkoğlu, 2006). It is thought that there are many reasons for this situation such as choosing the department willingly, various instructors who give lecture in undergraduate lessons, change of the appointment vacancies according to departments, different course loads. Akpınar (2003), Küçüksüleymanoğlu and Onuray Eğilmez (2013), states that pre-service teachers feel stressful due to similar reasons. It has been found out that pre-service teachers who choose their department unwillingly and who do not love their department feel burnout more than the ones who choose their department willingly and who love their department. This finding corresponds to the findings of Köse, Diken and Gül (2017).
In this study it has been found that pre-service teachers feel highly anxious about being not to be appointed to teacher profession (above the average), but personally they do not perceive themselves much negatively ( X=2.89). In many studies it has been stated that pre-service teachers feel seriously anxious / have negative emotions about the conditions of being appointed to teacher profession-being not to be appointed to teacher profession (Akpınar,2013;Arı and Yılmaz,2015;Epçaçan,2016;İnce-Aka and Yılmaz,2018;Eskici,2016;Gündoğdu, Çimen and Turan,2018;Şahin, 2011). As of November, unemployment rate in Turkey is revealed as %12.3 by Turkish Statistical Institute (2018) and this data justifies the concerns of pre-service teachers.
It has been seen that here is a significant difference in pre-service teachers' anxiety about not being appointed to teacher profession according to department variable and sub-dimensions of personal perception. There might be many reasons for his situation. The fact that the pre-service It is seen that there is no significant difference in the anxiety levels of pre-service teachers in regard to variables like choosing the department willingly and loving the department. Given the ages of these pre-service teachers who have entered the system and almost completed the process (period of marriageable age, financial income independent from parents) one of the reasons for this situation can be attributed to the intense emotions they feel such as anxiety for future and desire to earn money.
The grade point average of pre-service teachers at 3.05 level supports the idea that they do not have negative thoughts about their personal perceptions and their academic efficiency. Academic grade point averages of pre-service teachers show differences in regard to department variable. Also, the grade point average of pre-service teachers who choose their departments willingly and love their departments are higher than the ones who choose their departments unwillingly and do not love their departments. It has been found out that as academic grade point averages are higher, burnout scores decrease, so there is a negative mediocre correlation between two variables. In addition to this, as the levels of burnout increased, the anxiety level increases, so it can be said that there is a positive oriented weak correlation between two variables. There are attention-grabbing studies in literature that support these findings. For instance, Köse, Diken and Gül (2017) state that there is an advanced correlation between burnout and PPSE. However, in the same study they find that no correlation exists between grade point average and burnout. Even though findings of this study and the obtained result contradict with each other, there are studies that support the study in literature (Küçüksüleymanoğlu and Onuray Eğilmez, 2013;Balkıs et al. 2011). Beside this, some studies point out that the anxiety for exam affect the success negatively (Karataş and Güleş,2013).
Based on all these results, it can be said that pre-service teachers should be able to make their choice of profession willingly. It is thought that to make the teaching profession more prestigious, to increase the salaries of teachers, to make teachers feel better by increasing their autonomy might serve for this purpose. In order to strengthen the pre-service teachers' faith about appointment, it is necessary to plan the employment of teachers efficiently and to determine the number of students admitted to the Faculties of Education in line with the requirements carefully. It is known that the time allocated to assignments on school burnout is also an effective fact (Özdemir,2015). Instead, necessary social support should be provided to pre-service teachers, and they should be guided to how to deal with the stress they experience. Also, persons who have positive emotions towards the teaching profession should be encouraged to choose faculties of education and help them strengthen their initially positive feelings until their graduation by accommodating qualified education. As a result, this research will provide an insight into future researches by presenting an overall picture of current preservice teachers' burnout levels and anxiety of not to be appointed to teacher profession. Based on these findings, longitudinal studies with the same variables can make a significant contribution to the field.