on the relationship between self-efficacy and burnout among iranian esp vs. efl university instructors

The present study investigated english for specific purposes (esp) versus english as a foreign language (efl) university teachers’ feeling of burnout and its relationship with self-efficacy types. participants in this study were 50 esp and 50 efl university instructors teaching at different universities in west azarbaijan province. the researchers administered maslach burnout inventory-educator survey (mbi-es) (maslach, jackson & schwab, 1996), and teacher efficacy scale (tes) (gibson & dembo, 1984), to measure the teachers burnout levels and self-efficacy types, respectively. the design of the present study was correlational. since the data were normally distributed, the pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and independent samples t-test were conducted to assess the relationship and the difference between variables of the two groups. the results of independent samples t-test revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between esp and efl university teachers burnout; however, no significant difference was found in their self-efficacy beliefs. findings also demonstrated that iranian esp university teachers suffer from low levels of burnout while the burnout level for efl teachers is moderate. moreover, the results of pearson correlation indicated that whereas the general teacher efficacy had an insignificant relationship with the burnout dimensions, the personal teacher efficacy had a significant relationship with the emotional exhaustion. finally, the results demonstrated a significant negative correlation between esp and efl teachers’ total self- efficacy beliefs and total burnout. the findings of the present study throw some light on broadening our concepts of self-efficacy and burnout which might affect teachers’ performance in the classroom.