College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Term of Award

Spring 2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

College of Education

Committee Chair

Robert Lake

Committee Member 1

Ming Fang He

Committee Member 2

Michelle Reidel

Committee Member 3

Sonia Janis

Abstract

Teacher efficacy and retention are affected by compassion fatigue and teacher burnout. Teacher burnout results from ongoing, intense stress caused by administrators, students, families, and school districts. Theoretically, my dissertation builds upon a wide array of literature such as the importance of teacher passion (Soltis, 1973; Lake, 2016; Palmer, 2017), the loss of teacher passion (LeBar, 1984; Sarros, 1988; Santoro, 2018), teacher burnout (Fimian & Blanton, 1987; Friesen & Sarros, 1989; Byrne, 1994; Lake, 2021), compassion fatigue (Joinson, 1992; Cordes & Dougherty, 1993; Figley, 1995; Newman et al., 2018; Fute et al., 2022), compassion resilience (Stoewen, 2021; Hu, 2023), and compassion satisfaction (Abraham-Cook, 2012; Christian-Brandt et al., 2020). As a public school teacher with ten years of firsthand experience dealing with burnout, I explore how teacher burnout influences attrition rates (Swanson, 2010), teacher self-efficacy (Zee & Koomen, 2016), and mental health (Tang et al., 2001; Stoewen, 2019a; Chen et al., 2022). I combine personal reflections on classroom experiences with research on the effects of compassion fatigue, burnout, and resilience (Freiudenberger, 1973; Goddard et al., 2006). Through a speculative memoir (Gere, 2001; Brown, 2010), I dive into my experience to illustrate a journey through three phases: compassion fatigue, teacher burnout, and compassion resilience.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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