Relationships Between Novice Teachers’ Social Resources and Workload Manageability

Abstract

Novice special education teachers (SETs) consistently report feeling overwhelmed by their workloads, and their perceptions of their workloads predict outcomes of concern, such as burnout and plans to quit teaching. Yet, to date, research provides few insights into feasible strategies school leaders could use to help novices better manage workloads. Therefore, we examined how school social resources contribute to novice SETs’ and general education teachers’ (GETs) perceptions of workload manageability. We found that novice SETs’ perceptions of workload manageability were predicted by instructional interactions with colleagues and schools’ cultures of collective responsibility for students with disabilities, but not by instructional interactions with mentors. The pattern of relationships differed for GETs, suggesting different populations of novices may benefit from different supports.