Direct and Indirect Factors Affecting Teachers’ Burnout in the New Normal

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has brought about tiring tasks and unending demands in the Philippine educational system. With the abrupt shift of the teaching-learning process, teachers are pressured and stressed, which leads them to be burned out. The descriptive correlational research design determines the direct and indirect effects of perceived control to burnout through teachers’ personality traits of the 240 early childhood teachers. Data are analyzed using the Pearson r formula, Bivariate parametric correlation, and the Structural Equation Model (SEM). The study reveals that despite the challenges experienced in this time of pandemic, teachers have control over themselves and with the people around them. The teachers’ level of control does not influence their burnout; instead, their burnout is dependent on their emotional stability. Thus, burnout is a personal choice which is triggered by one’s emotion. A person with high perceived control may still be burned out if he does not have control over his emotions.