What Nursing Faculty Say Is Actually Driving Burnout
unlocking active learning for nurse educators
Episode #19
💬 What if ...?
What is actually driving faculty burnout in nursing education?
🔑 Key Insight
Watson (2024), at the University of Southern Mississippi, interviewed 15 nursing faculty from across the Southeastern US who had already scored high enough on a standard burnout inventory to be flagged as burned out. They were asked, in their own words, what was actually behind their feelings.
Two kinds of incivility were strong indicators of burnout: faculty-to-faculty and student-to-faculty. One participant described faculty incivility plainly as "someone not pulling their workload." Others cited student interactions as their main source of incivility, such as "students questioning and arguing about test questions rudely" or "rude and unprofessional emails from students."
In addition to incivility, unrealistic workloads and a lack of institutional support rounded out the biggest contributors.
🌟 Why it Matters
- Incivility including faculty-to-faculty and student-to-faculty is a major source of burnout and a reminder that some of what wears an educator down can come easily from the classroom.
- A lighter workload, more mental health support, and greater financial stability were the three things this group named most often as what would genuinely help.
🔗 Link and Reference
Watson, M. (2024). Perceptions of Burnout Among Nursing Faculty: A Qualitative Study. In M. Shelley, O. Akman, & S. Turgut (Eds.), Proceedings of IHSES 2024 — International Conference on Humanities, Social and Education Sciences (pp. 81–86). ISTES.
ERIC: ED673065 | Open access