Technology is supposed to reduce teacher burnout – Sometimes it can get worse

Our results were based on a survey of 779 American teachers conducted in May 2022, along with subsequent focus groups that took place in the fall of that year. Our study was peer-reviewed and published in April 2024.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools across the country were on lockdown, schools adopted and new technologies to facilitate remote learning during the crisis. These technologies include learning management systems, which are online platforms that help educators organize and track their courses.

We were perplexed to find that teachers who used a learning management system like Canvas or Schoology reported higher levels of burnout. Ideally, these tools would simplify their work. We also think that these systems will improve the ability of teachers to organize documents and assignments, especially because they will host everything digitally, and thus, they will reduce the need to print documents or bring piles of student work at home to grade.

But in the follow-up focus groups we conductedthe data told a different story. Instead of being used to replace old ways of completing assignments, learning management systems were just another thing on teachers’ plates.

A revealing example was seen in lesson planning. Before the pandemic, teachers usually submitted hard copies of lesson plans to administrators. However, once school systems introduced learning management systems, some teachers were expected not only to continue to submit paper plans, but also to upload digital versions into the learning management system using a completely different format.

Asking teachers to adopt new tools without eliminating old requirements is a recipe for burnout.

Teachers who taught early elementary grades had the most complaints about learning management systems because the systems did not align with where their students were. A Las Vegas kindergarten teacher shared, “Now I grant that my kids can’t really count to 10 when they first come in, but they have to learn six-digit student numbers” to access Canvas. “I’m sure you agree that … it leads to burnout.”

In addition to technology issues, teachers identified other factors such as administrative support, teacher autonomy, and mental health as predictors of burnout.

Why does it matter

Teacher burnout has been a persistent problem in education, and it’s getting worse pronounced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

If new technology is adopted to help teachers do their job, school leaders must ensure that it does not add extra work for them. If it adds or increases teacher workloads, then adding technology increases the likelihood that a teacher will burn out. This will likely force more teachers to leave the field.

Schools that implement new technologies must ensure that they are simplify the job of being a teacher compensating for other activities, and not just adding more work to their load.

The broader lesson from this study is that the well-being of teachers should be a primary focus when implementing changes in the school.

What’s next

We believe our research is relevant not only to learning management systems, but to other new technologies, including emerging artificial intelligence tools. We believe that future research should identify schools and districts that are effectively integrating new technologies and learn from their successes.

U Research brief is a brief summary of an interesting academic work.

David T. MarshallAssociate Professor of Educational Research, Auburn University; Tenna MooreAssociate Researcher in Accessible Teaching, Learning and Assessment Systems, University of Kansasand Timothy Pressleyassociate professor of psychology, Christopher Newport University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.