Technology Is Supposed to Decrease Teacher Burnout—It Can Sometimes Make It Worse

Our findings were based on a survey of 779 US teachers conducted in May 2022, with subsequent focus groups taking 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 under lockdown orders, schools were adopted New technology To facilitate distance learning in times of crisis. These technologies include learning management systems, which are online platforms that help educators organize and keep track of their coursework.

We were surprised to find that teachers using learning management methods such as Canvas or Schoology reported higher levels of burnout. Ideally, these tools should have simplified their tasks. We also thought that these systems would improve teachers’ ability to organize documents and assignments, mainly because they would keep everything digitally and thus, reduce the need to print documents or bring piles of student work to grades.

but in Follow-up focus groups we conductedThe data told a different story. Rather than replacing old ways of completing tasks, learning management systems were just another thing on teachers’ plates.

A telling example is seen in the lesson plan. Before the pandemic, teachers usually submitted hard copies of lesson plans to administrators. However, once the school system implemented the learning management system, some teachers were expected to not only continue to submit paper plans but to upload digital versions to the learning management system using a completely different format.

Asking teachers to adopt new tools without removing 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. “Now my kids can’t really count to 10 when they first come, but they have to learn a six-digit student number to access the canvas,” shared a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas. “I certainly agree that … it leads to burnout.”

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

Why is it important?

Teacher harassment has been a persistent problem in education, and it has become especially so Pronounced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

If new technology is adopted to help teachers do their jobs, school leaders need to make sure it doesn’t add extra work for them. If it increases or increases teacher workloads, adding technology increases the likelihood that a teacher will become burned out. This likely forces more teachers to leave the field.

Schools that implement new technologies should make sure they are Facilitating the work of being a teacher Other tasks offset, and don’t simply add more work to their load.

The broad lesson from this study is that teacher well-being should be a primary focus when implementing schoolwide changes.

what next

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

D Research brief A brief take on interesting academic work.

David T. MarshalAssociate Professor of Educational Research, Auburn University; Tena MooreAssociate Researcher on Accessible Teaching, Learning and Assessment Systems, University of KansasAnd Timothy PresslyAssociate Professor of Psychology, Christopher Newport University

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