Student Teachers ’ Proactive Strategies and Experienced Learning Environment for Reducing Study-Related Burnout

The study aims to gain a better understanding of the interrelation and the development of student teachers’ proactive coping strategies, i.e., self-regulative and co-regulative strategies, perceived learning environment and study-related burnout. Longitudinal data were utilized with three annual measurements during bachelor studies. Altogether, 270 primary school student teachers completed the survey. The data was analyzed by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results showed that the self-regulative strategy adopted by student teachers promoted the use of co-regulative strategy. Co-regulative strategy use in turn contributed to the perceived fit between the student teacher and the learning environment, and further, reduced study-related burnout. Moreover, student teachers’ ability to utilize proactive self-regulative strategies to buffer potential stressors in advance, i.e., an ability to manage one’s own study pace in the direction of well-being, was effective in reducing the risk of developing burnout. Results also showed that both the key determinants for reducing study-related burnout, i.e., proactive strategies and experienced learning environment, and the study-related burnout symptoms themselves were relatively stable.


Introduction
The majority of beginning teachers are enthusiastic and perceive their work engaging (Goddard & Goddard, 2006; see also Soini, Pyhältö, & Pietarinen, 2010).At the same time beginning teachers are particularly vulnerable for developing burnout symptoms (i.e., exhaustion, cynicism and inadequacy) due to significant amount of work stress they face (Brewer & Shapard, 2004;Gavish & Friedman, 2010;Goddard & Goddard, 2006).The risk of developing burnout is suggested to be cumulative: prior burnout experiences also predict such experiences in the future (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001).Indicators of the increased risk of developing burnout can emerge already during teacher studies.Some student teachers have been found to suffer burnout symptoms, particularly exhaustion (Chan, 2003;Fives, Hamman, & Olivarez, 2007).Furthermore, students who experience study burnout also face a greater risk of developing the symptoms later on in their working life (Hultell, Melin, & Gustavsson, 2013;Salmela-Aro, Tolvanen, & Nurmi, 2011).This implies that first preventive measures for reducing risk of teacher burnout should be taken during teacher education.
with stressful events faced in their studies (Paquette & Rieg, 2016;Gustems-Carnicer & Calderón, 2013).Yet, our understanding of the functional strategies to prevent burnout among beginning student teachers is still scarce.We know even less about the sufficient means to promote an optimal teacher education learning environment that may contribute further to reducing the risk of developing burnout.Our study aims to contribute to the gap in the literature by exploring how a proactive strategy use in terms of self-regulative and co-regulative strategies that buffer potential stressors in advance (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997) contributes to the perceived learning environment and experienced study-related burnout risk among early career pre-service teachers during the first three years of their teacher studies.
There is partly contradictory evidence on the stability of teacher burnout.While the majority of variable-based longitudinal studies show at least moderate levels of consistency in experienced burnout (Salmela-Aro, Savolainen, & Holopainen, 2009; see also Maslach & Leiter, 2008;Taris, Le Blanc, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2005) during their first years of teaching (Gavish & Friedman, 2010), results of the few longitudinal studies with a person-centered approach indicate that increases and decreases in beginning teacher's burnout levels occur (Hultell et al., 2013).A reason for this is maybe that the strategies learned during teacher studies, and applied later on in the first years of teaching when facing stressful transactions, can be more or less effective both in reducing risk of burnout as well as building working environment fit.
Student teachers, do not, however, simply react to a specific stressor; they can also utilize proactive strategies to buffer potential stressors in advance by building and using the resources at hand (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997;Väisänen et al., submitted).Proactive strategies encompass the efforts to prevent or adjust potentially stressful events in advance (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997), and hence, they are active and future-oriented (ibid., 1997;Greenglass, 2005;Straud, McNaughton-Cassill, & Fuhrman, 2015).Neutralizing the stressor before it becomes harmful is shown to be effective (e.g., Fortes-Ferreira, Peiró, Gonzáles-Morales, & Martín, 2006;Pietarinen et al., 2013a).Proactive strategy use has, for instance, been shown to be associated with a reduced risk of student teacher burnout, particularly in terms of experienced exhaustion and inadequacy (Väisänen et al., submitted).Moreover, lower levels of stress at the beginning of university studies and better adjustment to the learning environment also among first year university students displaying proactive strategies have been detected (Gan, Hu, & Zhang, 2010).Those strategies can display differently depending on the situation and task at hand (Sohl & Moyer, 2009), i.e., different concerns may adduce different type of proactive strategy use (De Ridder & Kerssens, 2003).A student teacher may utilize either self-regulative or co-regulative strategies or both to proactively deal with the stressor (Pietarinen et al., 2013a;Väisänen et al., submitted).
Proactive self-regulation strategies entail behavioral, cognitive and emotional regulation such as allocating enough time for studying (Randi, Corno, & Johnson, 2011), being organized (Straud et al., 2015), and taking care of good study-leisure balance (Murray-Harvey et al., 2000) when expecting to face potentially stressful transactions (Chang, 2009; see also Boekaerts, Pintrich, & Zeidner, 2000;Zimmerman, 2002).Student teachers have been shown to use proactive self-regulation successfully to reduce the risk of burnout (Renk & Smith, 2007;Väisänen et al., submitted).They have been shown, for example, to apply various workload and time management strategies (e.g., Paquette & Rieg, 2016;Randi et al., 2011), to organize and plan academic tasks in advance (e.g., Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997;Paquette & Rieg, 2016), and to utilize positive thinking, set realistic expectations and prepare for expected challenges (Murray-Harvey et al., 2000), i.e., they have displayed proactive self-regulative strategies that have been associated with a reduced risk of developing burnout.
However, social interactions play a central role in the teaching profession and in becoming a teacher.Accordingly, mere use of proactive self-regulation is not sufficient to buffer teacher burnout (Pietarinen et al., 2013a).In order to be effective, it needs to be complemented with the use of proactive co-regulation strategies (ibid., 2013a;Pyhältö et al., submitted).Proactive co-regulation strategies include building and modifying social resources intentionally such as asking for, providing and receiving help from peers (Smith & Lev-Ari, 2005;Väisänen et al., 2017) to deal with the potential stressor.Furthermore, sharing experiences (Murray-Harvey et al., 2000) and discussing study-related concerns (Rieg et al., 2007;Väisänen et al., 2017), receiving social support, particularly emotional and informational support such as receiving constructive feedback, advice, encouragement and care from peers and teacher educators (Hobson, 2002;Le Cornu, 2009;Paquette & Rieg, 2016;Rieg et al., 2007;Smith & Lev-Ari, 2005;Väisänen et al., 2017) are related to reduced levels of stress and lesser risk for developing burnout.
Prior research on proactive strategies implies that utilizing both self-and co-regulative strategies in reducing burnout is useful both among in-and pre-service teachers (Pietarinen et al., 2013a;Pyhältö et al., submitted;Väisänen et al., submitted).Yet, our understanding of the interrelation and reciprocal development of the proactive self-and co-regulation strategies is scarce.It can be assumed that, to a certain extent, the co-regulation can enhance the development of proactive self-regulation, for instance, by enabling guidance on how to manage the academic workload or through providing a source of information (Alarcon, Edwards, & Menke, 2011;Väisänen et al., 2017).On the other hand, the proactive co-regulation provides an ability to apply self-regulative strategies, because they enable utilization of the potential sources of social support available and giving support to others (e.g., Boekaerts & Corno, 2005;Ford & Blaustein, 2013).For instance, use of self-regulative strategies, such as monitoring one's behavior (e.g., Greenglass, 2005;Hadwin, Järvelä, & Miller, 2011, p. 76) may result in awareness of the need for help that further launches the help-seeking (Ryan, Pintrich, & Midgley, 2001), gradually developing into reciprocal social support.Accordingly, we presume that, in the proactive strategy development, the self-regulative strategies trigger the development of the co-regulative strategies.Furthermore, there is some evidence that the proactive strategy use, particularly utilizing co-regulative strategies, contributes to a good working environment fit, i.e., the sense of professional recognition and constructive work climate in the professional community among in-service teachers (Pietarinen et al., 2013a).Respectively, it can be presumed that student teachers' perceptions about the learning environment provided by the teacher education can be enhanced by the co-regulative strategy use (Soini, Pietarinen, Toom, & Pyhältö, 2015).

Learning Environment in Teacher Education
Teacher education provides the primary learning environment for student teachers.Accordingly, the dynamics between the students and their learning environment is, depending on its quality, likely to either reduce or increase the risk of developing burnout (Soini et al., 2015; see also Folkman, 1984;Maslach & Leiter, 2008).For example, while a supportive and good atmosphere is linked to well-being at the beginning of a teacher's career (Gavish & Friedman, 2010), a supportive atmosphere and belonging to a teacher community during teaching practice are rarely reported among student teachers (Timoštšuk & Ugaste, 2010)

Measures
A questionnaire contained scales measuring proactive strategies used, learning environment and study-related burnout symptoms.These three scales were developed for the study by the research group seniors.The final versions of scales are shown in Appendix A. The scales used in this study drew on the Socio-Contextual Teacher Burnout Inventory (STBI), which was developed for measuring teacher burnout within the social context of the teacher's working environment (see Pietarinen et al., 2013aPietarinen et al., , 2013b)).The instrument was modified for student teachers and pilot tested in another teacher education unit (see Soini et al., 2015;Väisänen et al., submitted).
The Proactive Strategy scale was based on the research evidence showing that functional proactive strategies for reducing burnout can be adopted in teachers' everyday routines (Pietarinen et al., 2013a).The scale consists of a) self-regulative strategy (4 items) and b) co-regulative strategy (3 items), two components of measuring proactive strategies.All items were rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree).
The Learning environment in teacher education scale (Soini et al., 2015) draws on previous studies on beginning teachers' experiences of teacher education (Ingvarson, Beavis, & Kleinhenz, 2004;Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011;Watt & Richardson, 2008).The scale consists of nine items measuring four aspects of the learning environment: a) social support (3 items), b) equality in teacher education (2 items), c) climate (2 items), and d) recognition from teacher educators (2 items).All items were rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree).
The Student Teacher Burnout scale (STB) (Pietarinen et al., 2013a) draws both on Maslach and Jackson's (1981) burnout scale and Elo, Leppänen, and Jahkola's (2003) single-item stress scale, which measures perceived exhaustion.The STB scale was constructed by specifying the study-related exhaustion, inadequacy and cynicism in teacher education, measuring three components of student teacher burnout consisting of eight items: a) exhaustion in studies (3 items), b) inadequacy in studying (3 items), and c) cynicism towards teacher studies (2 items).All items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), excluding the stress item that was rated on a 10-point scale.In this study, these three symptoms are treated as unidimensional construct indicating the experienced study-related burnout during the teacher studies (see also Carmona et al., 2006;Salmela-Aro et al., 2009).

Data Analysis
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the longitudinal model (see Figure 2).The analyses were conducted using an Mplus statistical package version 6.11.(Munthén & Munthén, 1998-2010).The Robust Maximum Likelihood (MLR) estimator was used because it produces robust standard errors and chi-square statistics to handle non-normally distributed data (ibid., 1998-2010).The goodness-of-fit of the estimated standardized model was tested by a χ² test, the Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker-Lewin Index (TLI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and Standardized Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (SRMR) (ibid., 1998-2010).A non-significant χ² value, CFI and TLI values above .95,an RMSEA value below .06 and an SRMR value below .08 indicate a good fit with the data (ibid., 1998-2010).The stability and interplay of the proactive strategies adopted by student teachers, perceived learning environment and study-related burnout symptoms were tested with path analysis.Also, non-parametric tests with SPSS (version 21.), Friedman's ANOVA, was used to explore potential differences between means.
The student teachers reported to employ functional proactive strategies for reducing their study-related burnout and for regulating the perceived fit between the learning environment and themselves.Student teachers utilized the self-regulative strategies (SELF) consistently during the studies (T1; M=5.20, T2; M=5.23, T3; M=5.23), for instance by monitoring and delimiting their study.They also reported utilizing co-regulative strategies (CO), i.e., the capacity to give and ask for social support when facing burdening situations in studies (T1; M=5.40, T2; 5.31, T3; 5.28), particularly during the first year in their studies.However, the proactive co-regulation decreased slightly during the studies (see Table 2).
Student teachers also typically experienced the learning environment (ENV) in teacher education positively (T1; M=5.17, T2; M=4.98, T3; M=5.04), and further, the experienced study-related burnout (BURN) symptoms were at a moderate level (T1; M=3.40; T2; M=3.53, T3; M=3.39).However, the experienced study-related burnout remained more stable (see the range of Min/Max) over time, compared to proactive self-regulation and co-regulation and the perceived learning environment that changed slightly over time (see Table 2).As a whole, the descriptive statistics indicated that the proactive strategies adopted by student teachers, experienced learning environment and study-related burnout were rather stable and predictable constructs over time, and there are no statistically significant differences between the means at different measure points.Note 1.All the correlations (except BURNT2/COT1) were significant at p level <.05.

The Complex Interplay between the Proactive Strategies, Perceived Learning Environment in Teacher Education and Study-Related Burnout within and over Time
The hypothesized mean variable structures of student teachers' proactive strategies, learning environment in teacher education and burnout scales were tested within and over time (Bollen, 1989;Hu & Bentler, 1999).The results showed that the tested model fits the data (see Figure 2).The goodness-of-fit of the model was evaluated by χ² test, RMSEA, CFI, TLI and SRMR and all goodness-of-fit indices indicated a good model fit.The proactive strategies exploited by student teachers were relatively stable through the academic years (see Figure 3).However, employment of the self-regulative strategy was more predictable than the use of co-regulative strategy.Hence, the use of self-regulative strategy in the first year predicted self-regulative strategy use later in teacher education studies (T1-T2=.60,T2-T3=.34,T1-T3=.44).In turn, the use of co-regulative strategy was predictable only for the next academic year (T1-T2=.41,T2-T3=.48,T1-T3=not statistically significant).
The student teachers' perceptions related to the learning environment provided by the teacher education were also relatively stable during the bachelor studies (T1-T2=.40,T2-T3=.51,T1-T3=.17).For instance, perceiving the learning environment as supportive and equal in the first year predicted such experienced later in the studies.
As was expected (H4), the experienced study-related burnout was predictable during the bachelor studies in teacher education (T1-T2=.28,T2-T3=.37,T1-T3=.31).This indicates that, if the student experiences study-related burnout symptoms already in the first year, then the risk of experiencing these symptoms later in studies was also increased (see Figure 3).

Conclusions and Implications for Teacher Education
This study provides new insights into the development and the function of proactive strategies in promoting good student teacher-learning environment fit, and in reducing risk of study burnout during teacher studies (see also Pietarinen et al., 2013a;Väisänen et al., submitted).This study emphasizes the importance of seeing study-related burnout in teacher studies as something that develops gradually and is intertwined with learning to become a teacher, and therefore also forms a risk in terms of developing burnout symptoms also later on in a teaching career (Hultell et al., 2013;Salmela-Aro et al., 2011).Therefore, the ability to actively regulate one's well-being could be seen as important part of a teacher's competence and it should already be recognized and facilitated during the teacher studies.Moreover, prior studies on teacher education shows that a positively perceived learning environment is a crucial factor in buffering study-related burnout.The results from this study suggest that there is actually a complex and dynamic interrelation between the way students regulate well-being in their studies, experience their learning environment and the risk of burnout.
First of all, investigation showed that proactive self-regulation reduced risk of experiencing study-related burnout during bachelor phase studies (see also Pietarinen et al., 2013a;Väisänen et al., submitted).Results suggest that students regulated their studying, for example managed their study pace, and that these strategies to buffer potential stressors in advance were effective and successful in terms of reducing the risk of developing burnout.The results are in line with previous findings on the determinants of student teacher burnout (Carnicer & Calderón, 2014;Gustems-Carnicer & Calderón, 2013;Väisänen et al., submitted).Hence, self-regulation seemed to be negatively in association with the risk of burnout and therefore the skills related to identifying and regulating oneself in stressful situations constitute an important learning goal in teacher education.
Prior research on in-service teachers has detected that co-regulative strategies contribute to the perceived working environment fit (Pietarinen et al., 2013a); however, to our knowledge, this is among the first studies confirming such a relationship with student teachers.Displaying proactive co-regulation, i.e., utilizing social resources in the form of seeking and providing support, enhanced a more functional learning environment fit that further reduced the risk of experiencing study-related burnout.Accordingly, the results imply that the use of proactive strategies contributed to the reduced study-related burnout through learning environment experience, which includes a supportive climate, social support, a sense of equality and recognition from teacher education.It also seems that this relation is stable over time (for prior results of stability of burnout, see also Gavish & Friedman, 2010;Maslach & Leiter, 2008;Salmela-Aro et al., 2009;Taris et al., 2005) also suggesting that the ability to co-regulate the stressful situations with others plays a distinctive role in student teachers burnout risk.
Moreover, results show that the different proactive strategies students use are related.More specifically, the self-regulative strategies seem to support the use of co-regulative strategies.Accordingly, being able to provide support for others and utilize support provided by them calls for the ability to regulate one's own behavior, thoughts and emotions in the direction of well-being.The result further extends the findings of prior studies suggesting that use of self-regulative strategies, for example monitoring behavior (e.g., Greenglass, 2005;Hadwin et al., 2011, p. 76) may result in one's awareness of the need for help (Ryan et al., 2001).The result suggests that development of proactive strategies is launched by self-regulation that further facilitates development of co-regulation.This implies there is a "positive chain" in terms of well-being in teacher studies; self-regulation skills are a precondition for co-regulation, which in turn enables students to construct a better fit with the learning environment.
Based on the results, we argue that measures to prevent the risk of developing burnout should be seen not as separate stress coping methods but as part of the entirety of studies and learning in teacher education.To be able to actively buffer burnout in a teaching career, teachers should have already developed an understanding about the dynamic relations between professional well-being, learning and the working environment as well as proactive strategies to regulate well-being before entering their first workplace.Results show that proactive strategies effectively reduce the risk of burnout; however, different strategies have distinctively different roles in it.This in turn implies that they constitute a set of different kinds of skills and therefore, require a different kind of learning in teacher studies.The implications in terms of developing teacher education require not only acknowledging these skills but also building them as a part of becoming a competent teacher.Learning to regulate one's actions, and especially regulating them together with others is a demanding skill (see Saariaho, Pyhältö, Toom, Pietarinen, & Soini, 2016) that calls for intentionally constructed learning situations were student teachers can try out and experience co-regulation.Skills of co-regulation are crucial not only for a good fit with the learning environment, and hence well-being, but also for modifying and reconstructing the environment with others in a meaningful way.This in turn is a capability that paves the way for an active, developing professional.

Methodological Reflections and Directions for Future Research
There are limitations that should be taken into account when generalizing the results of the present study.Firstly, the study included student teachers from three Finnish universities, in a study context that may vary from that in other countries.In addition, the scales have not been validated in other teacher education systems.The co-regulation sub-scale requires further refinement to improve its Cronbach's α.The reliability of the measures could be increased by constructing additional items for the sub-scale.The response rate at the first measurement was high, and at measurements two and three at the moderate level.The response rate also varied between the case universities.However, there is no remarkable differences between responses; hence the sample is not biased in terms of the respondents' burnout experiences.In future studies, it would be interesting to explore in greater detail the anatomy of student teachers' proactive strategies and study-related burnout in order to discover different profiles and developmental trajectories during teacher education.

Table 2 .
Correlations, means, standard deviations, ranges and Cronbach's alphas among examined mean variables