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Systematic Review

Teacher Educator Wellbeing, Stress and Burnout: A Scoping Review

by
Kristina Turner
1,* and
Susanne Garvis
2
1
Department of Education, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn 3122, Australia
2
Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Mount Gravatt 4111, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(4), 351; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040351
Submission received: 8 February 2023 / Revised: 17 March 2023 / Accepted: 22 March 2023 / Published: 28 March 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Creating the Future of Teaching and Teacher Education – Innovative Disruption as a Catalyst for Reform)
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Abstract

:
Research reveals that due to the intensifying demands of higher education work environments, academic staff are reporting increased levels of burnout and stress and decreasing wellbeing. Teacher educators are academic staff who are involved with teaching and research in the field of Initial Teacher Education (ITE). This scoping review aimed to draw together research about teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout, and to identify where there are gaps in evidence-based knowledge. This study revealed that teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout is a relatively new and under-researched area, and that there is a dearth of current evidence-based literature in this field. As a result of this finding, it is recommended that extensive qualitative and quantitative research be conducted to better understand teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout. It is hoped that this scoping review will drive innovation and reform in ITE by identifying what is known and unknown in the field, thus informing future research to better support teacher educator wellbeing.

1. Introduction

In recent years, higher education academics have been required to accommodate rapid changes in their work landscape [1] while simultaneously negotiating the challenging, conflicting, and complex expectations placed on them in their roles as researchers, teachers, and administrators [2]. Research reveals that because of the increasing demands of higher education work environments, academic staff are reporting high levels of stress and burnout [1,3,4], and low levels of wellbeing [5,6]. This has led to greater interest in academic wellbeing and mental health [6].
Research reveals that factors which are particularly hazardous to academic staff wellbeing include: job insecurity [7]; a performance-based culture with increasing pressure to generate research income and publish in prestigious journals [5,6]; excessive workload; work intensification [8]; and work-family conflict [2]. Significantly, some researchers have argued that universities have transformed from a teaching-led model to a consumer and profit-led business model (for example, [3,9], which has increased stress and burnout in academic staff). Concerningly, increased stress and decreased wellbeing in academic staff can result in poorer performance at work [10], decreased job satisfaction [11], and decreased student wellbeing [7].
To further exacerbate an already challenging situation in 2020 and 2021—caused by the COVID-19 pandemic isolation requirements—higher education learning, teaching and assessment practices were moved to online formats as university campuses were closed and widespread academic job losses occurred [12]. These changes had a negative impact on academic staff wellbeing. For example, Fetherston et al. [8] found that Australian and United Kingdom university teachers’ wellbeing measures were significantly lower than the population norm.
Teacher educators are academic staff who are involved with teaching and research in the field of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) [13]. Alongside the stressors and challenges faced by all higher education academic staff, teacher educators face additional, context specific demands in an increasingly complex work environment [14]. Teacher educators experience externally driven, intense expectations and pressures; for example, government mandated reforms in ITE aimed at producing high performing teachers who are able to improve student learning outcomes [14,15]. Implementing this myriad of external requirements whilst simultaneously answering to many different levels of oversight can create a negative culture which undermines academic wellbeing [16]. In addition, addressing these external demands has resulted in workload intensification for teacher educators [14], requiring a significant workload, often at the expense of time spent on research [16]. Concerningly, such widespread international government mandated reforms have resulted in a highly politicised workspace for teacher educators [16] who often perceive that they are working in a hostile political landscape [17].
To illustrate, in Australia, teacher shortages and declining school student performances in national and international standardised assessments have been addressed with government policy solutions aimed at lifting the quality of teachers through reform in ITE programs [18]. Such quality improvement agendas include: strengthening ITE programs to ensure graduating teachers are classroom ready [19], higher tertiary admission rank entrance score [20], the introduction of literacy and numeracy tests for all Pre-Service Teachers (PST) [21], and the implementation of evidence-based selection criteria for admission to ITE courses [22]. Further, all PST must undergo “Teacher Performance Assessment” before graduating from their ITE [23], and all ITE programs must undergo a two-stage accreditation, including demonstration of impact [24]. Such regulations require significant funds and human resources to implement [25].
Similarly, in the United States, to address concerns with the effectiveness of teacher education and criticisms of teacher education as being disconnected from practice [26], there has been an increasing move toward sharing the responsibility for teacher education across both universities and schools, in addition to an increase in “for-profit” teacher education providers [27]. Graduates are required to pass several standardised tests administered by government bodies in order to demonstrate their competence [27]. In the United States, teacher educators have been described as “context-non-grata” among policy makers who prefer “Pearson over professors” and the fast-tracking of candidates into classrooms [26]. Funding cuts to public universities have reduced the university resources which are available to teacher educators; at the same time, teacher educator accountability has increased [27], as they are required to devote significant resources toward demonstrating their impact [26]. Meanwhile, teacher educators have been negatively narrated by the media, classroom teachers, entrepreneurs, community leaders, funders, and policy makers [26].
Government interventions, such as the prescription of teacher education course content, are driven by governmental “education initiatives” [16] and fanned by media, political and public debate [18]. Most such political reforms position teacher educators as the objects and implementers of reform agendas, rather than the agents of reform [28]. This resulting lack of autonomy for teacher educators may have detrimental impacts on their wellbeing, as evidenced in Self-Determination Theory [29], which recognises individual autonomy as a basic psychological human need required for optimal human functioning, wellbeing and motivation [29].
A further cause of stress and burnout unique to teacher educators includes declining enrolments in teacher education programs, which means increased competition between institutions, and decreased funding for staffing and program resources [30]. In addition, teacher educators often struggle to meet university benchmarks for research income and output, and are therefore susceptible to consequences [31], p. 35.
This scoping review aimed to draw together what is currently known about teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout, and to identify where there are gaps in evidence-based knowledge. Scoping studies seek to examine the extent, range, and nature of research in the field, and to identify the gaps in the current literature [32]. It is hoped that this scoping review will drive innovation and reform in ITE by identifying what is known and unknown in the field, thus informing future research to better support teacher educator wellbeing.

2. Teacher Educator Wellbeing and Burnout

Within teacher education, there is no agreed definition of wellbeing [7]. To date, research in this field has conceptualised wellbeing through several different theoretical perspectives. To illustrate, Kiltz et al. [7] applied three key wellbeing conceptualisations including: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” [33], wellbeing as “a multifaceted construct which includes physical, social, psychological, and emotional well-being, life satisfaction and work engagement” [34], and resilience as an indicator of wellbeing (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Kosnik et al. [11] consider teacher educator wellbeing as a broad concept which includes being a respected community member, having a manageable workload, and experiencing job satisfaction. A further definition of teacher educator wellbeing comes from Roy and Roy [35], who state that wellbeing refers to “the positive relationship and active engagement with the surroundings for the purpose of happy, healthy, and leading harmonious life”.
Research in the field of teacher educator burnout is scarce [36]. However, current research in the field, for example [3,30,36,37], draws largely on the work of Maslach et al. [38] in defining burnout. Burnout is viewed as a form of job stress and is defined as a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal job stressors; it is characterised by emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal accomplishment [38].

3. Method

Scoping studies provide a “snapshot” of current knowledge and identify gaps in the existing literature [39]. The scoping review method has become increasingly common due to its ability to inform research agendas which aim to advance knowledge in a particular field [40]. Scoping studies are most frequently applied to map existing knowledge, identify gaps, and inform future research within a clearly defined field [41]. The aim is not to aggregate findings or synthesise evidence [32]; rather, they are concerned with identifying what is known and unknown in a particular field [42]. Scoping studies are exploratory in nature and are most appropriate when the researchers’ intention is to understand the extent of knowledge in an emerging field in order to inform future research or policy [40]. Thus, a scoping study was deemed the most appropriate method to answer the research questions and inform future researcher and policy makers seeking to support teacher educator wellbeing. Although relatively new to the field of higher education, scoping studies have previously been used to better understand what is known and where there are research gaps; for example, Anderson-Butcher et al. [43] and Reining and Kauffeld [44].
This scoping study applies Arksey and O’Malley’s [32] five stage framework, and Peters et al.’s [40] methodological guidance for conducting scoping reviews to rigorously and transparently map the research area and produce reliable findings [32].

3.1. Stage 1: Research Questions

The following research questions informed this scoping review: (1) What is known from the current literature about teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout? and (2) What are the gaps in current knowledge around teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout?

3.2. Stage 2: Relevant Studies

The key search terms used to capture relevant literature were “teacher educator wellbeing”, “initial teacher educator wellbeing”, “pre-service teacher educator wellbeing”, “student teacher educator wellbeing”, and “teacher educator stress or burnout.” The term “well-being” was also searched as an alternative term for “wellbeing”.
The inclusion criteria were based on research around teacher educator wellbeing, stress or burnout published between the years 2016 and 2022, written in the English language and with the full text available. The following electronic data bases were searched: Google Scholar, A+ Education Informit, Scopus, Proquest, SAGE, ERIC Education Research Complete (EBSCO), and JSTOR. A search of citations and reference lists from all relevant articles was also conducted.

3.3. Stage 3: Study Selection

The initial search resulted in 995 articles, and the reference list and citations search added a further 31 articles; however, many of these articles did not address the inclusion criteria. To illustrate, many articles addressed primary or secondary school teacher wellbeing, stress or burnout, or pre-service teacher wellbeing or stress, and were thus excluded from this study. In addition, studies of the wellbeing, stress or burnout of higher education academics from other disciplines, for example nursing, were also excluded from this scoping review. Full text review of the remaining fourteen articles confirmed that thirteen of them fit the criteria for inclusion in this scoping review. As per recommendations for scoping reviews by Peters et al. [45,46], a ‘Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses’ (PRISMA) flow diagram has been included to map the scoping review process. See Figure 1: Scoping Review PRISMA Flow.

3.4. Stage 4: Charting the Data

The following data were then extracted from the articles for inclusion in this review: author, year of publication, country, and method. According to scoping review methods [45], these results were then charted. Table 1 “Teacher educator wellbeing stress and burnout articles: 2016–2022” provides a summary of the findings.

3.5. Stage 5: Collating, Summarising and Reporting the Results

The discussion was developed through narrative synthesis, including the date, method and location of the included studies, and was followed by critical analysis in which research gaps were identified and recommendations for future research were made.

4. Limitations

Scoping studies do not seek to aggregate findings or synthesise evidence from the included studies [32]. Every attempt was made to be as comprehensive as possible; however, articles which did not include the key search terms may have been missed in the electronic database search.

5. Results and Discussion

Insert here Table 1: “Teacher educator wellbeing stress and burnout articles: 2016–2022”.
The following discussion addresses the study research questions under the following subheadings: (1) ‘What is Known about Teacher Educator Wellbeing, Stress and Burnout?’, including a discussion of the stressors and challenges experienced by teacher educators, teacher educator exhaustion and burnout, and teacher educator wellbeing; and (2) ‘Where are the research gaps in our current knowledge of teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout?’

5.1. What Is Known about Teacher Educator Wellbeing, Stress and Burnout?

During the years 2016 to November 2022 there were thirteen articles published which fit the criteria for inclusion. Three of these articles were published in 2021, four in 2020, one each in 2022 and 2019, and two each in 2018 and 2016. The articles reported on studies conducted in: United States (four studies), Australia (three studies), Germany (two studies), India (two studies), South Africa, Netherlands, Canada, England, Pakistan, and China.
Three of these studies [3,7,49] included participants who were not teacher educators, and the exact break down of data from teacher educators and other participants was not included in the articles. One study included teacher educators who also worked part time as schoolteachers, two studies included only literacy teacher educators, and the remaining seven studies included a total of 670 teacher educator participants.
Six of the thirteen studies were qualitative, examining challenges experienced by teacher educators (two studies) and teacher educator wellbeing (five studies) (note: one study addressed both of these phenomena). These studies applied semi-structured interviews and open-ended survey data collection methods and used thematic coding data analysis. Six of the studies were quantitative, examining teacher educator emotional exhaustion and burnout (four studies), teacher educator stressors and challenges (two studies), and teacher educator wellbeing (two studies). These studies applied survey data collection methods and used descriptive statistics, correlation and linear regression analysis methods. One mixed methods study examined teacher educator stress.
The retrieval of only 13 articles highlights the relative newness of this research field. While studies have emerged to show data from across different countries, no more than four papers were reported in a particular country. Furthermore, as the field is relatively new, only a small range of data collection tools have been applied, with limited opportunities for replicability.
This scoping review reveals three key themes in the current literature around teacher educator wellbeing: stressors and challenges experienced by teacher educators (six articles), teacher educator exhaustion and burnout (four articles), and teacher educator wellbeing (six articles).

5.2. What Is Known about the Stressors and Challenges Experienced by Teacher Educators?

A total of five articles examined stressors and challenges experienced by teacher educators; see [3,14,15,30,50,51]. The most frequently reported stressor for teacher educators was workload intensification, including stress arising from the conflicting demands of teaching, research, and service roles. This was reported by: Amos-Williams et al. [50], McDonough et al. [14], Coyle et al. [30], Naz et al. [51], and Padilla and Thompson [3]. The difference in time period of the articles highlights that the challenges were not resolved for teacher educators. University policy, processes, and procedures was the next most frequently cited cause of stress experienced by teacher educators; see [14,30,51]. This may also be because of stronger notions of neo-liberal management styles entering higher education institutions, with constant restructures and centralization of professional supports.
Other sources of stress cited in the current literature include: maintaining a sustainable work life balance [14,30,50], relationships with colleagues and feelings of isolation [14,30], leadership [14,30], increased compliance and accountability demands in ITE [14,15], and role conflicts with regard to university promotion requirements [3,30].
Across the challenges and stressors, many appear to be at the systematic level of the university around workload and changes within the university structure which then contributed to negative relationships and loss of work-life balance. As such, it is difficult for individuals to have control over these challenges when they are top-down approaches that are implemented within higher education structures.

5.3. What Is Known about Teacher Educator Exhaustion and Burnout?

Four quantitative studies examined teacher educator exhaustion and burnout (see: [3,36,37,52]. Findings reveal that exhaustion and burnout are common in teacher educators. Padilla and Thompson [3], in their study of 1439 United States university faculty staff, 127 of whom were from the Education faculty, reported that 27% of participants experienced burnout ‘often’ or ‘very often’. Meanwhile, in their study of 200 Indian teacher educators, Kant and Shanker [37] found 100% of their participants were suffering from either extreme (17.5%), mild (74%), or low levels of burnout (8.5%). It is important to note that many of these studies were prior to COVID-19, when further stresses associated with transitions to online learning and lockdowns were not reported.
Pressure to obtain grants, time spent teaching, pressure to conduct service, increase in average hours worked per week, and pressure to perform were also related to an increase in academics burnout [3]. Meanwhile, emotional intelligence [37], a student-focused approach to teaching [36], career aspirations, social contributions [52], social support, time with family, time on leisure activities, and sleeping were related to a decrease in teacher educator burnout [3]. However, finding the balance between these—with stressors and challenges—is difficult, especially with expectations for workloads.

5.4. What Is Known about Teacher Educator Wellbeing?

Six articles reported findings related to teacher educator wellbeing; see [7,11,14,35,49,51]. Factors found to decrease teacher educator wellbeing include: job insecurity [7,11], excessive workload [7,11,49], supporting student wellbeing [7,49]; and perceived lack of institutional support or teacher-researcher role conflict [7,11,49]. Meanwhile, factors found to be supportive of teacher educator wellbeing include teaching and engaging with students [7,11,14], feeling valued, work–life balance, relationships with colleagues, manageable workload, and receiving positive feedback [14]. As such, it is important that more focus is made on the supportive factors and how these can be implemented throughout the working conditions of teacher educators.

5.5. Where Are the Research Gaps?

This scoping review revealed a dearth of literature in the field of teacher educator wellbeing. From a methodological perspective, few quantitative studies have applied validated and reliable measures to determine teacher educator burnout, stress and wellbeing. To illustrate, only three studies have applied the Maslach Burnout Inventory [53] to determine participant emotional exhaustion and burnout; see [3,37,52]. No studies in this scoping review quantitatively measured teacher educator stress. Roy and Roy [35] used an unreferenced ‘general wellbeing’ measure; however, no other studies in this scoping review quantitatively measured teacher educator wellbeing. Further, none of the studies were longitudinal, and had limited data around the long-term effects on teacher educator wellbeing.
In terms of qualitative methods, this scoping review revealed: one case study [49], one modified grounded theory [11], two unspecified methods which involved semi-structured interview data collection [7], and two unspecified methods which involved survey data collection [14,15]. There is a lack of qualitative methodological diversification, and also a lack of repetition of studies to confirm these findings in a variety of contexts.
Another key consideration is the lack of studies in general (total of 13 studies retrieved) across the globe. Teacher educators are important for educating the next generation of teachers; however, little attention has been given to their own wellbeing. If countries are interested in supporting teachers, they must also acknowledge the importance of modelling healthy lifestyle practices from teacher educators. At the moment, it appears that the teacher educators in the study would not be modelling healthy practices to future teachers.
There are gaps in what is known about teacher educator wellbeing at the individual, institutional and policy levels. For example, at the individual level, research gaps include comparisons of teacher educator wellbeing within the individual contexts of primary, secondary, and early years teacher education. In addition, comparisons of teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout in terms of length of time working in higher education. At an institutional level, the relationship between teacher educator wellbeing and PST wellbeing has not been quantitatively examined. Nor has the effect on teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout resulting from the sessional-isation of the academic workforce been examined. Further, there are gaps in what is known about the changing nature of teacher educator work; for example, the shift to online teaching because of the COVID pandemic. From a policy level, there is a lack of longitudinal, correlational, and multivariate evidence around the impact of implementing and monitoring external policy requirements on teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout.

6. Conclusions

This scoping review aimed to determine what is currently known about teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout, and to identify where there are gaps in evidence-based knowledge. This study examined thirteen articles which fit the criteria for inclusion into this study, analysing the date of publication, country of study, study participant groups, study methodology, and key themes addressed. Seven of the thirteen articles were published in 2020 and 2021, with most of the studies being conducted in Australia and the United States. Findings reveal that exhaustion and burnout are common in teacher educators. The most frequently reported stressor for teacher educators was workload intensification, followed by university policy, processes, and procedures. Factors found to decrease teacher educator wellbeing included: job insecurity, excessive workload, supporting student wellbeing, perceived lack of institutional support, and teacher-researcher role conflict. Meanwhile, factors found to be supportive of teacher educator wellbeing included: teaching and engaging with students, feeling valued, work–life balance, relationships with colleagues, manageable workload, and receiving positive feedback.
This scoping review revealed few quantitative studies have applied validated and reliable measures to determine teacher educator burnout, stress, and wellbeing. In addition, there is a lack of correlational, multivariate, and longitudinal evidence, and a lack of qualitative methodological diversification and repetition. Further, there are gaps in what is known about teacher educator wellbeing at the individual, institutional, and policy levels.
This scoping review revealed that teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout is a relatively new and under-researched area, and that there is a dearth of current evidence-based literature in this field. It is therefore recommended that extensive qualitative and quantitative research be conducted in this field to better understand teacher educator wellbeing, stress and burnout, and the effects of these factors at the individual, institutional and policy levels. In the meantime, in light of the stressful and highly politicised nature of teacher educators’ work, and as recommended by Cornu [54], teacher educators need to nurture their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their colleagues. It is hoped that this scoping review will drive innovation and reform in initial teacher education by informing future research, policy, and practice to better support teacher educator wellbeing.

7. Disclosure Statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report. No funding was received for this study.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.T. and S.G.; methodology, K.T.; validation, S.G.; formal analysis, K.T.; investigation, K.T.; data curation, K.T.; writing—original draft preparation, K.T.; writing—review and editing, S.G. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Education 13 00351 g001 550
Figure 1. Scoping Review PRISMA Flow.
Figure 1. Scoping Review PRISMA Flow.
Education 13 00351 g001
Table
Table 1. Teacher educator wellbeing stress and burnout articles: 2016–2022.
Table 1. Teacher educator wellbeing stress and burnout articles: 2016–2022.
AuthorYearCountryParticipantsMethodSummary of Findings Relevant to this Review
Amos-Williams, Sayed, & Singh 2022South Africa8 teacher educatorsQualitative: Semi structured interviewsEffects of the COVID-19 pandemic on teacher educators’ wellbeing
Teacher educators reported frustration, anxiety, stress and overwhelm caused by the disruptive nature of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Work intensification occurred as a result of the switch to online learning and teaching.
The intensification of labour and working from home blurred boundaries between work and home.
Richter, Lazarides, and Richter2021Germany304 participants who work part time in schools as teacher educators and part time as school teachersQuantitative:
Job satisfaction measured using Work Satisfaction Scale [38]
Emotional exhaustion measured using Maslach Burnout Inventory [38] 		Emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction
There was a negative and statistically significant relationship between career aspirations and emotional exhaustion, also between and social contribution and emotional exhaustion.
McDonough, Papatraianou, Strangeways, Mansfield, & Beutel2021Australia94 teacher educatorsQualitative survey adapted from the Teachers’ Ten Statements Test Challenges experienced by teacher educators
Participants reported challenges in: feeling undervalued or unacknowledged, maintaining a sustainable work–life balance, intensification of workload, relationships with students, colleagues and university leadership, and increased compliance demands.
Supportive factors for teacher educators (wellbeing)
Feeling valued, work–life balance, sense of achievement, research, professional learning, positive relationships with students and colleagues, manageable workload, and receiving positive feedback.
Kant & Shanker2021India200 teacher educatorsQuantitative:
Correlation analysis
Emotional intelligence measured using Weisinger’s Emotional Intelligence test (no reference included in article).
Burnout measured using Maslach burnout inventory [38]		Emotional intelligence and burnout
Participants were found to be suffering from extreme (17.5%), mild (74%), and low burnout (8.5%).
Emotional intelligence has a significant negative relationship with burnout of teacher educators.
Kiltz, Rinas, Daumiller, Fokkens-Bruinsma and Jansen2020Germany and Netherlands10 University teachers including at least one participant from teacher education. Article does not state the exact number of teacher educator participants.Qualitative: semi-structured interviewsUniversity teacher wellbeing (including at least one teacher educator)
Engagement with work was central to participants’ wellbeing.
Participants stated that self-awareness and self-regulation were essential for regulating wellbeing.
Eudaimonic wellbeing, illustrated as meaningfulness, was related to intrinsic motivation.
Participants reported that good wellbeing enabled them to be better prepared for teaching, and to feel more energetic, present, and interested.
Participants stated that good wellbeing enabled them to experience better relationships with their students.
Reduced university teacher wellbeing (including at least one teacher educator)
Job insecurity negatively affected participant wellbeing.
The teacher–researcher role conflict negatively affected participant wellbeing.
Restricted voice in faculty matters negatively affected participant wellbeing.
Difficulty of maintaining a work life balance.
Participants reported that their experience of low wellbeing, stress, and feeling overwhelmed negatively impacted their students’ wellbeing.
Participants reported that feelings of low wellbeing resulted in lectures of lower quality and feeling less connected to students.
University teacher and student wellbeing appear to be reciprocal.
University teachers’ wellbeing was negatively impacted by students’ problems.
Gillett-Swan and Grant-Smith2020Australia11 participants including a mix of academic, sessional and professional staff who mentor pre-service teachers whilst they are on practicum.
Article does not state the exact number of teacher educator participants.		Qualitative: descriptive single case-study with semi-structured interviewsUniversity mentor wellbeing and stress during pre-service teacher practicum
University mentor’s wellbeing is negatively affected by the work required above the allocated workload to mentor pre-service teachers whilst they are on practicum.
Participants reported feeling that practicum supervision is not highly regarded for promotion and tenure purposes, which impacted their wellbeing and performance appraisals.
Participants reported being stressed and anxious due to worrying about the wellbeing of pre-service teachers.
Participant stress was exacerbated by the perception of a lack of university support.
Participants reported feelings of futility and stress in response to effort and unachievable standards.
Kosnik, Menna and Dharamshi2020Canada, United States, Australia and England28 literacy teacher educatorsQualitative: modified grounded theory using semi-structured interviewsLiteracy teacher educator wellbeing
Participants reported feeling that their wellbeing was compromised due to: feelings of being isolated and tension with colleagues, high workload, feeling overburdened, and decreased job satisfaction.
Participants reported that the demands of external accreditation requirements, in which there was a perceived lack of respect for faculty, were ‘soul destroying’, and led to ‘deep unhealed schisms’ within departments.
Participants reported that job insecurity and forced redundancies negatively affected their wellbeing.
Coyle, Miller, & Rivera Cotto2020United States162 teacher educatorsMixed methods:
Descriptive statistics
Online survey adapted from Educator Plateauing Survey [30]		Teacher educator stress
84% of participants needed to bring work home in order to meet deadlines.
Participants stated that maintaining work life balance was a major stressor.
60% of participants felt burdened with overwhelming research, teaching, and service responsibilities.
54% of participants did not feel included in the decision-making processes.
54% of participants did not feel they were adequately compensated for the work that they do.
Top stressors indicated by participants included: unreasonable workload, lack of support from administrators, poor communication, isolation, and poor leadership.
Naz, Liaqat and Ghyas2019Pakistan50 teacher educatorsQuantitative: Comparative statistical analysis between senior teacher educators with PhD and > 5 years experience and junior teacher educators with Masters and < 3 years experience.
Likert questionnaire designed by authors		Teacher educators stressors
Stressors: Junior teacher educators consider workload as their greatest frustration, whereas senior teacher educators considered policies and procedures as their biggest frustration.
Teacher educators motivators (wellbeing)
Motivators: The majority of both senior and junior teacher educators stated that teaching is their favourite part of the job, and respect is the greatest reward in being a teacher educator.
Cao, Postareff, Lindblom and Toom2018China115 teacher educatorsQuantitative:
Approach to teaching measured by revised version of ‘Approaches to Teaching Inventory’ [47]
Burnout measured using six items from ‘Socio-contextual Teacher Burnout Inventory’ [48]		Teacher educator exhaustion and burnout
Teacher educator exhaustion and burnout had a statistically significant negative relationship with a student-focused approach to teaching.
Sharp, Diego-Medrano, Hughes, Raymond, & Piper2018United States61 literacy teacher educatorsQualitative: Open ended survey questions
Analysed using content analysis techniques		Challenges and pressures experienced by teacher educators
Challenges and pressures experienced by participants categorised as: external accountability and mandates, conceptions about literacy and professionalism, characteristics of pre-service teachers, appropriate classroom settings, and teacher preparation program requirements.
Padilla and Thompson2016United States1439 university faculty participants 127 of these participants from Education faculty.Quantitative: Descriptive statistics and linear regressionUniversity faculty stressors and burnout (including 8.8% teacher educator participants)
27% of participants reported experiencing burnout ‘often’ to ‘very often’
Pressure to obtain grants was the strongest risk factor for burnout.
Time spent teaching and pressure to conduct service were also related to burnout.
Conflict arises because teaching and service are weighted less toward promotion than research.
Social support, hours spent with family or on leisure activities were related to a decrease in burnout.
Roy & Roy2016India41 teacher educatorsQuantitative: General well being measured by scale developed by Chauhan & Didwania (no reference included in article)Teacher educator wellbeing
There is no difference in participants’ perception of their wellbeing according to gender and area of living or work place (rural or urban).
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Turner, K.; Garvis, S. Teacher Educator Wellbeing, Stress and Burnout: A Scoping Review. Educ. Sci. 2023, 13, 351. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13040351

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