Educational Impact and Implications StatementRatings of teaching quality by students and external observers are increasingly used in research, in everyday school practice, and in the context of teacher evaluations. It is obviously a good idea to use direct measures of teaching quality when evaluating teachers because they can provide information on what actually happens in the classroom. However, it is an open question if these ratings of teaching quality can also be seen as indicators of teacher quality. To address this issue, we examined the stability of teaching quality measures across points in time and across classes: Do great teachers deliver great teaching every time and in every classroom? The results of our studies show that the stabilities over time (same teacher, same class) were relatively high. However, our findings also show that the teaching quality of a certain teacher can vary to a large degree-depending on the class that is being taught. Teaching quality is not a stable teacher characteristic but emerges in interactions between teachers and students. Thus, the quality of teaching measured in one class only allows us to draw limited conclusions about teaching quality in another class taught by the same teacher. These results show that both researchers and practitioners should be aware of the difference between teaching quality and teacher quality. They should be considered in every context where teaching quality is measured, including research contexts and teacher evaluation and feedback systems.

A negative association between symptoms of teacher burnout (e.g., emotional exhaustion) and students' academic outcomes has been demonstrated in previous research. Although, in theoretical models, it has been suggested that this association can be explained through changes in teachers' instructional behavior, these mediating processes have not yet been empirically tested. Therefore, in the present study, we examined (a) whether teachers' emotional exhaustion is related to students' self-concept, interest, and achievement and (b) whether aspects of instructional quality, indicated by teachers' emotional support and classroom organization, serve as mediators. The study is based on secondary data from the German and English classes of ninth-grade students (N = 17,280 in German; N = 17,225 in English) and their teachers (N = 987 in German; N = 1,060 in English) from 840 secondary schools. Using multilevel analyses, we found a negative association between teachers' emotional exhaustion and students' self-concept, interest, and achievement in German. Emotional exhaustion was associated with less emotional support and classroom organization in both subjects and the lower levels of instructional quality partially mediated the association between teachers' exhaustion and student outcomes. These results suggest that supporting teachers' well-being is not only important for the teachers themselves, but also it is important for students' academic development. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe results of the present study suggest that teachers' emotional exhaustion, which is the key symptom of burnout, is related to teachers' work performance. Secondary school students in classes taught by emotionally exhausted teachers reported lower emotional support and lower classroom organization than students in classes taught by less exhausted teachers. In turn, students who perceived lower instructional quality reported having less interest and lower self-concept, and they also obtained lower achievement test scores.

The present study investigated to what degree teachers’ personality traits, cognitive abilities, and academic abilities (high school GPA), which were assessed at the end of high school as well as grades from the first and second state examinations of teacher education, predict later instructional quality. The study combined ratings of instructional quality from 3,768 German secondary school students and their 113 teachers with up to 10 years between assessment of teachers’ personality traits, cognitive abilities, as well as academic abilities at the end of high school and student ratings of instructional quality. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that agreeableness, high school GPA, and the second state examination grade predicted teachers’ instructional quality.

Teachers’ burnout has severe consequences for themselves and their students. The identification of factors related to burnout can provide valuable information about the relevance of interindividual differences. Beyond work-related factors, burnout is assumed to be affected by individuals’ personality traits, and several empirical studies already exist that have investigated this association in teachers. However, a comprehensive meta-analytical examination is missing so far. The current meta-analysis, including 18 primary studies with 19 samples (total N = 4,724), aimed to examine the relation between burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) and the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) in teachers. In addition, moderating effects of teachers’ professional level were investigated. In line with our expectations, neuroticism was positively related to all three burnout dimensions, with medium-sized effects found for emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and a small effect size found for reduced personal accomplishment. The other significant associations between personality traits and burnout dimensions were negative. Apart from a nonsignificant association between emotional exhaustion and openness, all associations were rated as small to medium. The moderator analyses did not show any support for moderating effects of teachers’ professional level concerning the associations between burnout dimensions and personality traits.

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