Teacher Confidence in Professional Training: The Predictive Roles of Engagement and Burnout

Teachers’ work engagement positively impacts teachers’ attitudes towards their job. Nevertheless, teachers may experience burnout during their career, which negatively impacts their professional learning opportunities. In this study we investigated the relationship between teachers’ levels of burnout, work engagement, and their confidence in in‐service training in a sample of Italian teachers. We expected that burnout mediated the relationship between work engagement and teachers’ confidence in training. A total of 481 teachers completed self‐report questionnaires about engagement and burnout, with an ad hoc Confidence in Training Index developed to assess their attitudes towards professional development courses. The mediation analysis confirmed that the teachers’ levels of burnout mediated the relationship between their work engagement and their confidence in in‐service training. Findings suggest that teacher confidence in policies about professional training should be evaluated by taking into account their level of engagement and burnout.