Teachers say they are feeling increasingly burned out, in part due to the prevalence of technology in and outside the classroom.
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Nearly half of teachers nationwide feel burned out by their jobs, and a similar number (39%) feel emotionally exhausted, according to a report released Thursday by the WGU Lab.
Professor burnout is nothing new, but Omid Fotuhi, director of learning innovation at the WGU Lab, a subset of Western Governors University, believes technology may be playing a big role in it. Nearly eight in 10 faculty members feel like they’re always “on the job” because of technology, and an additional 64 percent said technology makes it harder for them to take breaks from students and their work, according to the report.
“Faculty now see technology not only as having a lasting impact on their learning, but also as a growing influence on learning,” the report’s authors wrote, noting that this view can create a divide between professors who want to incorporate technology into their classrooms and those who don’t. “This growing divide among faculty can lead to challenges, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies in teaching and instruction that administrators must navigate.”
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This is the third annual report from faculty-focused WGU Labs, a consortium that helps higher education institutions leverage new technologies, which also releases annual reports on administrator and student opinions of technology and innovation in the classroom.
“We’ve been tracking the perceptions, beliefs and behaviors of faculty, students and administrators with the intent of connecting the dots to predict investments in education,” Fotohi said. “There were a lot of questions that couldn’t be answered by just talking to one group.”
The Faculty Report surveyed 359 faculty members in November 2023 across community colleges, online-only universities and brick-and-mortar four-year institutions.
Fortuhi, the accumulation of reports over the years allowed him to dig deeper into the latest findings. He said he has always been surprised by the ambivalent attitudes faculty have towards artificial intelligence, with many using the tools but skeptical of their effectiveness. The report found that more than half of faculty (53%) believe AI will improve the student experience, yet a similar percentage of faculty are not using it in their classes. This is consistent with other reports that show student use of AI far outpaces faculty usage.
This skepticism may stem in part from how decisions about educational technology are made. In the latest report, 87 percent of faculty say that decisions about implementing and using educational technology are made by their administrative teams. Fewer than 20 percent of faculty say they seek feedback on educational technology at least once a year, and roughly the same number say they involve students in the process.
“So we get to the root cause: teachers don’t feel included in the decision-making process,” Fotohi said. “They feel like their opinions aren’t valued, and that feeds into their beliefs about the effectiveness of[technology].”
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These sentiments about technology’s effectiveness also influence faculty’s thoughts about the direction of higher education overall. They acknowledge reality: According to the report, nearly all faculty (92%) believe they will make greater use of educational technology tools, such as AI, in the future. And the majority (86%) expect to spend more time delivering course content online. But 20% believe the emphasis on technology in the classroom is heading higher education in the wrong direction, and only 32% believe it’s heading in the right direction.
Even more worryingly, a third (37%) of faculty say that increased use of technology will result in a lesser quality learning experience for students in the future, and a similar proportion believe that higher education will be less valuable in the future.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the outlook changes a bit when you take into account the type of faculty surveyed: Nearly 40 percent of faculty who teach online believe higher education is heading in the right direction, in part due to increased use of technology, while only 20 percent of professors who teach face-to-face classes say the same.
Despite the differences in future outlook, more faculty have a positive view of course formats than in past reports. 79% of faculty say they are open to offering more format and credential options to students, and 76% are open to offering more hybrid courses (a combination of remote and in-person instruction) to students. In contrast, the 2023 report found that just over half of faculty are open to their institution increasing the number of online courses and programs.
To combat the growing tensions around technology and burnout, Fotuhi suggests institutions do two things: First, they need to provide feedback channels for professors and students to voice their opinions as institutions make potential technology investments. Second, they need to provide support and guidelines for implementing new infrastructure and technologies after those investments are made.
He acknowledges that this is easier said than done.
“Most administrators are just fighting to survive. It’s a really difficult time in higher education,” he said. “Administrators are making decisions based on limited information, which impacts faculty support, which impacts job satisfaction, which impacts students. This is a systems issue, so we’re trying to connect the dots.”
This story has been updated.
