The results were gleaned from a survey of 779 American educators conducted in May 2022, paired with subsequent focus groups in the autumn of that year. The study, which underwent peer review, was published in April 2024.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools nationwide faced shutdown directives, new technologies were adopted to aid remote education during the crisis. These included learning management systems, which serve as online platforms helping educators organize their coursework.

We were perplexed to observe that educators utilizing learning management systems like Canvas or Schoology reported more significant burnout levels. Ideally, these tools should have streamlined their tasks. Furthermore, we expected these systems to enhance teachers’ capabilities to manage documents and assignments, mainly since everything would be stored digitally, thereby reducing the need for printed materials or taking student work home for evaluation.

Nevertheless, in the follow-up focus groups, the data indicated a different narrative. Learning management systems were not replacing older task completion methods; rather, they added to the teachers’ responsibilities.

A revealing illustration was witnessed in lesson planning. Pre-pandemic, educators typically provided printed lesson plans to administrators. Once school systems adopted learning management systems, some educators needed to continue submitting paper plans and also upload digital versions to the system in an entirely different format.

Requiring educators to adopt new tools without eliminating existing expectations leads to burnout.

Teachers instructing lower elementary levels voiced more grievances about learning management systems as they were not suitable for their students’ development stage. A kindergarten educator from Las Vegas mentioned, “Given my students initially can’t really count to 10, it’s overwhelming that they must learn a six-digit student ID” to access Canvas. “Indeed, I concur that … it triggers burnout.”

Besides technology concerns, educators cited other contributors such as administrative support, teacher autonomy, and mental health impacting burnout.

Why it matters

Teacher burnout has been a long-standing problem in education, especially exacerbated during and post-COVID-19 pandemic.

If new technology adoption is intended to aid teachers, school administrators need to ensure it doesn’t add more responsibilities. By increasing workloads, technology adoption heightens burnout risks, potentially leading more educators to exit the profession.

Schools implementing fresh technologies should guarantee they streamline teaching responsibilities by offsetting other tasks rather than merely adding to educators’ burdens.

The broader takeaway here is that educator well-being must be prioritized when enacting broad changes in schools.

What’s next

We think our research is pertinent not only to learning management systems but also to emerging technology tools like artificial intelligence. We propose future studies identify schools and districts successfully incorporating new tech and extract insights from their achievements.

The Research Brief provides a concise insight into intriguing academic work.

David T. Marshall, Associate Professor of Educational Research, Auburn University; Teanna Moore, Associate Researcher at Accessible Teaching, Learning and Assessment Systems, University of Kansas, and Timothy Pressley, Associate Professor of Psychology, Christopher Newport University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.