The purpose of this study is to investigate the general trends of childcare teacher’s emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment according to the type of childcare center. This study also aims to find out the effect of the teachers’ emotional exhaustion and director's emotional leadership on their organizational commitment. One hundred ninety-two teachers in early childhood centers from Suwon city in South Korea participated in the survey. Data collected with quota sampling were analyzed through One-way ANOVA, Duncan test and multiple regression analysis using SPSS program.
The main results were as follows: First, in general, childcare teacher's emotional exhaustion were medium level. Corporation/workplace childcare center showed the highest score on teacher's emotional exhaustion followed by public childcare center, family childcare center and private childcare center. Statistical significance was found between corporation/workplace childcare center and private childcare center.
Second, childcare teachers’ emotional exhaustion was, in general, slightly higher than medium and were not significantly different according to the type of childcare center.
Third, the result of Pearson correlation analysis showed that there were positive association among the childcare teachers’ emotional exhaustion, their organizational commitment and the director’s emotional leadership.
Fourth, results from multiple regression analysis indicated childcare teachers’ emotional exhaustion were the most powerful predictor of organizational commitment (F=.546, p<.05). When their director's emotional leadership were added, the explanation power increased into 9% from 3.3% (F=9.348, p<.001).
Implication for improvement of quality of childcare by diminishing the childcare teachers’ emotional exhaustion and stimulating their organizational commitment were discussed.
key words: Childcare Teacher, Emotional Exhaustion, Director's Emotional Leadership, Organizational Commitment
