Numerous educational researchers have increasingly employed self-efficacy theory over the last decade to investigate job burnout as well as to examine the role of self-efficacy in the creation of job burnout, a construct defined as ‘a crisis of self-efficacy’. Teacher self-efficacy is conceptualized as a personal resource factor which may hinder the experience of job stress and, thus, make the formation of burnout less likely. The primary purpose of the present study was to test a structural model of teacher burnout, perceived job stress and teacher self-efficacy and particularly to test a mediation model in which it is hypothesized that teacher self-efficacy would mediate the effect of perceived job stress and burnout. In so doing, the validated scales of the constructs of interest were administered to 241 Iranian EFL teachers of private language institutes. Employing Amos version 21, structural equation modelling was carried out to test the proposed model of the study. The results revealed that both perceived job stress and self-efficacy were significantly correlated with teacher burnout. The fit indices of the hypothesized model also indicated that self-efficacy partially mediated perceived job stress to teacher burnout. The model also showed significant both paths from job stress to teacher burnout through self-efficacy. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of this study were finally discussed.
