Date of Award
6-19-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Educational Leadership, Ed.D.
First Advisor
Amany Saleh
Committee Members
Andrew King; LeeAnne Oros; Randy Caffey
Abstract
High school debate coaching constitutes a uniquely demanding educational role, defined by emotional labor, extended work hours, institutional precarity, and systemic inequities. Despite their significant contributions to students’ intellectual and personal growth, the professional sustainability of debate coaches remains underexamined. This dissertation investigates the conditions contributing to burnout among high school debate coaches through the theoretical lenses of Maslach’s Burnout Theory, as contemporized by Edú-Valsania et al. (2022), and teacher self-efficacy theory, to understand how emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and diminished professional confidence emerge in this context. The study is further guided by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014), enabling a bottom-up, inductive exploration of the social processes underpinning burnout. Employing a sequential, two-phase mixed-methods design, Phase I involved semi-structured interviews with 22 debate coaches, analyzed using grounded theory techniques to surface key themes such as workload saturation, affective and logistical burdens, lack of institutional support, and the compounding impact of identity markers such as race, gender, and age. These qualitative findings informed the development of a national survey instrument, administered in Phase II, which garnered responses from 86 coaches across diverse geographic, demographic, and institutional contexts. The quantitative phase offered descriptive and inferential data on burnout prevalence, perceived role stressors, and systemic conditions influencing coach sustainability. Findings in response to the first research question revealed consistent reports of burnout, closely tied to institutional neglect and unsustainable labor demands. Participants frequently described declines in self-efficacy alongside emotional depletion. In addressing the second research question, responses to potential interventions varied—ranging from financial and workload protections to mentorship networks and calls for broader cultural reform within the debate community. These results underscore the complex, individualized, and often systemic nature of burnout. This dissertation contributes to the scholarship on educator burnout by centering a marginalized yet essential professional group. It calls for systemic, rather than individualized, responses to burnout—advocating for structural reforms, union advocacy, expanded mental health resources, and intentional representation of diverse identities in leadership roles. Ultimately, the study frames debate coach burnout as a reflection of deeper structural fissures within educational and extracurricular labor systems and calls for a restorative reimagining of sustainability in competitive academic spaces.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Block, Rosie Valdez, "If It Doesn't Hurt You Aren't Working Hard Enough: An Examination of Coach Experience in High School Debate" (2026). Student Theses and Dissertations. 1162.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/1162
