This study aims to establish a theoretical framework for the process of overcoming personal and external exhaustion of childcare teachers as a grounded theoretical approach to build in-depth and advanced theories.
In this study, 16 childcare teachers who had more than 4 years of childcare experience and had experience in overcoming burnout were selected as participants. The contents described by the participants through in-depth interviews were analyzed according to the open coding, axial coding, and selective coding procedures, which are the analysis stages of the grounded theory research methodology proposed by Strauss and Corbin (1998).
The research results are summarized as follows:
First, as a result of open coding, the categories of the process of overcoming burnout of childcare teachers were drawn into 77 concepts, 23 subcategories, and 6 categories. The analysis of the analyzed categories according to the paradigm model showed that causal conditions were ''factors of burnout'', contextual conditions were ''job reality of childcare teachers'', central phenomena were ''symptoms of burnout'', interventional conditions were ''external influence factors'', action/interaction strategies were ''voluntary burnout overcoming strategies'', and the results were ''results of burnout overcoming''.
Second, as a result of axial coding, the process of overcoming the burnout of childcare teachers was found to be four steps: ''left'', ''cognitive'', ''cooperative'', and ''growth''.
Third, the key category of selection coding was ''live as a continuously developing childcare teacher''. The participants felt skepticism about physical, emotional symptoms and identity through burnout experience, but the participants explored their roles and goals as teachers and recognized and accepted limitations. They reestablished their identity through efforts such as looking at their body and mind and giving voice to help.
This study systematically revealed the process of overcoming the burnout of childcare teachers, and raised the interest from the concern of the cause and phenomenon of burnout to the process of overcoming it. It suggests that if the experience of overcoming burnout affects the growth as a child care teacher along with personal growth, it will be an opportunity to grow in life as well as a chance to leap as a teacher. On the other hand, even if the exhaustion is overcome, it is difficult to overcome the complete exhaustion through the remaining unresolved tasks and traces of exhaustion.