Creative competence of a legal psychology instructor as a resource for burnout prevention and student motivation

Abstract

Background. Teaching legal psychology courses involves a continuous analysis of destructive and criminal behavior, creating risks of emotional exhaustion among university teachers and a decrease in students' intrinsic academic motivation. Traditional reproductive teaching methods in this subject area demonstrate limited effectiveness. Objective. Empirical verification of the influence of a teacher's creative competence (implemented through project-game and simulation technologies) on reducing professional burnout among educators and increasing academic motivation among students of the Faculty of Legal Psychology. Methods. Formative experiment with a control group. Sample: 14 university teachers (teaching experience 11.4 years) and 86 students (2nd—3rd years). Diagnostic instruments: Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI, adapted by N.E. Vodopyanova, E.S. Starchenkova), Academic Motivation Scale (AMS, adapted by T.O. Gordeeva et al.), semi-structured interviews, feedback questionnaire. Statistical analysis: Mann—Whitney U test, Wilcoxon T test. Results. A statistically significant reduction in teachers' emotional exhaustion by 18.5% (p < 0.05) and depersonalization by 14.2% (p < 0.05) was recorded in the experimental group; the increase in students' intrinsic academic motivation reached 23% compared to the control group (p < 0.01). A 31% reduction in students' fear of professional errors was revealed. Conclusions. Creative educational technologies ("Con_Cretely about Conflict Creatively!", "Psychological Moot Court", "NarraLaw") serve as an effective bilateral resource, simultaneously mitigating teacher burnout and enhancing student professional-oriented motivation.