Compassion fatigue seemingly is a fairly new phenomenon in helping occupations. Teachers showing compassion fatigue seems to be the cost of caring “too much” for students. A recent survey through Research and Development (RAND) and the American Teaching Panel (ATP) found that three out of four teachers (75%) found their work to be frequently stressful (Steiner and Woo, 2021). Another study showed that teachers report experiencing compassion fatigue from helping students with severe emotional needs (Sharp-Donahoo, 2018). When does compassion fatigue start, and can it be avoided for those in the teaching profession? In greater depth, do individuals who are learning how to become teachers (or pre-service teachers) experience compassion fatigue during their preparation while in field placements? To learn how to instruct, pre-service teachers are going into classrooms and working with challenging children. They are gaining the appropriate teaching and behavior management skills to become successful teachers. However, according to a study using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), pre-service teachers also have higher stress levels than the normal range of the general population who are in college studying a different profession (Geng, Midford, & Buckworth 2015). I was interested in studying if pre-service special education teachers gaining high incidence disabilities endorsements of LD or ED showed compassion fatigue during their third year in the teacher preparation program. For this research, the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL) was given. The ProQOL is a 30 item self-report questionnaire using a Likert scale ranging from "never," "rarely," "sometimes," "often," or "very often." Fourteen pre-service teachers were asked to answer the ProQOL questions based on the previous 30 days in their field placements and respond to each statement with how frequently they have experienced each statement. Results show that the pre-service teachers’ highest satisfaction levels are with their ability to make a change through their work. However, some responses show that these pre-service teachers already feel worn out from their work as helpers and instructors. These results can help guide future research on pre-service compassion fatigue and what teacher preparation institutions can do to help prepare future teachers for this challenging field.

Keywords: Compassion fatigue, education, pre-service teachers.