Faculty of Education - Theses

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Author: Hart, John David × Start date: 1940 × Subject: Job stress × Subject: Teachers × Subject: Victoria ×

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    Teacher stress in secondary technical education
    Hart, John David ( 1990)
    A questionnaire survey was used to investigate the prevalence and sources of stress, and coping actions, among 107 teachers from five inner suburban secondary technical schools in Melbourne. The study examined relationships between perceived teacher stress levels, certain biographical characteristics (gender, age, full-time teaching experience, classification, teaching area, previous part-time teaching experience, academic qualifications, and teaching qualifications), the personality dimension of "external locus of control" (as measured using the Rotter (1966) Internal-External (I-E) locus of control scale), three 'indicators' or response correlates of teacher stress (job satisfaction, absenteeism, and intention to leave teaching), sources of stress, and perceived ways of coping with stress. In particular, the study investigated the role of teacher biographical characteristics and the role of the teacher's belief in external control in the experience of perceived occupational stress, and looked critically at their respective usefulness in explaining any differences in the various stress experiences. Self-reported teacher stress was found to be negatively associated with job satisfaction (r=-0.34; p<0.01) and positively associated with both absenteeism (r=0.19; p<0.05) and intention to leave teaching (r=0.29; p<0.01). A principal components analysis of the source of stress, followed by varimax rotation, yielded four factors, labelled: 'Student Resistance', 'Professional Constraints', 'Time and Work Constraints', and 'Work Pressures'. A similar factor analysis of the coping actions yielded a three-factor solution. The factors were labelled: 'Personal Direct Actions', 'Psycho-Somatic Actions', and 'Interpersonal Actions'. Factor scores were generated and analysed for both sources of stress and coping actions. Significant differences were found for some biographical characteristics: gender, teaching area, and academic qualifications with the stress factor "Time and Work Constraints"; age with the coping factor "Interpersonal Actions". No significant differences were found for external locus of control (belief in external control) with stress factor perceptions while weak but significant associations were found for the coping factor perceptions "Personal Direct Actions" and "Interpersonal Actions". Significant differences were found for some response correlates: 'intention to leave teaching' and 'job satisfaction' with the stress factor "Student Resistance"; 'job satisfaction' with coping factors "Psycho-Somatic Actions" and "Interpersonal Actions". For the sample studied, the results indicated that student issues were clearly the major sources of stress for most teachers and that about one-in-four teachers were "highly stressed". The selected biographical characteristics, although bearing little relationship to overall self-reported teacher stress, did partially explain stress factor perceptions and coping factor perceptions of teachers. On the other hand, 'external locus of control', as measured by Rotter's (1966) I-E locus of control scale, was found to be an inappropriate personality variable for use in most considerations of the stress perceptions of teachers. Stress factor perceptions reflected the multidimensionality of the stress concept and were found to be relatively independent measures of perceived teacher stress. Further research in these and other areas was suggested.