INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT (IJM) PROFESSIONAL STRESS AMONG ENGINEERING COLLEGE TEACHERS AND THEIR COPING STRATEGIES

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1 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT (IJM) International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN (Print), ISSN 0976 ISSN (Print) ISSN (Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, May- August (2012), pp IAEME: Journal Impact Factor (2011): (Calculated by GISI) IJM I A E M E PROFESSIONAL STRESS AMONG ENGINEERING COLLEGE TEACHERS AND THEIR COPING STRATEGIES Dr. T. Manvel Raj *, Dr. A. Mohamed Siddique ** and Dr. T. Shalini Rani*** * Principal, Mohamed Sathak A.J.College of Engineering, Siruseri IT Park, Chennai , Tamilnadu, India. manvelraj@rediffmail.com. **Reader, Department of Management Studies, Khadir Mohideen College, Adirampattinam , Tamilnadu, India, drsiddique@gmail.com, ***Professor and Head, Department of Corporate Secretaryship, Thiruthangal Nadar College, Chennai , Tamilnadu, India, manuelshalini@gmail.com ABSTRACT The article summarizes the results of research on the professional stress among Engineering College teachers (N = 300) in and around the Chennai city. Both the external and internal causes of teacher s stress (stressors) were analyzed. Investigation of external causes of stress was carried out by means of Questionnaire of Teacher Stress (by C. Kyriacou). This measure contains the fifty sources of teacher s stress. To define the internal sources of stress The Life Style Scale (by R. M. Kern) was applied. The information will be given about the self-evaluation of teacher stress, causes of teacher stress, evaluation of differences between the teachers with different lifestyles and developmental model of teacher stress. The opportunities of Engineering College psychologist in the prevention and coping with the professional stress at Engineering College are derived from the research data and partially reflected in the visual model of teacher s professional stress. Key words: Stress, Coping strategies, Sources of stress, Causes of stress, Engineering Teacher stress, stressors 80

2 1.0 INTRODUCTION In many countries work of the Engineering Teacher currently is considered as one of the most stressful professions (Hunter M., 1977). Last two decades an intensive research in USA and Europe has been developed regarding both the sources and symptoms of teacher professional stress (Dunham I., 1992; Kyriacou C., 1990; McLauglin M.W., 1986; Kelly M.J., 1988; Kokss T., 1989; Cole M. & Walker S., 1989; Gold J. & Roth R. A., 1993; Schwab R.L., 1995, etc.). Investigations in the field of teacher stress indicate that the great part of teacher stress can be explained with a rapid pace of changes in education in 1980 s and 1990 s. In his article Teachers in the Twenty-first Century: time to renew the vision C. Day focuses on the situation within the teaching profession: For many teachers, the last 20 years have been years of survival, rather than development. As social and economic change have placed new demands upon and created new expectations from Engineering Colleges, hardly a year has passed without some reform being mooted, negotiated or imposed in the name of raising standards (appraisal, inspection), increasing user participation (open enrollment, local financial management) and pupil entitlement (a national curriculum). Yet I would predict that teachers in the twenty-first century will become more, rather than less important to the fabric of society and that their contributions to the socio-economic health of nations will become more valued. During the workshops, discussions and consultation process Engineering College teachers point to the similar situation in their profession. The established situation and problems in contemporary Engineering College can be illustrated by the words of Engineering Teacher with fifteen years of work experience: Unfortunately, the part of the society does not understand that Engineering Teacher is not the preprogrammed machine, which can continuously work in an overloaded regime. Engineering Teacher simply is a person with his own needs and problems, which lately has been especially hard to cope with. Engineering Teacher can not perform his tasks motivated only by his enthusiasm, if the professional problems stay unsolved. Therefore, the young generation, the children will have to suffer. In order, to raise the spiritually and bodily healthy children, the Engineering Teacher has to be healthy himself. To help Engineering teachers and, therefore, also the pupils, we started the research of teacher professional stress. We were interested in: The sources and peculiarities of Engineering Teacher stress; The factors of Engineering Teacher personality influencing a perception of the sources of stress. Therefore, the aim of our research was to discover the internal and external factors of Engineering teacher professional stress such as the professional stressors (internal) and individual lifestyle of Engineering teacher (external). 81

3 2.0 SAMPLING PROCEDURE Fifteen Chennai based self-financing Engineering Colleges were randomly selected in the middle of academic year The following constraints were observed: colleges selected for the experiment were Chennai based self-financing Engineering Colleges with pupils. 300 Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors were offered 2 methods: Questionnaire of Teacher Stress and Kern Lifestyle Scale. 2.1 Methods Questionnaire of Teacher Stress (by C. Kyriacou & I. Sutcliffe). The measure was designed considering the assumption that teachers are able to provide valid reports of the sources of experienced stress; therefore, the questionnaire can be used as a self-report method. The questionnaire consists of some sections. The first section requests the biographical information regarding sex, qualification, age, length of teaching experience and position held in the college. This section contains the open questions. The second section consists of 50 items regarding sources of stress. The teachers are asked to rate their response to each of the sources of stress on a five-point scale labeled: No stress (0), Mild stress (1), Moderate stress (2), Much stress (3), Extreme stress (4). (Stress is seen as a result of the interaction between the professional activities and personality). The third section asks teachers to give an answer on the question: In general, how stressful do you find being a teacher? Response on this question is measured on a five-point scale. The response to this question was used as a measure of self-reported teacher stress. Kern Lifestyle Scale (by R. Kern). Kern Lifestyle Scale (KLS) is a 35-item survey instrument, developed by R. M. Kern from the Georgia University (1982). KLS has been continuously improved by means of its component analysis, research of its validity and reliability. This measure can be used to help the family couples, individuals, students, management staff and educational groups. KLS was developed to obtain the information on the lifestyle necessary for an evaluation of the relationships with spouse or other people, carrier decisions, organizational or conflicting style of leadership as well as to help professionals to understand the individual reactions in the stress situations. KLS can be applied to determine the hidden way individual interacts with other individuals in personal, social or professional environment. Hidden phenomena can be changed into the overt ones through the evaluation of lifestyle in scores. The author provides the following description of scales: The control scale attempts to assess the person s need to direct others, control the showing on emotions, and approach problems in a rational logical fashion. Perfection scale identifies the person s needs to work hard at organizing their life and avoid mistakes. The scale need to 82

4 please focuses on how important it is for the individual to go along with others, not causes interpersonal problems, and work hard at being liked by all. The Scale Self esteem addresses the individuals belief that they can handle most of life s problems and that they can encourage others and themselves. The Expectations Scale tries to get at how realistic the individual is in setting goals and expectations on self and others. 3.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Analysis of subjective evaluation of teacher stress: To conduct a valid research on teacher stress it should be started with an exploration of teacher s attitude toward the professional stress. To reach this purpose we used the answers on the question: In general, how stressful do you find being a teacher? provided by 300 teachers. The results are reflected in Table 1 and they show the differences of attitudes in various biographical categories of teachers. Table 1: Subjective evaluation of professional stress Percentage distribution Not at Mildly Moderately Very Extremely N all stressful stressful stressful stressful stressful Total Sex Male Female Professional qualification of teacher University Graduate Teachers professional qualification Other Age Under 30 years to 44 years years and over Length of teaching experience First year to 4 years Mean 83

5 5 to 10 years to 24 years Over 25 years Work load, position One workload More than one workload Work in more than one school Vice principal The table reflects the teacher s subjective evaluation of their stress. More than a half of respondents suggest that a work of teacher is connected with much stress (54%) and extreme stress (5%). 3.2 Sources of teacher stress: To understand the determination of engineering teacher stress we have to look upon the evaluation of the sources of teacher stress. To reach this goal, the data received from the analysis of teacher s ratings on the 50 items has to be explored. These items are connected with more or less serious causes of stress in the profession of teacher. The data are displayed in Table 3. A correlation matrix of the sources of stress consisted only of positive correlations (1225). All 50 sources of teacher stress were positively correlated with subjective evaluation of teacher stress (r ranging from to 0.364; all p < 0.05) (see Table 2). Table 2 Sources of teacher stress: means, correlations with subjective evaluation of teacher stress and loadings on the first (unrotated) factor Item no. Source of stress Mean Correlation with subjective evaluation of teacher stress* Loading on first (unrotated) factor 3 Punishing pupils Responsibility for pupils (e.g. exam success) Inadequate salary Pupils impolite behavior or cheek Too much work to do

6 11 Difficult classes Generally high noise level Pupils poor attitudes to work Too much paperwork Low status of the teaching profession Pupils general misbehavior Not enough time to do the work Lack of time for further study Non-exam final year pupils Poorly motivated pupils Difficult behavior problems Lack of time to spend with individual pupils Constant monitoring of pupils behavior Pupils non-acceptance of teacher s authority Shortage of equipment Large classes Pace of school day is too fast Pupils general low ability Inadequate disciplinary policy of school Lack of time to prepare lessons No time to relax between lessons Poor facilities Noisy pupils

7 12 Trying to uphold/maintain values and standards Demands on after school time Supervisory duties (e.g. playground, school meals) Pupils who show a lack of interest Lack of time for marking Lack of recognition for good teaching Individual pupils who continually misbehave Administrative work Lack of effective consultation Maintaining class discipline Attitudes and behavior of some other teachers Inadequate disciplinary sanctions available Lack of participation in decision-making Mixed ability groups Lack of recognition for extra work Attitudes and behavior of the headmaster Poor promotion opportunities Covering lessons for absent teachers Too many periods actually teaching Poor career structure School too large Groups of too wide an ability *p<0.5 86

8 The rating of mean scores shows that the largest indices in relation to the teacher stress sources are tied to such sources as punishing pupils (2.25), responsibility for pupils (e.g., exam success) (2.17), inadequate salary (2.13), pupil s impolite behavior or cheek. The distribution of answers within the each source of stress ranging from no stress to extreme stress was rather different reflecting the individuality of every teacher For the most part the answers had the normal distribution or positive skew. This skewness ranged from 0.32 to 1.036, the standard deviations from 0.9 to For the purposes of grouping all 50 sources of stress were subjected to a principal component analysis. The matrix of the components was designed with all 50 stress sources loading positively (ranging from to 0.692). Table 3 Sources of teacher stress: Varimax rotated factors (loadings greater than 0.40) Factor I Pupil misbehavior Loading Item no. Source of stress Difficult behavior problems Maintaining class discipline Noisy pupils Pupils general misbehavior Pupils impolite behavior or cheek Individual pupils who continually misbehave Generally high noise level Difficult classes Pupils poor attitudes to work Pupils who show a lack of interest Factor II Professional demands and responsibility Loading Item no. Source of stress Responsibility for pupils (e.g. exam success) Low status of the teaching profession Pupils poor attitudes to work 87

9 Lack of effective consultation Attitudes and behavior of some other teachers Pupils general low ability Poorly motivated pupils Inadequate disciplinary sanctions available Inadequate disciplinary policy of college Non-exam final year pupils Lack of recognition for good teaching Shortage of equipment Trying to uphold/maintain values and standards Factor III 'College Management Loading Item no. Source of stress Poor promotion opportunities Poor carrier structure No time to relax between lessons Too many periods actually teaching Lack of participation in decision-making Attitudes and behavior of the Principal Demands on after college time Factor IV Time pressures Loading Item no. Source of stress Pace of college day is too fast Too much work to do 88

10 Not enough time to do the work Lack of time for marking Lack of time to prepare lessons Administrative work Constant monitoring of pupil s behavior College too large The first extracted factor accounted for per cent of the total variance, second factor accounted for 5.12 per cent of the total variance, third and fourth factors accounted for 4.36 and 3.96 per cents of the total variance respectively. Results of factor analysis obtained in the given sample allow discerning the most important groups of stress sources relevant for the contemporary Latvian teacher (Table 3). The first group of sources was labeled pupil misbehavior, as all sources of stress included in this group deal with the problem teacher encounters monitoring the discipline and working environment in class. Why does this factor account for the highest percents of the total variance (24.3)? During the discussions, workshops, in their compositions teachers explained that misbehavior is the main cause of teacher professional stress, as this factor hinders the fulfillment of main professional task to teach, self-esteem of teacher suffers, his authority among the colleagues and administration decreases. The data show that regardless of differences in teacher education and different contingent of pupils, the group of causes concerning a discipline problem appears as a fundamental source of teacher stress. 3.3 Influence of lifestyle on teacher professional stress: We will begin the analysis of teacher s answers about their lifestyle with a general characteristic and distribution of lifestyles in a given sample (see Table 4). 89

11 Table 4 Distribution of teacher sample by lifestyle (n=300) Scale Control scale Perfectionism scale Need to please scale Self scale esteem Expectations scale Respondents with a dominance of given scale % % 77% 80% 4% 26% Type of life style Controller Perfectionist One with a need to please Victim Martyr How the representative of given style can obtain his self-esteem? through the monitoring of others and fights for the own truth doing everything right, observing all the regulations fulfilling the needs of others, searching the recognition of others provoking the pity toward himself, complaining about the adversities of life criticizing others and himself As the table shows, the largest number of answers has received two scales: need to please and perfectionism. According to the interpretation of R. Kern, the scale of need to please is a component of the perfectionism scale. The large number of answers in these scales, as well as the essential difference of this number from the number of answers obtained regarding the other scales suggests the following. Among the individuals choosing the profession of teaching, two lifestyles are dominating, i.e. perfectionist and person who wants to be liked by others. Therefore, according to a conception of A. Adler and his view on the lifestyles, these are the individuals who, in order to rise their self-esteem, to increase the feelings of own significance, to experience the community with the society and belonging to this society, unconsciously have made a decision in favor of I have to be perfect, I have to be liked by others. Let s see what happens when the perfectionist and person who want to be liked by others enter the system of education and how these lifestyles influence the development of stress. Perfectionist is a person characterized by a meticulousness, cautiousness, sensibility, prudence and wish to do everything right. As the perfectionist endures his mistakes very acutely, one can predict that while working as a teacher he is bond to 90

12 encounter the negative emotions as the teacher s work is hardly pictured without the mistakes not at the beginning nor at the end of carrier. The teacher s work always means the cooperation with the pupils and, as the success is depending on mutual efforts, it is obvious, that a teacher-perfectionist facing the professional failure because of the poor motivation of pupils will experience guilt for an incompleteness of results obtained. As the perfectionist is fond of an order, structure, precision and planning ahead, one can easy imagine the difficulties created for him by this profession, especially, concerning the current situation of teacher in Latvia. Frequent changes and changing of national standards raise the doubts and uncertainty of perfectionist about the right and wrong activities. Therefore, despite the fact that perfectionists are great employees, this profession can cause them large stress, as the perfectionism in this profession is just an ideal to reach for. Besides, this way toward the ideal is possible only through the learning from the own mistakes, which is so hard for perfectionist. Regarding the second dominating lifestyle with an aim to receive the recognition of other people, one can see how difficult is to reach this aim in such a field of human activity as the work of teacher. Strive to offend nobody, consideration of the interests of all parties are reached at an expense of individual needs of persons with mentioned lifestyle. This can lead to the lack of the control over one s life and to the loss of selfrespect. Wishing to receive the recognition of others, teacher with this lifestyle will try hard to avoid any conflicts in an external world. The cost will be the frequent inner conflicts (health problems). During their professional activities the teachers themselves can discover the strategies of coping with professional stress and the analysis of these strategies shows that these teachers who have developed their positive self-evaluation skills, the skills of self-acceptance without the search of recognition of others have found the way out of continuous experience of stress in their work. A teacher with the 25 years work experience recognizes that one of ways to cope with a stress is to be liked by yourself. Therefore, we can state that despite of several advantages of two above mentioned styles such as remarkable social interests, meticulousness, good listening skills and other traits rather valuable in the teaching profession, there are some weak points facilitating the development of stress for the employees with the dominance of these two lifestyles. Table 5 shows the combinations of these two lifestyles perfectionism and need to please, dominating in the research sample. 91

13 Table 5 Most frequent combinations of teachers lifestyles (n=300) Combination of scales Scales of perfectionism and need to please Scales of perfectionism and expectations Scales of need to please and expectations Scales of control and need to please Respondents with a combination of given scales Combination of life styles Perfectionist + need to please Perfectionist + Need to please + Controller + Martyr Martyr Need to please We have discovered the correlation between these two lifestyles (r = 0.245, p= 0.05). According to the description provided by R. Kern these individuals are the best in the situations creating the minimal inner conflict and ensuring the high level of personal recognition. As the conflicts are natural component of educational process, but an issue about the appropriate recognition of teachers work is still unresolved, we can state that the individual lifestyle can develop the sensitivity of teacher toward the certain stressors in the professional field. As the perfectionist s conception of lifestyle can not be implemented in the process of teaching, his self-esteem suffers, the teacher feels as a looser and it is difficult for him to admit that he is not completely perfect. In this case he chooses to keep his fear suppressed, to spend his energy for a defense; however, the cost of this strategy can be very high. Therefore, it can be noticed that the analysis of teacher lifestyle hides many ways of prevention of teacher professional stress, as the person is prone to develop the abilities for the management of phenomena he is aware of. Let s analyze the influence of teacher lifestyle on his peculiar perception of certain sources of stress in the teaching profession. Regardless of a lack of serious correlations between the explored variables obtained through the data analysis, the figures still allow to reveal some tendencies of correlation between the sources of stress and lifestyle. The sources of stress indicating the statistically significant correlation within the critical limits of Pearson correlation coefficient are displayed in Table 6. 92

14 Table 6 Intercorrelations of teachers lifestyle and sources of professional stress scores (Pearson r*) Teachers life style N Sources of stress Need to please Perfectionist Martyr Controller Victim 1. Administrative work Lack of time to prepare lessons Punishing pupils Constant monitoring of pupils behavior Too much work to do Pace of school day is too fast 7. Not enough time to do the work Lack of time for marking Lack of recognition for extra work Poorly motivated pupils Difficult classes Trying to uphold/maintain values and standards School too large Responsibility for pupils (e.g. exam success) 15. Inadequate disciplinary policy of school

15 16. Pupils poor attitudes to work 17. Low status of the teaching profession 19. Attitudes and behavior of some other teachers 20. Pupils non-acceptance of teacher s authority 21. Lack of time for further study Shortage of equipment Inadequate disciplinary sanctions available 24. Lack of effective consultation Non-exam final year pupils Pupils general misbehavior Lack of recognition for good teaching 28. Groups of too wide an ability Noisy pupils Maintaining class discipline Poor facilities Inadequate salary No time to relax between lessons 34. Poor promotion opportunities

16 35. Individual pupils who continually misbehave Too much paperwork Lack of time to spend with individual pupils 38. Covering lessons for absent teachers 39. Pupils who show a lack of interest 40. Demands on after school time Difficult behavior problems Pupils impolite behavior or cheek 43. Lack of participation in decision-making Large classes General high noise level Supervisory duties (e.g. playground, school meals) Mixed ability groups Attitudes and behavior of the headmaster 49. Too many periods actually teaching Poor career structure Pupils general low ability * Critical limits of Pearson correlation coefficient (ν = 300) are the for two-tailed test (p< 0.05). 95

17 As the tables shows, the largest number of significant correlations can be observed inspecting the most frequent style need to please (23 correlations all together). Therefore, the first difference of this style is that in comparison with other lifestyles the larger number of sources of stress is a peculiarity of teachers craving for the recognition from others. Wishing to please pupils, administration and other teachers (parents were not included in the stress sources), teacher with such a style is sensible to all the sources diminishing his professional self-respect: these are the difficulties with a discipline and poor discipline of pupils. Besides, exactly this lifestyle has a certain correlation with such source of stress as an attitude of other teachers. The table shows that for the teachers, whose self-esteem completely depends on the evaluation of others, experience when the pupils do not accept the authority of the teacher is more painful comparing with other teachers (0.232). Results of teachers with a lifestyle aimed to please the others, comparing with the other groups of lifestyle, indicate a closer correlation with the subjective evaluation of stress (r = 0.203). Though the data obtained do not show the high correlations, consultation experience with the teachers allows assuming that teacher group, wishing to receive the recognition of others, can be included in the group of employees most sensitive to the professional stress. This assumption can be approved also by the T-test results suggesting that the teacher with the dominance of these scales differ from the representatives of other lifestyles with the higher subjective evaluation of stress. Analysis of the sources of stress causing dissatisfaction among the perfectionists shows the zones of discomfort typical for the representatives of given lifestyle. Inadequate disciplinary sanctions available destroy the perfectionists feelings of clearness concerning the school situation. We can see that exactly this lifestyle with a credo to be ideal correlates with such sources of stress as lack of effective consultation and poor promotion opportunities. In turn such lifestyle group as a martyr has the results correlating with a low status of teaching profession and inadequate salary. These correlations obviously reflect the unfulfilled expectations of teachers with a given lifestyle. As the results show, teachers with a domination of control scale did not indicate the significant correlations with the sources of stress; only one source of stress too much work to do was more emphasized. This source really can lead to the larger stress for the teachers with a mentioned lifestyle, as it inhibits the convincing control of school situation. In relation to the lifestyle victim the correlations with such sources as groups of too wide an ability and mixed ability groups should be noticed as these sources create the difficulties in one s work and can point to the lack of ability to deal with the situation. Teachers with the given lifestyle can loose their self-confidence and they can also experience the negative emotions. In course of analysis the correlations common for almost all lifestyles were not discussed. These correlations indicate that there are the sources of stress significant for all teachers regardless not only of length of work experience, country, but also of their individual peculiarities. The source of stress corresponding to these conditions is pupil s misbehavior. One can discover also that representatives of almost all lifestyles need the recognition for extra work and they suffer from a pressure of time. 4.0 CONCLUSIONS Therefore, the research has approved that the causes of teacher professional stress have a multidimensional character: professional stress is the combination of internal and external causes. Teacher lifestyle influences the perception and reaction toward the certain sources of stress and this influence displays itself in a definite profile of stress sources. Objective sources of professional stress (stressors) can be considered only as the potential sources of stress. These sources can lead to the real stress if the teacher perceives them as the threats to satisfaction of fundamental needs presented through his lifestyle to be 96

18 ideal, to fulfill all the requirements, to avoid mistakes, to receive the recognition of others. Therefore, the subjective evaluation of stressors is a result of the frustration of these needs. Lack of possibilities to fulfill the needs of lifestyle within the teaching profession endangers the Self-concept of teacher and, as a result, leads to the negative emotions. Feeling of professional failure influences the self-esteem of teacher and his sense of self in general. Research also reveals the possible activity directions of school psychologist toward an improvement of teacher professional well-being. One of these directions includes the different activities targeted to help teachers change the perception of their work situation and their personal competence, as well as to find the ways of constructive interaction with the stressors in professional field. The next field of activity is the work with college administration, helping to choose the healthy management strategies to avoid the unnecessary sources of stress at school. School psychologists can help the college administration to become aware that an atmosphere of positive support at college can improve the work of entire college. 5.0 REFERENCES 1. Borg. M. G (1990), Occupational stress in British educational settings: A review. Educational Psychology, Vol.10, No.2, pp Brown. M., et al. (1992), Towards the identification of stress in teachers. Research in Education, Vol.48, No. 4, pp Cox. T., et al. (1998), Stress in schools: An organizational perspective, Work and Stress, Vol.8, No.2, pp Day. C (2000), Teachers in the Twenty-first century: time to renew the vision, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, vol.6, No.1, pp Dunham. T (1996), Stress in teaching L & Syd: Croom Helm, Dover, New York. 6. Kern. R.M., et al. (1989), Brief therapy using the life-style scale, Journal of Individual Psychology, Vol.45, No.3, pp Kyriacou. C (1996), Teacher stress: a review of some International comparisons Education Section Review (of the British Psychological Society), Vol.20, No.1, pp Kyriacou. C (1998), Stress in Teachers: Past, Present and Future, London: Whirr, Vol.32, No.2, pp Kyriacou. C., et al. (1978), Teacher stress: prevalence, sources and symptoms, British Journal of Edu. Psychology, Vol.48, No.1, pp Salo. K (1995), Teacher stress processes: how can they be explained?, Scandinavian Journal of Edu. Research, Vol.39, No.3, pp Worral. N., et al. (1989), Towards a person-in-situation model of teachers stress, British Journal of Edu. Psychology, Vol.59, No.2, pp