A Comparison Of Role/Task/Environment Stress Experienced By Beginning Academic and Career-Technical Teachers In Southwestern Ohio Career-Technical Schools

Abstract

This study investigated whether academic or career-technical teachers perceived greater role, task, and environmental stress in a career center setting. Participants were academic and career-technical teachers employed by a career center schools district in southwest Ohio. A total of 24 academic and 50 career-technical teachers, all of whom had fewer than 4 years of teaching experience, completed the Teacher Stress Measure Instrument. A subgroup of participants also completed discussions about their feelings surrounding the topic of teacher stress. Results indicated that careertechnical teachers reported greater role stress and task stress in the career-center setting, while academic teachers reported greater schoolenvironmental stress. The paper recommends that career-technical teacher preparation programs implement strategies and techniques to address the role and task stress factors identified in the study. Traditional academic teacher preparation programs need to incorporate additional information and teaching strategies for their students who teach in diverse employment settings, such as career centers and urban schools. (Contains 14 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. A COMPARISON OF ROLE/TASK/ENVIRONMENT STRESS EXPERIENCED BY BEGINNING ACADEMIC AND CAREER-TECHNICAL TEACHERS IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO CAREER-TECHNICAL SCHOOLS PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY