An investigation into sources of stress among high school chemistry teachers in China

Abstract

The study attempts to identify the major sources of stress among high school chemistry teachers in Shaanxi province in China. We surveyed 101 chemistry teachers from 15 high schools in Shaanxi province in China with a self-administered questionnaire at a return rate of 72.14%. The results show among the 19-item sources of stress, investigated through factor analysis, resulted in five distinct dimensions of perceived stress: teaching workload (34% common variance), school system (11% common variance), social treatment and demands (7% common variance) and self-development demands (6% common variance), school hardware facilities (5% common variance), the top three sources of stress perceived by these chemistry teachers in descending order of mean scores: ‘social treatment and demands’, ‘parental demands’, and ‘self-development demands’. Measures such as increasing teachers wage, improving schools’ humanistic environment and school hardware facilities, creating more opportunities for the development of teachers should be given to mitigate stress of high school stress of high school at Shaanxi province in China.