Early Childhood Inservice and Preservice Teachers’ Perceived Levels of Preparedness to Handle Stress in their Students

Abstract

This article reports a study that investigated preservice and inservice early childhood teachers’ perceived levels of preparedness to handle stress in early childhood and elementary education students. A survey that included vignettes was used to collect data. Data were analyzed both qualitatively and statistically, using one-way ANOVA, t-test, and descriptive statistics. Results showed that, on average, preservice and inservice teachers perceived themselves as moderately prepared to handle stress in their students. There were no statistically significant differences between preservice and inservice teachers perceived levels of preparedness to handle stress. Preservice and inservice teachers felt most prepared to deal with school-related stress and least prepared to deal with society-related stress in their students (statistical significance at .001 level). Participants had two major recommendations: first, preservice and inservice teacher training should include more material on stressors during the early childhood years, and second, that supervised field experiences should do more to prepare future teachers to deal with stress in young children. The study concludes that teacher preparation programs need to prepare their preservice teachers more thoroughly to deal with stress in their students. Suggestions from participants on how to do this are also included.