Abstract
This research investigates the levels of occupational stress and professional burnout of teachers of primary and secondary education. It also aims to investigate the coping strategies that they adopt, and the relationship between them. The survey involved 388 teachers who teach in public schools in Attica. Three instruments were administrated to teachers: “Teachers’ Occupational Stress” (Antoniou, Polychroni, & Vlachakis, 2006), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1986) and the “Stress Coping Strategies Scale” (Cooper, Sloan, & Williams, 1988). The findings showed that teachers of Primary Education experience higher levels of stress compared to the teachers of Secondary Education. Female teachers experience more stress and lower personal accomplishment than men. Rational coping behaviors are a resource which help teachers overcome work-related stressors and burnout and achieve their valued outcomes with students, while avoidance coping predicted high level of stress and burnout.
Highlights
Stress experienced by teachers is a subject of intense interest in recent years
The present study aims to investigate the levels of occupational stress and professional burnout and examine the coping strategies adopted by Greek teachers of public primary and secondary schools according to gender, education level and years of service
According to multivariate analysis of variance teachers of primary education compared with teachers of Junior and Senior High Education reported higher level of occupational stress in all variables: workload F(1, 384) = 6.76, p < 0.01, η2 = 5% working conditions F(1, 384) = 56.7, p < 0.001, η2 = 13%, interest of students F(1, 384) = 5.77 p < 0.05, η2 = 1.5% and lack of support from government F(1, 384) = 26.1, p < 0.001, η2 = 6%
Summary
Stress experienced by teachers is a subject of intense interest in recent years. Various factors have been identified linked with teacher’s occupational stress. The most important of these factors are: business requirements, many different activities within the school environment, lack of professional recognition, discipline problems in the classroom, bureaucracy, lack of support, workload, time pressure, lack of benefits (Mearns & Chain, 2003). It has been argued that when teachers feel that they invest more in students, colleagues, and school than they receive from them, they are more likely to face emotional, psychological and occupational difficulties (Van Horn, Schaufeli, & Taris, 2001). The sources of stress experienced by a particular teacher are unique to him/her and depend on the interaction between personality, values and skills and the circumstances. All mentioned stressors have been shown to lead to teachers’ burnout
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