Perceived Stress and Canadian Early Childcare Educators

Abstract

Occupational stress for early childcare educators is an area of apparent understudy in the literature. The present study attempted to address this gap and provide some updated data regarding the experiences of this occupational group. Early childhood workers across a variety of early childhood education settings (N = 69) responded to questionnaires regarding perceived stress, individual/educational background, and work setting (Perceived Stress Scale, You Bet I Care!, and Ways of Coping Questionnaires). Our findings suggest that early childhood educators who were married, had a stable community, and had no children of their own felt less perceived stress. Further, workers who utilized problem-solving coping, felt job security, and experienced higher job satisfaction and control, reported less perceived stress. In contrast, individuals who employed avoidant coping, worked full-time, and expressed feelings of exhaustion and/or frustration, felt greater amounts of stress. These findings are reviewed in the context of workplace interventions that may be considered useful toward increasing recruitment and retention of quality early childhood educators through decreased perceived stress.