Abstract
Anxiety among graduate students in the United States has increased over the last several decades, affecting not only their overall mental health but also reducing retention in graduate programs. High teaching anxiety can negatively impact teacher well-being and student learning, yet teaching anxiety in graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) is not well studied. Biology GTAs teach most introductory Biology labs and discussions nationally, thus broadly influencing the quality of undergraduate education. We investigated Biology GTA teaching anxiety at a large research-intensive university by (1) measuring teaching anxiety of Biology GTAs, and (2) exploring the relationships between teaching anxiety, self-efficacy, and coping. Using correlation plots and multiple linear regressions, we found that greater teaching self-efficacy was related to lower teaching anxiety in Biology GTAs (R<sup>2</sup>adj=0.65, p&lt;0.001), and coping was positively correlated to self-efficacy. These results suggest that teaching self-efficacy is important to reducing teaching anxiety, and coping frequency may help to build self-efficacy. Thus, effective coping may be linked to reduced anxiety via increases in self-efficacy, although these specific relationships need to be further explored. Although anxiety did not differ significantly among graduate students in our population, reduced anxiety was linked to direct increases in self-efficacy and indirect increases in coping. With a rising mental health crisis in academia, particularly among graduate students, these results can inform teaching professional development for GTAs, by incorporating dialogue about teaching anxiety, self-efficacy, and coping. Encouraging greater awareness and discussion about mental health issues in academia, we can further reduce its stigma and mitigate its impacts.
Highlights
The reported incidence of anxiety in graduate students in the United States has been rising markedly over the last several decades (Bair & Haworth, 2004)
To compare with the wider graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) pool, as of Fall 2016, 211 graduate students in the Division of Biology were enrolled in a Masters or Ph.D. program, with 94% of graduate students seeking a Ph.D., and 55% identifying as female
In answering the research questions related to this study, we found that teaching self-efficacy plays an integral role in reducing teaching anxiety in Biology GTAs at our institution, and that coping frequency may contribute to building teaching self-efficacy
Summary
The reported incidence of anxiety in graduate students in the United States has been rising markedly over the last several decades (Bair & Haworth, 2004). Anxiety stimulates physiological responses similar to stress: increased levels of cortisol, faster heart rate, dilated pupils, etc. These physical changes accompany feelings of concern or worry over an anticipated event or outcome that may (or may not) happen in the future (Pekrun, Frenzel, Goetz, & Perry, 2007). Because of this, teaching anxiety will likely differ between some graduate student sub-populations (such as genders, racial/ethnic groups, novice vs experienced GTAs, international vs domestic GTAs, etc.); different groups of students may require unique coping strategies and resources. International students in the United States report different academic challenges compared to their domestic counterparts, such as concern over program structure, career preparation, and alignment with career goals (George et al, 2018). When studying anxiety in any context, it is important to capture contextual and demographic variables that may account for differences in anxiety in certain subgroups of the study population
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