Abstract
Orientation: Positive psychological and subjective wellbeing indicators have proven to be protective against certain physical illnesses but have been rarely assessed in teacher stress.Research purpose: The main objective of this study was to assess the relationship between indicators of wellbeing and stress and to further assess the relative importance of these wellbeing indicators in explaining stress variance in a large sample of Eastern Cape primary and high school teachers in South Africa.Motivation for the study: The majority of teacher stress studies focus on the misfit between the individual’s resources and the environmental demands. There is a scarcity of studies reporting on protective factors in teaching and we know little about their possible role as possible protective factors against stress. This is important in developing stress prevention strategies.Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey was used targeting public school teachers in the Eastern Cape. The sample size was 562 randomly selected teachers from both public primary and high schools.Main findings: The results revealed that stress is prevalent amongst teachers. Subjective and psychological wellbeing factors added significantly to the explained stress variance. Also, both negative affect and role problems had significant positive correlations with stress, whilst psychological wellbeing had a strong inverse relationship with stress.Practical/managerial implications: The results implied that interventions focusing on improving psychological wellbeing and reduction of negative affect can contribute to stress prevention.Contribution/value-add: The results contributed towards a better understanding of the relative importance of wellbeing constructs as protective factors against teacher stress.
Highlights
Problem statementKey focus The link between poor psychological health and stress in the working population is well documented (Kyriacou & Sutcliffe, 1978, 1979; Stansfeld, Fuhrer, Head, Ferrie & Shipley, 1997; Tennant, 2001)
We aimed to assess the relationship between psychological and subjective wellbeing measures, on the one side, and teacher psychological stress, on the other, and to further assess whether adding subjective and psychological wellbeing into the person–environment fit variables contributes to explaining teacher psychological stress variance
In a previous study on determinants of burnout amongst Eastern Cape teachers, we reported that work pressure, role problems, such as lack of role clarity, and the presence of role conflict and ambiguity were associated with high levels of burnout feelings, especially the dimension of emotional exhaustion, which is closely related to stress (Vazi et al, 2011)
Summary
Problem statementKey focus The link between poor psychological health and stress in the working population is well documented (Kyriacou & Sutcliffe, 1978, 1979; Stansfeld, Fuhrer, Head, Ferrie & Shipley, 1997; Tennant, 2001). South Africa needs to continue searching for solutions to the problem of teacher stress; otherwise, teacher absence as a result of psychological problems might increase further. This would reduce available teaching time and learning outcomes. There is a scarcity of studies on Ryff’s (1989a, 1989b) psychological and Diener’s (2000) subjective wellbeing factors in the teaching environment and their potential role as protective factors against teacher stress. No studies were found reporting on Ryff’s psychological or Diener’s (2000) subjective wellbeing as possible protective factors in teacher stress in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa
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