Abstract:

Research reveals that teachers are among those professionals with the highest level of stress. In this study we explored teachers perception of three types of stressors defined as potentially stressful school context variables.

These were:
(1) teachers’ perception of discipline problems in their classes,
(2) teachers experiences of time pressure and workload, and
(3) teachers’ feeling that the prevailing educational values and goals at school did not fit their personal goals and values, which we term value conflict. We explored how the three stressors related to teacher self-efficacy, feeling of belonging and emotional exhaustion. We also tested how these variables predicted teacher job satisfaction and teachers’ intentions to leave the teacher profession.

The participants were 2569 Norwegian teachers in elementary and middle school. Data were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling (SEM).

The teachers’ perception of the three types of stressors predicted self-efficacy, belonging, and emotional exhaustion strongly but differently. Discipline problems predicted both teacher self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion moderately (-.17 and .23, respectively). Value conflict strongly predicted feeling of belonging (-.50), whereas time pressure was the strongest predictor of emotional exhaustion (.40).

Teacher job satisfaction was moderately to strongly predicted by teacher self-efficacy (.25), feeling of belonging (.21), and emotional exhaustion (-.42). However, job satisfaction was not directly related to discipline problems or time pressure and only weakly to value conflict (-.08). Thus, the relations between the potential stressors in the school context and teachers’ job satisfaction were mostly indirect, mediated through self-efficacy, belonging, and emotional exhaustion. Job satisfaction was negatively related to teachers’ intentions of leaving the profession (-.47). The only additional variable that was directly related to intention to quit was emotional exhaustion. All other variables were indirectly related to intention to quit, mediated through job satisfaction.

The study shows that all three types of stressors that were included in this study (discipline problems, value conflict, and time pressure) predicted teachers’ job satisfaction and intention to quit but through different processes. Thus is adds to our understanding of teacher stress and how teacher stress affects job satisfaction and possible attrition from the teaching profession.

Keywords:

Teacher stress, self-efficacy, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction.