Exploring the influence of Irish post primary teachers’ profession on their perceived stress

Research has consistently indicated that teaching is a stressful occupation with large numbers of teachers experiencing burnout (Hakanen et al. 2006). High stress is associated with poorer physical and psychological health for teachers (ibid). Higher stress levels are also associated with poorer work motivation and performance outcomes regarding teachers (Shernoff et al. 2011). Links have been made between teacher stress and teacher attrition in Ireland and internationally (Buckley et al. 2017). The levels of burnout and rates of attrition seen in newly qualified teachers in different countries has seen researchers suggest that we should be concerned about their mental health (Chaplain 2008, Chapman 2013). Researchers in Ireland have suggested that teacher stress can have personal and economic implications (Darmody and Smyth 2011). There is a scarcity of larger empirical research projects in this area relating to post primary teacher stress in the Irish context (Darmody and Smyth 2011, Buckley et al. 2017). Consequently the aim of the research was to explore the influence of Irish post primary teachers’ profession on their perceived stress. Teacher stress was explored in the context of the Job-Demands Resources Theory of Stress (J-DR) (Bakker and Demerouti 2016). The JD-R is a work stress theory (ibid). The theory is regarded as being a universally flexible model in terms of occupation and culture (ibid). The J-DR is underpinned by transactional views of stress which argue that stress is a psychologically mediated/appraised response a person has to stressors in their environment (Bakker and Demerouti 2007). The authors of the J-DR suggest that stressors known as job demands and stress buffering/work engagement factors known as job resources interact and mediate how much stress an individual experiences as a result of their work environment (Bakker and Demerouti 2016). A mixed method exploratory sequential design consisting of two distinct phases was developed to identify job demands and job resources which may influence teacher stress in Ireland. The first qualitative phase of the project involved a grounded theoretical analysis of data from 8 focus groups, comprising of 43 teachers who discussed job demands and job resources which they perceived may influence their stress. 31 variables emerged from the analysis; these were grouped within a 5 factor higher order structure including: professional efficacy, facilitating learning, department policy, management culture and social environment. The second quantitative phase of the project involved the quantitative analysis of 356 surveys from teachers in 37 schools, the surveys contained the Perceived Stress Scale, a global measure of perceived stress levels (Cohen et al. 1983), the survey also contained interval based questions relating to the job demands and job resources identified in the first phase of the research. A number of school and teacher demographic variables were also captured. 7 higher order factors emerged from the survey following a principle components analysis; a follow up regression analysis indicated that only 4 of the factors combined significantly to predict 28.5% of variance in participating teachers perceived stress scores. The factors were professional efficacy, supportive environment, expectations and department policy. Small but significant effects were also found in terms of 3 school demographic variables: governing body of school, student population and student sex. The data indicated that increased average stress scores were present for hose in voluntary secondary schools, girl’s secondary schools, finally those in schools with less than 400 students or greater than 800 students. This thesis additionally argues that when the results are considered within the context of the Irish educational system; a system underscored by high stakes standardised testing (Banks and Smyth 2015), rising accountability and the resulting artificially narrowed curriculum (Conway and Murphy 2013), a richer more critical understanding of the findings is uncovered. It is argued that tensions at the heart and soul of the Irish educational system have an omnipresent role in perpetuating the job demands and mitigating the job resources uncovered. The tensions are caused by the “backwash effect”, a result of high stakes matriculation assessment becoming the tail that wags the curriculum dog (Hargreaves 1989, Klein 2016).