Causes Of Teacher Stress

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Sources of teachers’ anxiety Occupational stress or anxiety perceived by EFL teachers in different situations generally can be explained as a complex psychological phenomenon influenced by different variables which contribute to the amount of stress teachers experience in their career. It can also vary from one individual to the other based on individual and contextual variations. Teachers’ age, marital status, tenure, gender, teaching experience, physical condition of the class, teacher's personality, students’ characteristics, rapport with administrators and students’ parents, the context, grade level of teaching, family concerns, financial status, variation in curriculum are all but some of the factors contributing to the level of anxiety …show more content…

Some scholars working in the field found no significant relationship between demographic factors like age or experience and the level of teaching stress experienced by instructors. For instance, Kyriacou and Sutcliffe (1979) in a study of 218 teachers from mixed comprehensive schools in England found no significant correlation between level of stress and age, length of experience and position held in school. Nevertheless, many others (Powell & Ferraro, 1960; Klassen and Chiu, 2010; Ameen, Guffey and Jackson, 2010) argue that personal and environmental factors contribute to the level of stress perceived by teachers. For example, married teachers face huge amounts of responsibility and take the burden of keeping a balance between their job and family affairs. The situation becomes even tenser when children are involved, especially the ones who are dependent on parental resources like financial and emotional care. A correlational based study investigating the relationship between age, marital status and the way stress is perceived, conducted by PološkiVokić (2008) revealed that marital status was among other affective factors on the perception of stress. To be more precise, married instructors suffered from higher level of occupational …show more content…

Some scientists argue that as teachers get older, they become more experienced and have more control over tense situations involved in the job. Travers (2001), for example, claims that age and experience have been connected to the experience of tense feelings in the realm of teaching. That is to say that generally highest levels of stress might be experienced by the members who recently joined to the profession (usually younger teachers). This can be in part due to the fact that they have not yet acquired the required skills and proficiency to deal with the job. Meanwhile, others have found some contradictory results indicating that younger teachers have more potential to control their stress on the job they are involved in. Daniela Veronica (2011) makes a note claiming that age of teachers and tenure have very law effects on the level of stress experienced. Although the differences were not statistically significant, she found a growth on anxiety scores in regards to age of instructors. Individuals falling into the young segment (24-35 years) of organizational adult age manifested fewer anxiety symptoms. She assumes that it can due to the fact that at this age people may able to deal with the situation more effective and mobilize themselves with ease. Furthermore, they benefit from stronger motivation in their profession. Nevertheless, ageing may bring tangible

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