This study aims to examine elementary school teachers' work-related stress level in association to teacher development. The investigative problems of the analysis are as follows:
First, what is the tendency of elementary school teachers' development?...
This study aims to examine elementary school teachers' work-related stress level in association to teacher development. The investigative problems of the analysis are as follows:
First, what is the tendency of elementary school teachers' development?
Second, what is the stress level like among elementary school teachers?
Third, what is the tendency of elementary school teachers in relation to the level of the teacher's stress?
To solve the above problems, this study sampled 11 elementary schools in Ulsan and conducted a survey of their 330 teachers. Excluding invalid responses, a total of 312 survey data were collected and examined.
The survey was in the form of a questionnaire created under the guidance of supervising professor. It reconstructed Jun, Sun-Shim's (2005) teacher development stage measurement questionnaire and Kim, Chung-Whi's (1992) elementary school teachers' work-related stress measurement questionnaire.
The collected survey's statistics were managed by the statistical program SPSS WIN(Statistical package for Social Science for Window) ver. 12.0.
To solve the study's problems, the average and the standard deviation was calculated. Also, to find the difference between various groups, T-Verification and F-Verification was conducted. As subsequent inspection, Scheffe Verification was administrated.
The result of this investigation can be summarized as the following:
First, overall tendency of teacher development increased highly towards growth, stability and maturity respectively. In relation to individual difference in backgrounds, male teachers tended to advance well. Moreover, a teacher's survival element was high when unmarried while intent for advancement and maturity increased when married. In addition, teachers at higher positions such as director or executive showed high scores in maturity, intent for advancement and stability while teachers in general valued survival more highly. In accordance with career history, as one's experience increased his maturity and intent for advancement also increased. Additionally, those who sought further education at a graduate school showed higher intent for advancement, maturity and stability. Furthermore, smaller schools showed higher degree of survival and career discouragement.
Second, elementary school teachers' work-related stress level factors, other than human relations, tended to be high with the average score of 3. These factors were school administration management, instructional study, guidance counselling and teaching staff executives respectively. The differences brought on by individual variances in backgrounds such as gender and education also affected these levels. For example, female teachers showed high scores in guidance counselling in general and showed high scores in teaching staff executive when married. Also, as teachers that did not receive masters degree presented higher interest in school administration management, differences in teaching instruction and school administration management surfaced depending on the teacher's career history.
Third, elementary school teachers' development stages and teachers' wok-related stress showed close and common correlation. Stress related to human relations appeared at its highest for teachers at the survival stage while it dipped to its lowest for teachers at their stability stage. Moreover, stress related to teaching staff executives reached its height when the teachers' had high intent for advancement.
These conclusions are the basis on which the following proposals are presented:
First, in the place for training and excess duties, there is a need for tasks that are systematically arranged by difficulty to aid teachers with less experience adapt well. Other ways to help may include instructional study and mentor programs for guidance counselling and general seminars to create peer concordance that would initiate opportunities for solving further problems on their own.
Second, as relative importance of female teachers in elementary schools is increasing, better training programs need to be placed to set off the expansion of the guidance counselling sector. Such is in need because counselling has been traditionally avoided by female teachers. Supplemental education and training must be added to help teachers properly understand the notion of counselling so that they can counsel their students, not discipline.
Third, because work-related stress level of teachers have significant implications, both passive and negative, programs should be provided where teachers can chose training studies and other programs that fit their needs based on their own examined development stages.