This study intends to research the degree of job stress and teacher stress of daycare center teachers and management plan for job stress, to investigate how they differ according to the age, academic background, work experience, undertaking class, num...
This study intends to research the degree of job stress and teacher stress of daycare center teachers and management plan for job stress, to investigate how they differ according to the age, academic background, work experience, undertaking class, number of children, facility type, and marital status, and to obtain preliminary data to raise the learning effect of early childhood education.
The research problems for accomplishing purpose of this study are as follows.
Research problem 1. How does the job stress differ depending on the individual variable of daycare center teachers?
Research problem 2. How does the teacher efficacy differ according to the individual variable of daycare center teachers?
Research problem 3. How does the coping plan for job stress differ depending on the individual variables of daycare center teachers?
Research problem 4. How are the job stress, teacher efficacy, and coping plan of daycare center teachers related?
This study conducted the following process to verify such research problems.
This study conducted questionnaire on 350 teachers who worked in Seoul-si, Kangwon-do Wonju-si, and Chungbuk Chungwon-gu from March 1 to March 31, 2014 and collected total 297 copies. For questionnaire, this study evaluated and revised a questionnaire on the job stress factors of teachers developed by Clark(1980) which was later modified by D'Arienzo et al(1981) and adapted and used by Kwon Ki-Tae(1990). For the teacher efficacy scale, a Lee Boon-Ryeo(1998)'s tool which modified a measuring tool of science teaching efficacy developed by Riggs and Enochs(1990) into a measuring tool of teacher efficacy of daycare center teachers was evaluated and modified in part for the measurement. For measuring tool of the job stress coping plan, this study evaluated and measured a coping plan criterion developed by Folkman and Lazarus(1985) which was modified by Kim Jung-Hee(1987) and later revised by Park Seok-Chool(2002). The t-test and One-way ANOVA were conducted on collected data, and conducted the Pearson's correlation analysis, moderating regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis to identify the regulation effect of job stress, teacher efficacy, and coping plan of daycare center teachers.
The summarized and concluded results of suggested research problems are as follows.
First, the difference in job stress depending on the individual variable of daycare center teachers was highest in activity factors with young children, then in the order of work related factor, administrative support factor, interpersonal factor, economic stability factor, and personal related factor.
Secondly, for the difference in teacher efficacy according to the individual variable of daycare center teachers, it was identified that the job stress makes negative effect in general teacher efficacy and personal teacher efficacy.
Thirdly, for coping plan of job stress according to the individual variables of daycare center teachers, the menstruation centered measure was highest, then in the order of emotion-focused coping and problem centered measure.
Fourthly, as a result of identifying how the job stress and teacher efficacy of daycare center teachers are related, the teacher efficacy did not change according to the emotion-focused coping level when economic stress was high, but it was identified that the teacher efficacy increases when they handle situations by focusing on the emotion when economic stress is low. Therefore, the emotion-focused management was verified to be a semi-controlling variable as it can be used as a mechanism for improving the teacher efficacy during the early stage of economic stress, and when emotion-focused measurement is used for low economic stress, general teacher efficacy was high, but it was identified that when emotion-focused measurement is not used on high economic stress, the teacher efficacy was high. It was verified that the emotion-focused measure is a semicontrolling variable for general teacher efficacy as the emotion-focused measure is significant in stage 2 and stage 3. When emotion-focused measure is used on low economic stress, the individual teacher efficacy was high, but it was identified that the individual teacher efficacy was rather high when emotion-focused measure is not used for high economic stress, and it was identified that the emotion-focused measure is a pure controlling variable for general teacher efficacy as the emotion-focused measure was identified to be significant only in stage 3.
As a result of this study on the job stress and teacher efficacy of daycare center teachers and its coping plan, the job stress of daycare center teachers made negative effect in teacher efficacy and the coping plan made partial mediator effect in job stress and teacher efficacy in part.
Proposals for a follow-up study based on the results of this study are necessary.
First, more organized and systematic follow-up studies on the stress of daycare center teachers are needed, and secondly, a measuring tool according to the changing process by researching the job stress concept from psychological perspective needs to be developed. Thirdly, as the teacher efficacy of daycare center teachers make direct influence on holistic human development of children, various measures to increased the teacher efficacy of daycare center teachers are required and programs to deal their job stress need to be developed and supplied to them.