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Stress and Social Support for Teachers in Private and Government

Schools in India

Submitted By:

Group No. 3

Section-C

2014148 Harjas Singh Bakshi

2014149 Ian Aires Peres Da Costa

2014150 Jaydev Mayurkumar Sheth

2014151 Joe Thaliath

2014152 Malvika Gupta

2014153 Mankirat Bachhal

2014154 Mousumi Dey

2014155 Nidhi Kalani

2014156 Nisarg Prafulbhai Popat

2014157 Onkar Anil Desai



Abstract

A high level of work related stress is being reported by teachers across countries and in large

numbers. In this paper we attempt to determine a few causes that could be affecting stress

levels of school teachers in India. According to researches Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman,

“stress can be viewed as an interactive relationship between the person and the environment”.Negative effects of stress impact a person’s health and performance. Since teachers play a very

important role in shaping the future generations of our society, studying the role that stress can

play in their performance is important.

There are various reasons for stress in the teaching profession ranging from poor professional

training to student behavior. In this paper we are attempting to study the effects of gender,

support systems and organizational structure on the stress levels of school teachers. The

research instrument is a questionnaire of 50 questions aimed at understanding the role of the

three parameters mentioned. We have considered 110 samples for the study (so far, the aim is

to include about a 150 more samples). The sample includes primary and secondary teachers inIndian schools. Both government and private schools are included in the survey to determine

the relationship between organizational structure and stress levels.

Employing the SPSS tool and using the Regression analysis, the study indicates that female

teachers are more stressed than male teachers. It also shows that support from parents and

management helps reducing the stress. Also, married teachers faces more stress as compared

to unmarried teachers.

IntroductionStress is an individual inability of coping affectively to a challenge. It is an organism’s response

to a stressor or stimulus. Under any stressf ul event, the body’s way to respond to stress is by

sympathetic nervous system activation which results in fight-or-flight response. Occupational

stress, in particular, is the inability to cope with the pressures in a job. In this competitive era,

every educational institution is setting new goals and this in turn is adding pressure to the job

of teachers and hampering their performance. Teachers are perennially exposed to high level of

stress cutting across all cultures. Excessive workload and teaching hours, role ambiguity, poor

working conditions, overcrowded classes, uncongenial working environment, scarcity of

resources, conflicting peer relations, frequently changing curriculum, assessment and

evaluation strategies, accountability, lack of job security, lack of public esteem, meagre salaries,

indifferent students and parents behavior, lack of professional development, fatigue,

frustration, stagnation, boredom, and loss of motivation or enthusiasm and unsupportive

parents, etc. contribute towards stress in teaching.

We cannot eliminate stress but can try to manage or cope with it to an optimal level. To keep

the teacher’s at bay from stress it becomes relevant to find out ways to minimize their stress



levels. A stress free teacher can teach effectively in the class room and can provide better

quality environment and make schools a challenging and interesting center for students. There

is an urgent need to determine the level of stress that teachers are experiencing and whether it

is detrimental to their health or performance, so that they can be effectively taught stress

management and coping strategies.

Action Plan

Purpose of investigation :

The data which has been used in this study has been generated from the teachers of

different backgrounds in India. The basic purpose is to determine the magnitude and

impact of stress among the teachers teaching at different levels. The stress level may

differ with the different income levels, background, roles and responsibilities of the

teachers.

Method of Investigation :

Since the purpose was to reach out to a good number of teachers in order to determine

the different roles that stress plays in their life, a Questionnaire was circulated online.

The questionnaire contains 50 questions based on their demographics, roles and

responsibilities, monthly salary, family etc. . Various support factors are also said to

determine the level of stress experienced by different teachers across the country.

These factors include: Peer support, Society support, Superior Support. The idea was to

determine their level of understanding of their roles and responsibilities, amount of

stress they experience and the factors which help reducing this stress. The results willthen be compiled to draw conclusions.

Literature Review

Stress, which is a general term used for pressure that people are exposed to in life (Lingqi Meng

and Shujie Liu, 2007) may be defined as the individual harmony effort that the person displays

against a stimulant which has excessive psychological and physical pressure on the person.Sources of stress may be classified as individual, organizational and outside of organization or it

is possible to divide them into two groups as individual and organizational components (Dr.

Tatjana Atanasoska and Dr. Figen Eres, 2011). Organizational stress is the excess demands of

work which exceed the skills of the worker in the interaction between working conditions and

the worker (Ross and Altmaier, 1994). Teaching in India was considered to be the highest form

of professional life in the early ages. Slowly the profession has been reduced to a job opted for



as the last recourse. Most believe that teaching is a profession one succumbs to and not

chooses. Teachers in India today have no perks or benefits, no medical insurance, few

opportunities for promotions, inefficient management support, excess work load, overlapping

job roles and insufficient training. At the same time teachers are accountable to various parties’

viz. parents, board members, students and the school management. Adding to the burden is

the fact that teaching is one of the lowest paying professions in the country. For centuries,

teaching has been characterized as a profession that is “emotionally taxing and potentially

frustrating” (Timothy R. Elliott , Richard Shewchuk, 1996).

There are various factor for stress caused in the teaching profession:

1. Poor quality of professional training

2. Stress due to various channels of accountability

3. High responsibility and low rewards

4. Overlapping job roles

5. Stress from student and parent unions6. Stress due to student misbehavior

7. Stress due to poor results

As per a survey conducted by Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource

Development and published in Statistical Year Book-2014 by MoSPI, there are 27,83,757

teachers in various institutions in India.According to a survey by the ministry of human resource

and development (MHRD), 7.74 lakh teachers in government schools are untrained. There are

only 1,178 government-run institutions and 12,689 self-financed affiliated colleges running

teacher education programs (Telegraph, 29th April Sunday 2012). In order to measure thequality of teachers the government held a Central Teacher Eligibility test in CBSE in 2012 where

93% of the candidates failed. Individual stress in teachers is mostly caused due to insufficient

training to perform the work roles required and excessive pressure through various parties.

Stress and Social Support in Schools

Peer Support

Peer support is a system of giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect

shared responsibility, mutual agreement of what is helpful. It is about understanding peer

situation empathetically through shared experiences of emotional and psychological pain.



Senior Management support

The senior management play a significant role in causing or preventing stress by their behaviour

towards their staff. Higher management can make a difference between the success andfrustration of the teachers. Ideally, senior management support means truly backing a project

and the team that is implementing it. It may include: coaching the team, removing obstacles,

championing the project, and doing everything possible to ensure successful results.

Social Support

This is the support from outside the institution. Psychological and emotional support from

family and friends outside of the organization has been shown to mediate the harmful effects

of job stress. Social support can be measured as the perception that one has assistanceavailable, the actual received assistance, or the degree to which a person is integrated in a

social network.

Support from students’ parents

Research shows that students do better in school when parents talk often to teachers and

become involved in the school. Parents should be open to the stringent action taken by the

management to enforce discipline.

Factors causing Stress

1. Stress from poor performance of students

Quite often the teacher’s performance rating is loosely based on the performance of the

students. Also, for majority of the teachers job satisfaction is directly dependent on this.

2. Stress from disruptive students

Presence of disruptive students will lead to the digression of a teacher from his/her

subject. As a result he/she may be forced to take stringent actions which may be

unnecessary.



3. Stress from student-teacher disengagement

The purpose of a student-teacher relation is unhindered exchange of knowledge. A good

timely response of the students gives the true joy of satisfaction for any teacher. Butcultural, communicational and generational gaps may lead to a professional life without

any satisfaction

4. Stress from job insecurity

Teachers are employed in short term contracts minus the holiday pay which leads to the

inability to take loans. This results in job insecurity. Therise in the number of institutions

has diluted the quality and this may lead to the loss of jobs.

5. Stress from external factors ( Student Union, Political outfits)

Teachers might have to succumb to the unprofessional demands of the external political

unions and student bodies in terms of the smooth functioning of the institution and

conduct of exams. Hence, the teachers may be forced to take it up legally leading to

further distress.

Hypothesis

H1: Female teachers are more stressed out than male teachers.

H2: Married teachers experience more stress as compared to unmarried teachers.

H3: Post Graduates are less stressed than graduates.

H4: Teachers working in Government schools are less stressed than those in Private schools

Methodology

We are in the process of collecting the data from teachers across the country. We have got 121

responses, out of which only 111 was only useable. We have to define decision variables and

conduct a regression analysis to prove our hypothesis



Empirical Study Variables

Some of the important variables that appear currently in the study of

organizational stress are listed below (Pareek, 2005):

Inter-Role Distance Stress (IRDS) is the experience when there is a conflict between

organizational and non-organizational roles.

Role Stagnation Stress (RS) is the feeling of being stuck in the same role.

Role expectation stress (REC) arises out of conflicting demands originating from

colleagues i.e. superiors, subordinates and peers in the organizations.

Role Erosion Stress (RE) arises when a role occupant feels that others are performing

certain functions, which should have been a part of his role.

Role Overload Stress (RO) is the feeling that one is required to do too much in his

present role. It arises also when a person feels that rather than being integrated with

other organizational roles, his role is isolated from the mainstream of organizational life.

Role Inadequacy Stress (PI) is depicted by the absence of adequate skills, competence

and training to meet the demands of one's roles.

Self-Role Distance Stress (SRD) arises from a gap experienced between one's concept of

self and the demands of the role.

Role Ambiguity Stress (RA) is experienced when there is a lack of clarity about the

demands of the role.

Resource Inadequacy Stress (RIn) arises when the human and material resources

allocated are inadequate to meet the demands of the role.

Role Isolation Stress (RIS) arises when certain types of organizational or work related

roles isolate an individual from the rest.

Results

Data Analysis

The data were analyzed to study stress and social support for teachers in private and

government schools in India.

Table 1 presents the sample profile.



For the present study, the Cronbach's Alpha for various dimensions are shown in Table 2 and

Table 3



As the alpha values for all the dimensions are greater than 0.8, all the

subscales corresponding to 10 dimensions are good and can be used.

Factor analysis

The significance level of all the values is greater than .05 in all 10 dimensions of stress on which

factor analysis was applied.In the correlation matrix, all we want to see in this table is that the

determinant is not 0. If the determinant is 0, then there will be computational problems with

the factor analysis, and SPSS may issue a warning message or be unable to complete the factor

analysis. Also, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy is .938 (i.e. closer to

1), generally indicate that a factor analysis may be useful with the data. (Table 4)



All the Eigen value of component matrix is in the rage of -1 to +1

This makes the output easier to read by removing the clutter of low correlations that are

probably not meaningful anyway.

In the Rotated Component Matrix, we get a set of three dimensions in role stress in teachers as

we can see in Table 5.



Different Dimensions of Role Stress

Factor 1 (Heterogeneous Stress)

The person may perceive that coding (the role occupant perceives it as important) to be

performed by him/her is being performed by other. This may make the role occupant feel that

his/her role has eroded (RE). RE is a function of the role occupant's feeling that some functions,

which belong to his role, are transferred to, or performed by some other role. PI is experienced

by a role occupant when the role occupant feels that he/she does not have enough skills,

knowledge or training to undertake the role effectively. Role Ambiguity (RA) is experienced by

software professional when he/she is not clear about the various expectations that the

supervisor, peers, clients etc. have from him/her. The software professional who works in

quality analysis may consider himself/herself a better programmer than a QA which may lead to

SRD stress. Role ambiguity may be in relation to activities, responsibilities, priorities, norms or

general expectation. RA could be experienced when software professionals are assigned new

roles without adequate preparation or orientation. Assignment of new projects, roles andresponsibilities in a short time span is all pervasive in the dynamic software industry. The

success of the employee also depends on the different resources available

to him/her. Resource Inadequacy (RIn) is felt when the resources to perform the role effectively

are not available.

Factor 2 (Contingency Stress)



A software professional is loaded with work when the project is about to 'go live' or when the

project has just 'got live' and lots of bugs need to be fixed in short time interval. Also, when a

software professional is not assigned any project and hence is on the bench, he/she has no

work load. Hence we can say that the stress arising out of Role Overload (RO) is situation

specific and is therefore Contingent Stress. When a person occupies more than one role, the

conflicting demands of different roles can result in stress. . However, the magnitude of conflictis situation specific e.g. a new mother who is an executive may face high degree of conflict (and

hence IRD) between her organizational role and her familial role as a wife and a mother. So we

can say that the magnitude of inter role stress (IRD) is not the same always and is contingent on

situation. Inter-role distance (IRD) is different than RI in the sense that, IRD refers to the

distance among various roles occupied by the same individual. The combination of RO and IRD

can be termed as Contingent Stress.

Factor 3 (Role Expectation Stress)

In the absence of clarity of the role to be performed, software professionals may have to facethe conflicting demands of peers, supervisor, managers and clients and hence experience Role

Expectation Conflict (REC).

H1: Female teachers are more stressed out than male teachers.



H2: Married teachers experience more stress as compared to unmarried teachers.

H3: Post Graduates are less stressed than graduates.

H4: Teachers working in Government schools are less stressed than those in Private schools



Conclusions:



References:

1. Dr. Tatjana Atanasoska, Dr. Figen Eres. ( June 2011). Occupational Stress of

Teachers: A Comparative Study Between Turkey and Macedonia. Retrieved from:

http://www.academia.edu/772950/Occupational_Stress_of_Teachers_A_Comparati

ve_Study_Between_Turkey_and_Macedonia

2. P. Santhi, S. AKILAA (February 2013) A study on the level of stress based on gender

and course of study among D.T.Ed student teachers. Retrieved from:

http://www.ijlser.com/?page=view-article&id=17

3. Lingqi Meng, Shujie Liu (November 2007). Mathematics teacher stress in Chinese

secondary schools. Retrieved from:

http://www.ojs.unisa.edu.au/index.php/EDEQ/article/view/485/353

4. R. Ross and E. Altmaier. (January 1997). Intervention in occupational stress.

Retrieved from:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jts.2490100120/abstract

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http://www.ripublication.com/ijepa/ijepav3n1_02.pdf

6. Nancy Protheroe. (November 2006). The Principal ‘s Role in Supporting new

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Dp34.pdf

7. Timothy R. Elliott , Richard Shewchuk (1996) Occupational Burnout, Tolerance for

Stress, and Coping Among Nurses in Rehabilitation Units. Retrieved from:



8. Dr. Vipinder Nagra, Sarita Arora, International Journal of Advanced Research in

Management and Social Sciences. (2013). Occupational Stress among teachers

Retrieved from: http://www.garph.co.uk/ijarmss/aug2013/1.pdf

9. Fernandes, Christo; Tewari, Kirti (2012). Organizational Role Stress: Impact of

Manager and Peer Support. Retrieved from: http://web.b.ebscohost.com/

http://www.garph.co.uk/ijarmss/aug2013/1.pdf

http://www.garph.co.uk/ijarmss/aug2013/1.pdf

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