Stress and coping in Gauteng teachers.

[摘要] Despite the increasing concerns regarding the levels of stress expenenced by teachers, andthe potential resultant effects of this stress, relatively little is known about the potential effectsof coping strategies and perceived social support in coping with teacher stressors. This studyaimed to investigate whether both general and specific ways of coping (namely, problem focused,emotion-focused and escape-avoidance coping) heve the potential to moderate therelationship between stressors and strain experienced by individuals within the teachingprofession. Furthermore, attempts were made to establish which of these types of copingstrategies are most effective for coping with the typical stressors faced by teachingprofessionals. Similarty, this study investigated whether perceived social support has thepotential to moderate the stressor-strain relationships experienced by teachers, and examinedwhich types of social support (namely. perceived social support from famify, friends,supervisors, or colleagues) have the potential to effectively moderate this relationship. Thedata were collected using questionnaires, which were distributed amongst seventeenelementary schools within the Gauteng region, The sample for this study consisted of 188English-speaking,elementary school teachers, employed on a full-time basis. Moderatedmultiple linear regressions were carried out in order to investigate whether coping strategiesand social support have the potential to moderate the stressor-strain relationships, andanalyses of variance were used to determine which of the three ways of coping (that is,problem-focused, emotion-focused, or escape-avoidance coping) has the potential to be themost effective for coping with teacher stressors. Generally, the use of coping strategies wasfound to Significantly moderate the investigated stressor-strain relationships of teachers, whilethe potential of specific ways of coping to moderate particular stressor-strain relationshipsappears to be specific to the situation. Similar results were found with regards to perceivedsocial support. Problem-focused coping strategies were generally found to be the mosteffective method for coping with a range of teacher stressors. but its efficacy was also foundto be situation-dependent.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand