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 persons 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 in
Indian 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.

Introduction
Stress is an individual inability of coping affectively to a challenge. It is an organisms response
to a stressor or stimulus. Under any stressful event, the bodys 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 teachers 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 will
then 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 unions
6. 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 the
quality 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 and
frustration 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 assistance
available, 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 teachers 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. But
cultural, 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 and
responsibilities 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 conflict
is 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 face
the 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:

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