JOB SATISFACTION AND STRESS COPING
SKILLS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS
Dr Bindhu CM
Selection Grade Lecturer
Farook Training College
Farook College PO,Kerala 673 63
India
&
Dr PK Sudheeshkumar
Reader
Department of Education
Kerala, India
Job satisfaction is the favorable or unfavorable subjective feeling with which
employees view their work. It results when there is congruence between job requirement ,
demands and expectations of employees. It expresses the extent of match between
employees, expectation of the job and the reward that the job provides. The factors of
physical conditions and social nature affect job satisfaction and productivity. Job
satisfaction is defined as an effective or emotional response toward various facts of one’s
job (Kreitner & Kinicki, 1998 ).
Now a days , there is a general feeling that the teachers do not have
satisfaction in their jobs. There seems to be a growing discontentment towards their job
as a result of which standards of education are falling. Teachers are dissatisfied in spite of
different plans and programmes which have been implemented to improve their job. Job
satisfaction consists of the total body of feelings-about the nature of the job promotion,
nature of supervision etc. that an individual has about his job. If the sum total of influence
of these factors give rise to feelings of satisfaction , the individual has job satisfaction.
Stress has been defined as “the state manifested by the specific syndrome,
which consists of all the non-specific induced changes in a biological system”(Selye,
1974). The causes of stress are many. Stress falls into different groups-physical,
environmental, cultural expectations and personal and social expectations. Stress affects
both physical and emotional well-being of an individual. Managing stress is more than
coping. It is learning to cope adaptively and effectively. Coping with stress is the process
of developing ways to decrease its effects and to get through difficult tasks despite the
stress coping is an ability to reduce disappointment and anxieties.
The teachers are more prone to stress because dealing with students and
causing for their better performance throughout the day is itself a stressful situation.
School is considered to be a major source of stress in the lives of both students and
teachers. Teachers work daily with students , cope with numerous interruptions, student
absenteeism, student with special needs, insufficient funding and lack of personal
support. Moreover, teachers have to perform a lot of work after they reached home like
preparation, reference, correcting the note books, valuation etc. All these indicate stress is
always present with the teacher. So teacher has to cope with these stress by adopting
certain coping skills. The general principle of coping involves change, feedback
,rehearsal , developing sensible belief, learning to use leisure time sensibly.
People cope with stress in many ways, but we can group most of them into
two major categories. In the style known as monitoring in which one attends carefully to
the stressful event or at least avoids thinking about it. Some people tend to rely more on
one style than on the other, but it is best to alternate between the two depending on
circumstances at most people do.
There are many factors, internal and external to the school environment that
causes job satisfaction and stress. An enquiry probes in to these causes is must, to find
out remedies for it. The introduction of new curriculum and workload etc. are some new
causes for stress, So naturally teachers must have ability to cope with stress to perform
effectively. So a study concerned about the job satisfaction and stress coping skills turn to
be necessary.
Objectives and Hypotheses
The major objective of the study is to find whether there is any
significant difference in Job satisfaction and Stress Coping Skills between male and
female primary school teachers or not and whether significant relationship exists
between these variables.
The following null hypotheses were formulated and tested.
1. There will be no significant difference in Job Satisfaction and Stress Coping
Skills between male and female primary school teachers.
2. There will be no significant relationship between job satisfaction and stress
coping skills of primary school teachers.
Methodology
The methodology adopted for the study as fallows.
Sample
The study was carried out on a representative sample of 500 teachers from
the primary schools of Kerala state(165 male & 335 female). Proportionate stratified
sampling technique was employed.
Tools
Two tools were used to collect data. The first one was the Scale of Job
Satisfaction by Kumar & Kumar (2001) and the second one was Stress Coping
Skills Inventory by Bindhu, Aneesh & Gulabi (2005). Both the tools are
standardized.
Scale of Job Satisfaction
This inventory consists of eight subsets such as relationship with parents and
students, pay and fringe benefits, working condition, opportunities for advancement,
personal worth, co-teachers, principal, job itself. There are 74 items in the inventory.
For each statements there are 5 options given and the respondent can mark (x) his/her
own choice in the response sheet. The final score can be calculated by adding the total
score to get the total Job satisfaction scores. Validity of the test was 0.62 and the
reliability coefficient was 0.84.
Stress Coping Skills Inventory
This inventory consists of seven components viz., reactivity to
stress, ability to relax, self reliance, Pro-active attitude, adaptability and flexibility, ability
to assess situation, resourcefulness. There are 42 items in the inventory. Subjects have to
decide how far each statement in the inventory is true in their case. Response can be
made in a three point scale as Always, Sometimes and Never. For a positive statement the
score given is 3,2 and 1. Scoring scheme is reversal for a negative statement. Reliability
of the test was 0.48and established the content validity.
Analysis and Discussion
The mean and standard deviation for Job Satisfaction and Stress Coping Skills
of the sample were calculated separately for male and female teachers, and the
significance is tested using test of significance of difference between means. Result of
the test of significance of difference between means is presented in Table-1
TABLE-I. MEANS STANDARD DEVIATIONS AND ‘t’ VALUES OF
SCORES OF JOB SATISFACTION AND STRESS COPING SKILLS OF
MALE AND FEMALE PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS.
Male
Female
N1 M1 SD N2 M2 SD
‘t’value
Level of
significance
Job
satisfaction
147
254.4626
24.456
353
259.44
24.131
2.08
0.05
Stress
coping
skills
147
99.3469
9.226
353
98.883
8.376
0.53
NS
level between male and female primary school teachers as seen in Table1. In case of
Stress Coping Skills ,no statistically significant difference is found in the differential
analysis .From the result it can be assumed that Job satisfaction is different in male and
female teachers whereas Coping skills of male and female teachers are the same.
For estimating the extent of relationship of Job satisfaction and Stress coping skills
(component wise and Total) the technique of Pearson’s Product Moment correlation was
used. The result of correlation analysis is presented in Table-2.
TABLE-2 CORRELATION OF JOB SATISFACTION WITH STRESS
COPING SKILLS (COMPONENTWISE & TOTAL SCORE) OF PRIMARY
SCHOOL TEACHERS.
Variables
correlated with
Job Satisfaction
Coefficient
of
correlation
Fishers
t
Confidence
interval
99%
Shared
variance
Levels of
Significance
Ability to Relax
0.02 0.44 1.97
-0.93
0.4 NS
Reactivity to
Stress
0.08 1.79 0.16
-0.007
0.64 NS
Ability to
Assess situation
0.07 1.57 00.15
-0.01
0.49 NS
Self reliance
0.09 2.01 0.17
-0.09
0.81 0.05
Pro-Active
attitude
0.10 2.24 0.01
-1.85
1 0.05
Resourcefulness
0.03 0.66 0.11
-0.05
0.09 NS
Adaptability &
Flexibility
0.12 2.69 0.07
-1.83
1.44 0.01
Stress Coping
skills
0.11 2.46 0.19
-0.02
1.21 0.05
NS: Not Significant
Table-2 shows that there exists significant and positive correlation
between total job satisfaction and the following stress coping skills.
1. Self reliance and Job satisfaction (0.05level)
2. Pro-active Attitude and Job Satisfaction (0.05level)
3. Adaptability and Flexibility and job Satisfaction (0.01level)
4. Stress Coping Skills-Total and Job Satisfaction (0.05 level)
The sign ‘r’ in all the four cases is positive which indicates that higher the influence of
stress coping skills, the higher the influence of job satisfaction.
The relationship obtained can be verbally interpreted as Negligible relationship between
total job satisfaction and stress coping skills such as Ability to Relax, Reactivity to Stress,
Ability to Assess Situation and Resourcefulness. The relationship between total job
satisfaction and total Stress Coping Skills is found to be as negligible.
The 99 percent confidence interval of ‘r’ suggests that the probability is 0.99 that the
population ‘r’ falls between the given limits.
The percentage of variance shared between variables are also shown in Table- 2. This
indicates that, that much percent of variance of job satisfaction is attributable to the
respective variation in each components of stress coping skills Total .The highest percent
of shared variance is for the component Adaptability and Flexibility 91.44) and the
lowest is notice for the component Resourcefulness (0.09).
Conclusion
The study reveled that Job satisfaction differentiates male and female primary school
teachers and there is positive correlation between Job satisfaction and Stress coping
skills. Based on this, some practical suggestions offered will be helpful to improve Job
satisfaction and Stress coping skills among primary school teachers. They are,
Create a supportive organizational climate
This type of climate will help to reduce job stress and thereby improve job
satisfaction among teachers. By providing better working conditions, teachers will
be more satisfied to work in the institution they are working
Enrich the design of tasks
Careful managing of task design may be an effective way to cope up with
stress. Teachers’ job can be enriched by improving job content factors such as
recognition, advancement and growth.
Reduce conflict and clarity institutional goals
To reduce role conflict the authorities should provide clear cut guidelines,
so that they will be aware of their roles and there will be no ambiguity in
understanding of what he or she is to do.
Provide guidance and counselling
Teachers should be provided proper guidance and counselling in the
organization so that they will be aware of their duties, working conditions in the schools.
By knowing this can adjust with the school conditions effectively.
A satisfied and happy teacher is very likely to exert himself, work with
enthusiasm. Likewise a dissatisfied teacher is likely to be dissatisfied in several aspects.
Hence the welfare of the teacher should be of supreme concern to the school authorities.
Thus proper environment, good working conditions, better salary will help the teachers to
have job satisfaction while working in the school.
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