A Meta-Analysis of Stress in Teachers

A Meta-Analysis of Stress in Teachers

Cameron Montgomery & André A. Rupp

Faculty of Education

University of Ottawa

Organization of Presentation Background Definition of Stress Theoretical Model of Stress Theoretical Relationships with other Constructs Methods for Meta-analysis Preliminary Results Conclusion and Discussion

Definition of Stress

Stress is an interaction between a person and the environment, appraised by the

person as taxing or exceeding his or her personal resources, and, as a consequence,

disrupting daily routines.

(e.g., Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Derogatis, 1987)

Background

High teacher stress is associated with psychological distress, which is mediated through coping strategies and personality characteristics (Chan, 1998).

Specifically, poor active coping skills may lead to negative emotional responses and, subsequently, to burnout.

Background (cont.)

Researchers have used varying methods for explaining the relationships between psychological stress and other variables such as coping, personality mediators, emotional responses, environmental factors and burnout.

Stress & Coping

According to the transactional model of stress and coping, problematic events act as triggers for stressful episodes.

The different stages in coping with stressful situations are

-Primary Appraisal-Secondary Appraisal-Coping (problem-focused, emotion-

focused)

Stress & BurnoutThree components of burnout

1. Emotional exhaustion 2. Depersonalization 3. Personal accomplishment

Teachers may experience burnout as a result of stress itself, as a result of their coping mechanisms breaking down, or as a result of their coping mechanisms not being effective over a long period of time.

Stress & Personality Mediators

Personality characteristics (e.g., Type-A personality, willpower) influence the degree to which an individual seeks social support.

Thus, along with demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity), they mediate the ability to establish and maintain supportive social networks and facilitative cognitive appraisal of the stressor.

Stress & Personality Mediators (cont.)

Therefore, stress is not viewed as being exclusively due to situational or personal characteristics but to the interaction between them.

This postulate reveals that the seeking of social support and the engagement in successful coping strategies can create a virtuous circle whereby the same objective situation can begin to appear to be less demanding to the teacher.

Graphical Model of Stress

The different theoretical models of teacher stress and related constructs were used as a basis for mapping out the empirical relationships that were observed in the studies included in this meta-analysis.

Student Behavior

Background Characteristics

Personality Mediators


Personal Support

Personal Support

Environmental Structure


Emotional

Response

Passive

Coping

External

Stressors

School Structure

Workload

Colleagues

Administration

Personal Life

Active

Coping

Health Posture

Emotional Coping Cognitive Coping

Behavioral Coping

Dissatisfaction

Satisfaction

Resignation Wishful Thinking

Positively Oriented

Negatively Oriented

Student Behavior

Burnout

EE

DP

PA

Avoidance

Theoretical-empirical Model of Construct Relationships

Objectives To investigate and summarize the correlational evidence of the relationships between teacher stress and other related constructs such as

(a) active coping(b) passive coping (c) types of emotional responses(d) burnout(e) personality mediators(f) support systems(g) environmental structures, and (h) background characteristics.

Rationale

Examining recent research (i.e., 1998 and later) through a meta-analytic framework answers Guglielmi and Tatrow’s (1998) call for a shift toward more theory-based investigations that test causal models of teacher stress and health-related outcomes with more sophisticated research designs and measurement strategies.

Sampling Frame

International research databases such as ERIC, PSYINFO, SOCIOFILE.

Varied keywords such as stress, teacher, coping, burnout.

Quantitative studies either published (i.e., article, proceeding) or unpublished (i.e., master’s thesis, doctoral dissertation).

Sample

59 refereed journal articles

18 dissertations

2 conference proceedings

Research was written in English, French, German, Chinese, and Arabic and, if needed, professionally translated.

CountryNumber of Studies

Australia 4

Australia & Scotland 1

Belgium 1

Canada 5

China 2

Finland 1

Georgia 1

Germany 10

Greece 2

Hong Kong 4

Israel 1

Italy 1

Japan 4

Netherlands 3

New Zealand 2

Pennsylvania 1

Scotland 1

Singapore 2

Slovenia 1

South Africa 1

Spain 1

Sweden 2

UK 4

USA 22

USA & Jordan 1

Breakdown of studies by country of

primary data collection

Descriptive StatisticsMedian sample size = 184

(reported by n = 75 studies)

Median % of males = 39.9% (reported by n = 41 studies)

Median average age = 41.3 years (reported by n = 30 studies)

Median average number of years of experience = 16 years (reported by n = 27 studies)

Coding

After entering all bivariate relationships into a data file, variable names were recoded and regrouped using theoretically-driven labels.

This ensured a mapping of the empirically observed variable labels onto the construct labels represented in the graphical model shown earlier.

Coding (cont.)After eliminating entries with non-missing effect-size information that could not be computed by hand and eliminating partial coefficients (e.g., regression coefficients, interaction effect coefficients), we obtained 2,527 distinct effect sizes for bivariate relationships, which could be broken down as follows:

- 2,061 Pearson correlation coefficients

- 62 Spearman correlation coefficents

- 6 Pearson point-biseral correlation coefficients

- 134 independent-samples t-test statistics

- 264 F-test statistics (mostly representing t-tests)

Statistical Analysis 1. Effect-size statistics were transformed onto a correlational

metric

2. Correlation coefficients so obtained were subsequently Fisher-tranformed to the standard normal metric, which possesses more robust statistical properties.

3. Standard errors, weights, and 95% confidence intervals were computed on that metric.

4. Confidence interval boundaries were transformed back to the original correlation metric.

StressActiveCoping

PassiveCoping

EmotionalResponses

Burnout PersonalityMediators

Support EnvironmentStructure

Background

Stress 1 N = 6280K = 179

N = 1761 K = 25

N = 6254 K = 128

N = 4453 K = 124

N = 7941 K = 99

N = 5798 K = 61

N = 5166 K = 92

N = 15360 K = 133

Active Coping .2025(.1942, .2107)

1 N = 1761 K = 41

N = 3274 K = 92

N = 4217 K = 123

N = 5562 K = 77

N = 4966 K = 55

N = 2491 K = 24

N = 13358 K = 93

Passive Coping

.0751(.0475, .1025)

.1544(.1327, .2

759)

1 N = 1626 K = 17

N = 1626 K = 27

N = 1540 K = 7

N = 1540 K = 8

N = n/a K = n/a

N = 6950 K = 16

EmotionalResponses

.2512(.2413, .2611)

.0500(-.0628, .1

615)

.0950(.0611, .12

87)

1 N = 2447 K = 69

N = 5402 K = 79

N = 3910 K = 42

N = 1446 K = 18

N = 10267 K = 57

Burnout .2673(.2565, .2780)

.2685(.2575, .2

793)

.0858(.0583, .11

31)

.3977(.3846, .4106)

1 N = 4821 K = 49

N = 3700K = 39

N = 3112 K = 33

N = 12464 K = 116


.2535(.2433, .2635)

.1624(.1489, .1

760)

.1031(.0531, .15

27)

.3033(.2080, .3930)

.2746(.2600, .28

90)

1 N = 4837 K = 24

N = 2967 K = 19

N = 11667 K = 18

Support .2604(.2475, .2731)

.1503(.1355, .1

650)

.0608(.0105, .11

08)

.2671(.2495, .2844)

.2357(.2188, .25

25)

.2302(.2095, .2507

)

1 N = 549 K = 8

N = 9683 K = 28

EnvironmentStructure

.1914(.1806, .2021)

.2067(.1867, .2

265)

n/a .2772(.2488, .3052)

.1781(.1609, .19

51)

.2225(.2047, .2401

)

.3342(.2991, .36

83)

1 N = 448K = 3

Background .1120(.1035, .1205)

.0909(.0820, .0

999)

.1292(.1085, .14

97)

.0631(.0506, .0756)

.0728(.0642, .08

13)

.1199(.1037, .1361

)

.0616(.0438, .07

94)

.1400(-.0634, .3322

)

1

Notes. Values in the lower off-diagonal are average effect size statistics on a correlation metric with 95% confidence intervals underneath. Values in the upper-off diagonal are the total sample size of all independent samples (N) and the number of effect sizes on which the averages are based (K).

Results

All average correlations are statistically significant (p < .05) except for the average

correlations between active coping and emotional responses, as well as between

background characteristics and environmental structures.

Results: External stressors

External stressors are moderately correlated with burnout (r = .26), support variables (r = .26), personality mediators (r = .25), and emotional responses (r = .25).

Results: Active coping

Active coping was most strongly correlated with burnout (r = .26).

Weaker correlations were found between active coping and environmental structure (r = .20)

Results: Passive coping

In terms of passive coping, average correlations were generally low.

The construct that was most strongly correlated with passive coping was background characteristics (r = .12).

Results: Emotional responses

A high average correlation was observed between emotional responses and burnout (r = .39).

Moderate average correlations were observed between emotional responses and personality mediators (r = .30), environmental structure (r = .27), and support (r = .26).

Results: Personality mediators

Average correlations of personality mediators with other variables are moderate as shown with, for example, the average correlations between personality mediators and support (r = .23) and environmental structure (r = .22).

Results: Support variablesIn terms of support variables, average correlations were more varied depending on the related construct.

For example, while a moderate average correlation exists between support variables and environmental structure (r = .33), there is only a low correlation between support and background characteristics (r = .06) showing that the perceived support available to individual teachers does not vary systematically with background characteristics such as sex or educational level.

Results: BurnoutA strong average correlation exists between burnout and emotional responses (r = .41).

A moderate average correlation was found with personality mediators (r = .27) but a basically nonexistent average correlation was found with background characteristics (r = .07) indicating that general personality traits are more strongly affecting burnout directly than general background characteristics.

Student Behavior

Background Characteristics



Personal Support

Personal Support



Passive

Coping

External

Stressors

School Structure

Workload

Colleagues

Administration

Personal Life

Active

Coping

Health Posture

Emotional Coping Cognitive Coping

Behavioral Coping

Dissatisfaction

Satisfaction

Resignation Wishful Thinking

Positively Oriented

Negatively Oriented

Student Behavior

EE

DP

PA

Avoidance

.2025; p < .05(.1942, .2107)

.3977; p < .05(.3846, .4106)

.0751; p < .05(.0475, .1025)

.0950; p < .05(.0611, .1287)

.0500; n.s.(-.0628, 1615)

.2926; p < .05(.2775, .3076)

Burnout

Emotional

Response

Stress & Burnout

.2673; p < .05(.2565, .2780)

Selected Average Correlations in Theoretical-empirical Model

Discussion

External stressors may be moderately influencing burnout directly with support from family and other colleagues playing a mediating role with similarly moderate effects.

Emotional responses such as anxiety, depression, and disappointment are also moderately directly affected by stress or moderately affected by active coping as a mediating variable; however, they are not very much affected by passive coping mechanisms.

Discussion (cont.)

How one actively copes through exercise (i.e., through one’s health posture), through concrete behavioral strategies, and cognitive planning, and through using appropriate emotional coping mechanisms in the face of various stressors may moderately determine if one will indeed feel emotionally exhausted, depersonalized, or not accomplished.

The strongest association, generally, is between external stressors (i.e. student behavior, school structure, workload, colleagues, administration, personal life) and negatively- and postively-oriented emotional responses.

Discussion (cont.)

Discussion (cont.)

The highest average correlation observed between two constructs was between emotional responses and burnout (r = .39).

This shows that the degree in which teachers emotionally respond to stressful events and how satisfied they are as a consequence, either mediated through coping mechanisms or not, has a strong influence on the degree of burnout they experience.

Discussion (cont.)

Yet, at the same time, the degree to which one engages in active coping does not vary systematically with background characteristics and does not systematically predict directly the emotional responses to stressful events, even though these are, in themselves, moderately correlated to stressful events as a cause and burnout as a result.

Discussion (cont.)

The environmental structure and the support structure also influence quite strongly how people emotionally respond to stressful events, which, in turn, influences the degree of burnout they experience.

Emotional responses and personality mediators are closely associated suggesting that the way teachers respond to a variety of stressful situations is closely tied to the relatively stable personality traits that

mediate reponses.

Discussion (cont.) The majority of emotional responses are negatively-oriented (e.g. distress, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation).

This implies that the moderate to high average correlations between external stressors and these responses are relfective of the fact that exposure to stressful events leads to negative experiences to teachers, be they mediated through coping mechanisms or not, which, in turn, may lead to different types and magnitudes of burnout.

Discussion (cont.)

Since environmental structures and support structures also influence teachers’ emotional responses, there is evidence in the literature that primary importance should be given to the precise examination of emotional

responses within the stress cycle.

A Meta-Analysis of Stress in Teachers

Cameron Montgomery & André A. Rupp

Faculty of Education

University of Ottawa

For a copy of the paper contact [email protected] or [email protected]

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A Meta-Analysis of Stress in Teachers