Teacher's stress: Prevalence, Sources, and consequences of Occupational Stress among Primary and Secondary School Teachers

A questionnaire survey was used to investigate the prevalence, sources, and consequences of stress among Iranian primary school teachers. Ten schools from district 4 of Tehran were randomly selected from the Iranian Ministry of Education Public School list, and from each one of these schools, 8 teachers were chosen, leaving a final sample of 80 full-time, primary school teachers. Data was collected via researcher-built questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of three sections. The first section requested individual demographic information regarding sex, age, education status and teaching experience and a series of other variables which have been considered to be an issue of concern in the teaching profession. Section two corresponded to assessment of occupational stress. Section three evaluated correlated of occupational stress. The main purposes of this study were to: 1) specify the prevalence of stress among Iranian primary school teachers at work, 2) determine the sources of work pressure perceived as most stressful by primary school teachers, and 3) pinpoint the correlated of work stress as an introductory validation procedure towards the development of a new inventory to assess Iranian teacher's stress. The results of this study revealed high levels of work stress prevalent among elementary school teachers. Significant findings were found regarding few demographic variables. The most significant sources of work stress involved a variety of aspects of the teaching profession. Factor analysis supported the multidimensional rather than unidimensional nature of teacher's work stress. Finally, the most important consequences included "dissatisfaction from job", "boredom", "occupational self-devaluation', and "apathy towards job".