Predicting Job Enthusiasm Based on Resiliency and Occupational Stress in Teachers of Students with Intellectual Disability

Intellectual disability is a common neuro-developmental disorder that has an adverse effect on academic achievement. Sometimes the problems of students with intellectual disabilities cause teachers to face major challenges. This issue is particularly prominent among teachers of students with intellectual disabilities. So, these problems seems to decrease job enthusiasm and resiliency in teachers of students with intellectual disabilities and sometimes increase their occupational stress. It is important to plan suitable training programs to improve job enthusiasm in teachers of students with intellectual disabilities. Undoubtedly, inappropriate job enthusiasm in these teachers lead to occupational stress. Therefore, the present study aimed to predict job enthusiasm based on resiliency and occupational stress in teachers of students with intellectual disabilities.

The present research was a descriptive-analytical study of correlational type. The statistical population included teachers of students with intellectual disabilities working in Tehran City, Iran, in 2019. The participants were 100 teachers of students with intellectual disabilities with a mean age of 34.62 years. They were selected by simple random sampling method from Pirouzi, Sadra, Rajaieyeh, Yadboud, and Taher schools in Tehran in the 2019-2020 academic year. In this sampling method, a list of all teachers of students with intellectual disabilities was provided and a code was assigned to each, and then they were selected using simple random sampling table. These teachers were from middle socio-economical class. The Job Engagement Scale (Schaufeli et al., 2002), Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), and Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow, 1998) were used for the assessment of all participants. All participants completed the three questionnaires in one stage. The inclusion criteria were as follows: willingness to participate in the research, having at least a bachelor's degree, and signing the consent form to participate in the research. The exclusion criteria were having psychiatric disorders and taking certain medications. Data analysis was done at two levels of descriptive and inferential statistics with SPSS software version 24 at a significance level of 0.05. At the level of descriptive statistics, central tendency and dispersion indices were used to examine the distribution of variables, and at the level of inferential statistics, the Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression with enter model method were used.

The findings showed that job enthusiasm has a significant and positive relationship with resiliency (r=0.42, p<0.01) and a significant and negative relationship with occupational stress (r= -0.37, p<0.01) in teachers of students with intellectual disabilities. The results of multiple regression showed that resiliency and occupational stress variables could significantly predict 22.3% of the variance of job enthusiasm in teachers of students with intellectual disabilities. Of course, the share of occupational stress in the prediction power was higher than resiliency (p < 0.001).

Based on the findings, occupational stress and resilience are effective in predicting teachers' job enthusiasm, and the contribution of occupational stress is greater than resilience. Therefore, it is suggested that counselors and therapists improve the job enthusiasm of these teachers, increase their resilience, and reduce their occupational stress.