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Feeling the Strain
An overview of the literature on
teachers’ stress
Valerie Wilson
July 2002
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Feeling the Strain
An overview of the literature on teachers’ stress
Valerie Wilson
SCRE Research Report No 109
ISBN 1 86003 068 8
Copyright © 2002 The Scottish Council for Research in Education
First published July 2002
The views expressed are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Scottish Council for
Research in Education or the funders, the Scottish Executive Education Department.
Contents
iii
Acknowledgements iv
Executive Summary v
1. Introduction 1
1.1 Background to the review 1
1.2 Aims and scope 2
1.3 Definitions 2
1.4 Search methods 2
1.5 Organisation of the review 3
2. What is stress? 4
2.1 Introduction 4
2.2 Definition of stress 4
2.3 Ways of measuring stress 6
2.4 Summary 7
3. What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching? 8
3.1 Introduction 8
3.2 What causes stress? 8
3.3 What causes teachers to be stressed? 9
3.4 What are the effects? 11
3.5 Summary 13
4. How does teaching compare with other professions? 14
4.1 Introduction 14
4.2 Proxy measures 14
4.3 Available evidence 15
4.4 Summary 17
5. What does the Scottish evidence tell us? 18
5.1 Introduction 18
5.2 Evidence of need in Scotland 18
5.3 Recent developments 20
5.4 Summary 20
6. How do teachers cope? 22
6.1 Introduction 22
6.2 Direct action 22
6.3 Palliative approaches 24
6.4 Summary 26
7. Conclusions 27
7.1 Introduction 27
7.2 Conclusions 27
7.3 Suggestions 29
References30
Appendix 1: Search Strategy 33
Acknowledgements
iv
The reviewer would like to acknowledge the work undertaken b y
Margaret Johnstone, whose reviews of stress in teaching were published b y
SCRE in 1989 and 1993. The current review builds upon these. In addition,
thanks are also owed to Jon Lewin, Information Officer at SCRE, who searched
several databases for relevant published literature.
The views expressed in this review are those of the author and not those of
SCRE.
Executive Summary
v
The Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the
Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) to review the literature of
research on teacher stress. The review was conducted very quickly during
February 2002. Two previous studies of teacher stress had been published b y
SCRE: one in 1989 and a second in 1993. This current review updates these by
inputting findings mainly from British studies published during the past ten
years.
Aims and findings
The main aim is to review the published literature on stress in teaching, its
impact and comparison with other professions. A summary of the questions
addressed during the review and the main findings are presented below.
What is stress?
• Stress was originally defined as a neutral general adaptive syndrome of the
human body to demands.
• Increasingly it has acquired a negative connotation, implying excessive
demand or pressure.
• It is difficult to distinguish stress from its causes and effects.
• Three explanatory models of stress have been developed to help us
understand the concept of stress, based on engineering, medical and inter-
active principles. The first two models assume that teachers are subjects
rather than actors in their own destiny; in contrast the third is predicated on
shared responsibility for situations which may give rise to occupational
stress.
• Ways of measuring teachers’ stress levels have relied heavily on information
gained from self-report scales and inventories; more recently log books,
diaries and observations have been used to supplement them. However,
research based upon tests of physiological changes have rarely been
conducted outside laboratories.
What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching?
It is now generally accepted that stress is a multidimensional and multi-level
phenomenon which is influenced by personal, situational or structural factors.
Specifically:
• Studies of occupational stress indicate that workload and communications
are significant causes.
• Anticipation, worry, helplessness and executive roles have all emerged from
laboratory studies as psychological factors which influence stress.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
vi
• Several writers concur in finding that pupils’ behaviour (misbehaviour),
poor working conditions, especially relationships with colleagues,
workload, mainly overload, and poor school ethos are the major causes of
teacher stress.
• There is considerable evidence, mainly from self-reports, that teachers feel
ill as a consequence of excessive stress. However, available absence and
retirals statistics are not sufficiently specific to support this connection.
• Despite the widely reported feeling of teachers’ disenchantment with their
profession and the desire for early retirement, research has not explored
whether this has had a direct impact on pupils.
How does teaching compare with other professions?
It is possible to make some tentative comparisons between teaching and other
professions. The main points to emerge are that:
• Absenteeism and early retirals from the teaching profession can act as
proxy measures of stress. However, both are under-developed sources of
information.
• Teacher retiral rates have declined over the past decade in Scottish schools
but this may not reflect a true demand. A study in England indicates that
‘psychiatric’ is the largest single cause of teachers’ early retirals.
• The TUC suggests that employees in Britain work on average more hours
per week than workers in the rest of Europe. In addition, a higher
proportion of their safety representatives report that teaching is stressful,
second only to the banking and finance industry.
• There are few studies which have compared teachers’ stress to that
experienced by other professionals. However, two studies in Scotland
indicate that teachers’ levels were within the norm for the Occupational
Stress Index.
What does the Scottish evidence tell us?
From the fourteen Scottish references identified, we conclude that:
• Few studies of teacher stress in Scotland have been commissioned. The
exceptions are the previous SCRE reviews upon which this current one
builds, and two surveys of teachers’ workload. All were completed b y
SCRE researchers.
• In 2001 a support service to help stressed teachers was launched in
Scotland by the Teachers’ Benevolent Fund. The Fund operates a similar
service in England paid for by the DfES. There appears to be an absence of
research demonstrating the need or demand for such a service in Scotland.
• The most relevant Scottish research on teachers’ stress in Scotland is
provided by two SCRE studies funded by the EIS. Both show that teachers
perceive their workload to be increasing.
Executive Summary
vii
• Some illuminative evidence of the potentially adverse impact of educational
innovation on Scottish teachers emerges from a number of other research
studies conducted by SCRE. Two in particular report that teachers believe
there are now more demands on their time which leads some to feel more
stressed.
How do teachers cope with stress?
Some evidence of the way teachers cope with stress was discovered.
• The general advice for helping teachers cope with stress is to develop
realistic, positive attitudes and good physical health.
• In practice teachers have adopted a range of coping strategies: most tend to
be palliative as by and large teachers feel they are unable to address the root
causes of their occupational stress. Some strategies may be ineffective or
dysfunctional.
• Some recommend that programmes of behavioural therapy or counselling
services may help teachers cope with stress. But these are largely
unevaluated, labour intensive and unlikely to become widely available.
• More recently, ‘time-out’ sabbaticals and counselling have become available
to teachers in England. But again these are likely to be taken up by only a
small percentage of teachers.
• More optimistically, some researchers suggest that the movement towards
self-reflection helps protect teachers from stress.
Finally, areas which merit further investigation are proposed.
1: Introduction
1
1.1 Background to the review
In 1989 the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) published a
review of stress in teaching (Johnstone, 1989) as a contribution to its
Practitioner Mini Paper series. Four years later the review was updated
(Johnstone, 1993a) and a separate study of teachers’ workload and associated
stress (Johnstone, 1993b) undertaken by SCRE for the Educational Institute of
Scotland. Even then, in 1993, Kyriacou and Harriman (1993) were claiming that
as a consequence of the volume of research undertaken, ‘we now have a clear
idea of the major sources of stress facing teachers, the most common symptoms
of stress, how teachers typically try to cope with stress, and how schools can
reduce levels of stress’ (p.297). Since those publications in the early 1990s,
interest in occupational stress in general and teacher stress in particular have
grown amongst researchers, policy makers, employers, teachers and their
professional associations.
Three examples of this concern will set the context for this current review. First
at a UK level, the Trades Union Congress (TUC, 2000) has called upon the
Health and Safety Executive to recognise that stress is a major workplace hazard
by drawing up standards for tackling excessive workloads, low staffing levels
and long hours, all of which it believes contribute to employee stress. And in
addition, 7 November 2001 was designated a National Stress Awareness Day,
during which stress-management events were planned, including seminars to
help people deal with stress in the work place.
Second, turning specifically to the teaching profession, the Teachers’
Benevolent Fund has recently supported the establishment of Teacher Support
Scotland, as an equivalent service to the one provided by the Teacher Support
Network in England. The service was launched in Scotland at a symposium held
in Dunblane on 11 December 2001 at which representatives of the Association
of Directors of Education, the Educational Institute of Scotland, the Catholic
Education Commission and the former registrar of the General Teaching Council
for Scotland welcomed the initiative.
And finally at the tenth meeting of the Council of the General Teaching Council
for Scotland, which by coincidence was held on National Stress Day (GTC
Minute, 7/11/2001) the Registrar outlined the challenges which faced the new
Council. He highlighted the need for the Council to develop ‘an extension of the
Council’s powers into the area of competence and ill-health’ in its role as
‘guardian and protector of the profession and the professionalism of teachers’.
This is a clear indication that teacher ill-health, including stress, has become an
issue of concern, worthy of further exploration.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
2
1.2 Aims and scope
The overall aim of the review is to report on literature published during the past
ten years in the UK on the level of teacher stress, its impact and comparison
with other professions.
Six research questions have been applied to the literature. They are:
• What is stress?
• What are the accepted causes of teacher stress?
• How prevalent is stress in teaching compared to other professions?
• What are the effects of stress on teachers as individuals, and on pupils and
schools?
• What does the Scottish evidence tell us?
• How do teachers cope?
1.3 Definitions
As was pointed out in previous SCRE reviews of stress (Johnstone, 1989,
1993a, 1993b), stress has been construed in different ways. Originally it was
defined in neutral terms as the human body’s non-specific physiological
response to any demand (Selye, 1956). However, increasingly it has acquired
negative overtones implying excessive pressure, perceived threat or overload and
inability to cope. In addition, stress, its symptoms and how to measure them
have been conflated in ways which are far from helpful. These will be explored
further in Chapter 2.
1.4 Search methods
In previous SCRE reviews (Harlen & Malcolm, 1997), we utilised the concept
of ‘best evidence synthesis’ which Slavin (1990) borrowed from the law
profession and applied to reviewing educational research. It requires the
reviewer to identify criteria for determining good quality research and to place
more emphasis on those studies which match the criteria than those which have
identifiable shortcomings. While recognising the need to establish criteria for the
inclusion of research findings in this review, the short timescale in which it was
undertaken has imposed its own constraints.
One of the researchers cited in this review (Kyriacou, 2001) alludes to the large
body of research on the topic of teacher stress. In an initial search of the British
Education Index 133 references were found but very few refer specifically to the
teaching profession in Scotland or include reference to Scottish teachers within
larger UK studies. This, as we will see later, presents us with some difficulties
extrapolating results from other educational systems.
The criteria for inclusion of studies in this review are as follows:
• Studies concerned primarily with stress of primary and secondary school
teachers
Introduction
3
• Studies undertaken within the UK
• Reports of research published within the past ten years which add t o
previous SCRE reviews
• Where possible, reports which have been published in peer-reviewed
journals. Exceptions are made for conference papers which appear to be
relevant but where evidence of peer reviewing is absent.
In an attempt to focus on research evidence, newspaper articles and policy
documents have largely been excluded.
A description of the search procedure is presented in Appendix 1.
1.5 Organisation of the review
The published literature identified during this current review has been organised
by research question. It is presented in seven sections of which this introduction
is the first and in which we present the aims, research questions, definitions and
scope of the search strategy. In Chapter 2 the meaning of the word ‘stress’ is
defined in both its negative and positive connotations. Chapter 3 explores the
possible causes of teacher stress and its impact on teachers, pupils and schools.
Chapter 4 goes on to compare how stress levels in teaching compare to those in
other comparable professions. The available Scottish evidence is discussed in
Chapter 5 and how teachers cope with stress is summarised in Chapter 6. The
final chapter offers some conclusions which arise from this review and indicates
areas which merit further investigation.
2: What is stress?
4
2.1 Introduction
The aim of this section is to develop a working definition of ‘stress’ as a starting
point for an examination of the published literature on the topic. It utilises the
definitions provided in previous SCRE reviews (Johnstone, 1989, 1993a) and
considers whether the three-fold conceptualising of stress, using engineering,
medical or pressure models, is still appropriate today. Finally, it highlights
ways in which the occurrence of stress has been measured and indicates possible
limitations of the instruments themselves.
2.2 Definition of stress
‘What is stress’ was the question posed in previous SCRE reviews (Johnstone,
1989, 1993a). At first it may seem a semantic exercise to begin a review of
stress by exploring definitions. However, as we shall see later (see Chapter 3) it
is extremely difficult both to disaggregate stress from its effects, and also to
agree instruments with which stress levels in human beings can be measured. We
also believe that without a clear definition, the reliability and validity of various
published studies on stress cannot be assessed.
In the mid-1950s Hans Selye (1956), an endocrinologist, perceived stress to be a
neutral physiological phenomenon. More specifically he defined it as a general
adaptive syndrome or non-specific response to demands placed upon the human
body. These demands could either stimulate or threaten the individual. In later
work, Selye (1974) distinguishes between ‘stress’ and ‘distress’. This was the
first definition presented in previous SCRE reviews and it is still a useful
beginning. It also accords with the derivation of the term as explained in Shorter
Oxford Dictionary on Historical Principles. In modern usage, however, stress
has come to imply the subjection of a person to force or compulsion, especially
mental pressure or by overwork, which leads to strain or mental fatigue. By
2001, Kyriacou was defining teacher stress as
the experience by teachers of unpleasant, negative emotions, such as
anger, anxiety, tension, frustration, depression, resulting from some
aspect of their work as a teacher. (p.28)
And here lies the nub of the problem. As Selye (1974) explained, humans
require sufficient pressure to encourage them to perform creatively but excessive
pressure can lead to distress and attendant feelings of oppression, harassment or
collapse. Nor can it be assumed that everyone will react uniformly to the same
demands: what may be perceived as a stimulus by some, may reduce others to
distress. Of significance here is Brimer and Reynolds’ (1993) claim that there is
no distinctive, unique concept called ‘stress’; in their view stress is a broad
heading covering a variety of different and ever-changing factors.
In earlier research, Lazarus (1976: p.47) proposed that ‘stress occurs when
there are demands on a person which tax or exceed his (sic) adjustive resources’.
This definition recognises the two components of stress: the pressure imposed
What is Stress?
5
and the adaptive resources of the individual to withstand the pressure. This
remains a useful distinction which will be illustrated further in relation to the
causes of teachers’ stress (in Chapter 3, below).
Turning specifically to stress in teaching, previous SCRE reviews (Johnstone,
1989, 1993a) drew heavily on Dunham (1984b) who proposed three ways of
defining stress. Each model has different implications for teachers and
educational managers.
The engineering model
The engineering model presents stress as the load or demand placed upon a
person which exceeds the ‘elastic limit’ of the individual’s capacity to adapt to
it. In this model, teachers are perceived to be subjects rather than actors. Some
operate in situations, such as during probation, working with children with
special educational needs or in areas of multiple deprivation, which may give
rise to demands beyond their adaptive limits.
The medical model
The medical model focuses on physiological and psychological responses, which
can arise as a consequence of stress. A plethora of symptoms, such as
depression, tension, irritability, insomnia, loss of appetite, and weight loss, are
essential components of the definition. But it is also clear that these symptoms
are not unique to stress and may be attributed to other medical conditions.
Again the teacher is portrayed as a subject to whom pressure is applied with
resultant stress.
The interactive model
This model perceives stress as interactive and situational. It recognises that on
the one hand teaching as a profession and some schools in particular may exert
pressures on teachers; while on the other, individual teachers react in different
ways and bring a variety of adaptive resources to help them cope with those
pressures. Importantly, teachers are portrayed as actors who are no longer at
the mercy of external pressures.
Of the three models, the third approach is perhaps the most helpful. It implies
that responsibility for the maintenance of acceptable levels of stress in teaching
is a two-way process. Employers have a statutory duty to ensure that the
working environment in schools does not adversely affect employees’ health;
but teachers must also apply their adaptive resources to help them cope with
the inherent pressures of their chosen profession. In addition, recent appeal
court reductions of awards for stress at work (Guardian, 2002a) have also made
it clear that employees who feel under undue pressure have a responsibility to
inform their employers.
However, it contrasts with research and media representation of stress. For
many the discussion (and hence the definition) of stress now focuses almost
exclusively on its negative aspects. Kyriacou in his numerous papers (for
example, Kyriacou and Sutcliffe, 1978a; Kyriacou, 2001) points to the negative
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
6
affective response of the teacher, ‘such as anger or depression, which is usually
accompanied by potentially pathogenic, physiological and bio-chemical changes,
such as increased heart rate or release of adrenocorticotrophic hormones into the
bloodstream’ which may arise as a consequence of various aspects of teaching
(Kyriacou & Sutcliffe, 1978a: p.2). These demands may be mediated by the
teacher’s perception of the demands, and also their individual coping
mechanisms. The positive role of sufficient stress to enhance job performance
and maintain motivation and creativity appears to have been lost in the current
debate.
.
2.3 Ways of measuring stress
The search for greater clarification of what stress is led researchers to devise
ways to measure it. For example the Occupational Stress Indicator (Cooper,
Sloan and Williams, 1988) offers a variety of self-report scales which have been
norm-referenced against samples drawn from various occupations. In the USA,
the eponymous Burnout Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1981) purports to
identify three different aspects of ‘burnout’; while the Holmes and Rahe (1967)
scale measures individual adjustment more generally to some of life’s traumatic
events, such as the death of a close relative or redundancy. All of these were
mentioned in previous SCRE reviews and are still in use today. None is
unproblematic.
The main difficulty is that most attempts to measure stress levels in teachers
have relied almost exclusively on self-report inventories unsupported by medical
tests or observational evidence. These findings are themselves open to challenge.
At the very least it would be advisable to triangulate sources of evidence in
order to increase the validly of the findings. For example, do teachers who
report high levels of stress also have high sickness and absence rates? Are their
heart and blood pressures rates elevated? Does contact with particular
‘stressors’, such as a particular class, pupil or parent, correspond with changes
in physiological conditions. Most teachers, we suspect, would consider such
methods intrusive and refuse to participate in such studies. Certainly most
studies of stress which employ multiple methods have been conducted on
volunteers in laboratory conditions, and as Fisher (1984) points out, real life is
far more complex.
Since SCRE previously reported on stress, there has been considerable
development in the use of diaries and log books to help teachers record events as
they are experienced in the classroom. Johnstone’s (1993) Teachers’ Workload
and Associated Stress study relied upon workload diaries. This method was
replicated in two more recent studies: one of participants on the Scottish
Qualification for Headship (Malcolm & Wilson, 2000); and one of teachers’
workload (Hall, Wilson & Sawyer, 2001). It would, therefore, be wrong to
dismiss self-reporting but readers should be aware of the limitations of the
method.
What is Stress?
7
2.4 Summary
In this section the question: ‘What is stress?’ was addressed. The main points
to emerge are that:
• Stress was originally defined as a neutral general adaptive syndrome or non-
specific response to demands.
• Increasingly it has acquired a negative connotation, implying excessive
demand or pressure.
• It is difficult to distinguish stress from its causes and effects.
• Three explanatory models of stress have been developed to help us
understand the concept of stress, based on engineering, medical and inter-
active principles. The first two models assume that teachers are subjects
rather than actors in their own destiny; in contrast the third is predicated on
shared responsibility for situations which may give rise to occupational
stress.
• Ways of measuring teachers’ stress levels have relied heavily on information
gained from self-report scales and inventories; more recently log books,
diaries and observations have been used to supplement them. However,
research based upon tests of physiological changes have rarely been
conducted outside laboratories.
In sum, the main problem identified in earlier SCRE research – that ‘stress’ is
difficult to define and remains open to various interpretations and measurements
– remains. In the review of research that follows, readers should remind
themselves that researchers may very well be operating with various definitions
which will significantly alter the validity, reliability and transferability of their
findings.
3: What are the causes and effects of stress
in teaching?
8
3.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter we pointed out the difficulties associated with
determining a precise definition of the term ‘stress’ and the increasingly negative
overtones it has acquired. With these difficulties in mind, we now consider the
possible causes and effects of stress; first in general, and second with respect to
the teaching profession. Finally, the role played by more recent stressors, such
as curricular innovation, school inspections and mergers, are considered.
3.2 What causes stress?
In the earlier SCRE reviews of stress (Johnstone, 1989, 1993a) psychological
factors affecting stress in general were identified. These included anticipation,
worry, feelings of helplessness and responsibility: all were cited in the literature
as either contributory or alleviating factors in laboratory experiments. The key
concepts are:
• Anticipation was found in some cases to be more stressful than the event. I t
could exacerbate stress when not accompanied by adequate coping skills
(Lazarus, 1976).
• Worry may play a significant role in alleviating stress. Fisher (1984)
provided details of the positive aspects of worrying.
• Helplessness may be less stressful than attempts to act assertively (Fisher,
1984).
• Responsibility associated with ‘executive’ roles may be more stressful than
passive roles.
Although the above provide useful pointers to the possible causes of stress,
they have been drawn largely from laboratory experiments which do not reflect
the complexities of real life.
More recently Briner (Guardian, 2002b) has attempted to clarify what he sees
as 40 years of ‘woolly thinking’ about stress by studying real situations. He
found that 14 factors were associated with occupational stress. These are:
• Workload
• Communication
• Home-work balance
• Teamworking
• Performance feedback
• Role ambiguity
• Training and development
What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching?
9
• Job insecurity
• Job design
• Management support
• Skill under-utilisation
• Effort-reward imbalance
• Tools and equipment
• Hours of work.
Outwith laboratory conditions, we see that workload (quantity, quality and
time pressures) and dealing with people are identified as the prime causes of
stress at work.
3.3 What causes teachers to be stressed?
Workload
Turning specifically to teachers’ stress, Johnstone (1989) argued that many
researchers (Kyriacou and Sutcliffe, 1977b; Kyriacou, 1980d, 1986; Dunham,
1984b) all attributed the major causes of stress to:
• Pupils’ failure to work or behave
• Poor working conditions, generally in terms of relations with colleagues
• Workload, in terms of overload, underload, or routine work
• Poor school ethos.
Some years later SCRE was still reporting that teachers perceived their job to be
stressful (Johnstone, 1993a). Job overload and workload plus little time featured
prominently in a number of different studies (Byrne, 1992; Wynne et al, 1991).
For example, Dewe (1986) found that workload consistently came top as the
most frequent problem, the most anxiety-inducing problem and the most
fatiguing problem in a study of 800 teachers in New Zealand.
Other factors have also been implicated. Poor school conditions were cited
(Schonfield, 1991) as was pupil behaviour (Borg, 1990). In relation to pupil
behaviour, a survey of Scottish schools (Johnstone, 1993b) found that repeated
minor offences were seen by teachers as more troublesome than major single
offences. The repetition of the behaviour rather than the level of the offence
caused tension and stress, according to teachers. This supports earlier research
(Lazarus, 1981) that repeated and continuous irritants can be stressful.
Just before the introduction of the Education Reform Act (1988) in England, a
national study of occupational stress amongst headteachers in the UK was
undertaken by Cooper and Kelly (1993). They concluded that primary
headteachers were experiencing higher levels of job dissatisfaction and stress
than their secondary and tertiary colleagues. The two main sources of stress
were work ‘overload’ and ‘handling relationships with staff’. The researchers
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
10
believe that stress was more prevalent in primary schools because of: a lack of
clerical support; their small size and hence lack of variety, rewards and power;
their relatively low status and the perceived less demanding nature of their job;
and the amount of teaching cover they had to provide (Chaplain, 2001: p.197).
Change
In a number of studies, change itself is implicated in teacher stress: it can be a
problem or challenge. Over a decade ago Travers and Cooper (1989) reported
that the five top sources of job pressure were all problematic changes. These
included:
• Lack of support from central government
• Constant changes within the profession
• Lack of information as to how changes are to be implemented
• Diminishing social respect for teaching
• The move towards a national curriculum.
Since this research was reported, the education system in all four home
countries has undergone considerable change and some of these structural
changes may be adding to longer-standing workload issues. Fullan (1996) argues
that structural reforms, such as devolved school management engender overload
and teachers’ stress because they are experienced by them as fragmented and
incoherent. These are problems inherent in any ‘top down’ systemic change in
which a vision of the whole may be only understood by a few in key positions.
Fullan believes that collaborative networks would give teachers more influence
over change and increase their feelings of engagement with the change.
Certainly the relationship between change and workload seems to have been
demonstrated. For example, Timperley and Robinson (2000) cite research which
shows that as local involvement in management of schools increased, the
percentage of time teachers spent in non-teaching duties rose from 42 per cent in
1971 to 56 per cent in 1990 (Campbell & Neill, 1992). This trend is confirmed
by findings from a workload survey of Scottish teachers (Hall et al, 2000) in
which 83% of respondents (N=1,014) reported that they spent more time on
records and reports than before; 69% spent more on preparation, and 43%
spent more on other non-teaching tasks. Coupled with the fact that 58% of
senior managers reported working 45 hours or more and 31% for 50 hours or
more per week, this gives a picture of the effects of change on the profession.
Raising standards
Another aspect of change which may be associated with stress is the drive to
improve school standards. No Scottish evidence could be identified, but there
was some evidence of the impact of the school inspection process in England.
Since its introduction in 1992, the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED)
system of inspection has provoked intense interest and debate regarding its
effects on schools. In 1999, the NFER undertook a study of 451 schools which
What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching?
11
had been placed under special measures as a consequence of inspection, and
compared these with 482 which had never been under special measures.
Previous research suggests that the period after inspection can be quite
traumatic and the term ‘post-OFSTED blues’ has come to describe that feeling
of exhaustion, burnout, lack of motivation and even depression which can follow
inspections (Ferguson et al, 1999a). Scanlon’s research at the NFER (Scanlon,
1999) confirms this picture. Respondents from both samples experienced some
form of ‘post-OFSTED blues’. Approximately a quarter of teachers and just
under a third of those from special measures schools described their sense of
depression and despondency after the inspection. A high proportion of teachers
in both samples reported feeling stressed most of the time during the current
school year: 43% of teachers in special measures schools and 32% of those from
schools not on special measures. Both samples reported concomitant rises in
sickness and time off work.
School merger
Finally, Kyriacou and Harrison (1993) highlight the stress which may result as a
consequence of school mergers. This is particularly relevant during periods
when school rolls are falling and many schools, especially smaller ones, may feel
vulnerable. In a qualitative study of two schools which merged, the researchers
conclude that stress was highest during the period when posts in the newly
merged school were being assigned. Uncertainty and lack of information,
coupled with the very real consequences for those involved (such as the threat
of losing their job and the likelihood of major changes in their working practices)
resulted in acute stress for those concerned. The researchers suggest that
sympathetic interviewing, adequate time for forward planning and extra
resources during the first year of merger would have helped.
In sum teachers believe that their workload has increased considerably during
the past decade, largely attributable to an increase in the paperwork now
expected of them. But as Timperley and Robinson (2000) point out increased
workload on its own is not necessarily a problem: many teachers obviously do
cope, largely by working longer hours. However, as workload is commonly
associated with increased stress, teacher burnout and low job satisfaction, it
cannot be ignored.
In the next section we examine some of its consequences.
3.4 What are the effects?
Teachers’ stress may have an impact on teachers as individuals, on the schools
in which they work and on the pupils they teach. It is also estimated to have an
economic impact on the education system in terms of lost teaching time and
additional costs of replacement teachers. Unfortunately, it is difficult to
quantify these costs because reported effects may actually be strategies to help
teachers cope and it would be unsafe to assume that those who report no
symptoms are necessarily stress free.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
12
Many researchers argue that the effects of stress in teaching fall largely on
individual teachers and result in illness and absences. Again exact quantification
is not possible. Travers and Cooper (1989) did find that 23% of their sample of
1,800 teachers reported significant illness in the past year. Those illnesses are
described as stress related; however, they also contain illnesses of a vague nature
(eg back problems) which gave the teachers ‘permission to be absent’.
The stress/illness connection is, however, disputed by some researchers.
Although claims have been made of connections between stress in life and
illness, it has been suggested that people remain quite healthy under high levels
of stress in their lives (Holahan & Moos, 1985). This has focused researchers’
attention on the relative roles of ‘buffering’ (ie what mediates the impact of
stress) and ‘hardiness’ (ie what psychological resources can teachers marshall to
hold stress within acceptable limits).
Troman (1998) describes the cost which he thinks some teachers pay by
continuing to work with increased stress levels. The consequence is chronic
strain on their personal lives. In a small-scale study of 24 teachers, he found that
teachers reporting chronic stress were often involved in break-up of marital or
personal relationships, caring for a dependent relative who was chronically ill, or
had experienced the death of a close relationship. In these circumstances it is
impossible to establish which situation (work or personal life) was causing the
most stress to the individual teacher.
The effects of stress in other than the personal sense are difficult to estimate.
Occupational stress in industry may be estimated in monetary terms in the
amount of lost production but in teaching the loss is defined in terms of the
departure of skilled teachers, impairment of teaching skills, or even premature
death. Sickness/absence, turnover/retiral rates are discussed in more detail in
Chapter 6 below. However, in general teacher turnover figures are not
illuminative; nor is information from retirees, such as exit interviews, available.
There is also little solid evidence to suggest that stressed teachers are less (or
even more) effective teachers than unstressed teachers, although it has been
argued that teachers under stress disengage from the job of teaching.
There is some evidence that stressed people make more mistakes than
unstressed people (Firth-Cozens, 1992) but this was not explored in teaching.
Given the numbers of studies in which teachers report that they are feeling
increased stress levels, it is hard to believe that this does not impact on their
interactions within the classroom. However, as most research has explored
teachers’ feelings, evidence of the possible impact on pupils is missing.
Hughes (2001) suggests that implicit in most research studies on teacher stress
is the assumption that many teachers who suffer burnout may want to retire but
for various reasons they remain in post. Demand is suppressed because, as
Troman (1998) points out, the Teachers’ Superannuation Fund has tightened up
the regulations by which teachers may take early retirement. This probably
serves to keep many teachers in post who wish to take early retirement. In
addition, the growth of intervention strategies which are directed at helping
What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching?
13
teachers ‘remain relatively “sane”, even in relatively “insane” places’ (Cooley &
Yovanoff, 1996: p.344) implies that there is a demand for such developments.
Even in 1989 before many of the current educational changes were implemented
in the UK, Smithers (1989) revealed a deeply discontented profession, with one
in three teachers feeling ‘trapped’ and wishing to ‘escape’. There is no evidence
that the situation has improved. Travers and Cooper (1996) for example, report
that 66% of their sample of teachers had actively considered leaving the
profession in the previous five years. And the situation for headteachers may be
even worse. Troman (1998) cites the National Association of Headteachers
which reports that four out of five headteachers in England are opting for early
retirement and reporting burnout in their forties. Scottish research is not
available.
3.5 Summary
It is now generally accepted that stress is a multidimensional and multi-level
phenomenon which is influenced by personal, situational and structural factors.
• Studies of occupational stress indicate that workload and communications
are significant causes.
• Anticipation, worry, helplessness and executive roles have all emerged from
laboratory studies as psychological factors which influence stress.
• Several writers concur in finding that pupils’ behaviour (misbehaviour),
poor working conditions (especially relationships with colleagues),
workload (mainly overload), and poor school ethos are the major causes of
teacher stress.
• There is considerable evidence, mainly from self-reports, that teachers feel
ill as a consequence of excessive stress. However, available absence and
retirals statistics are not sufficiently specific to support this connection.
• Despite the widely reported feeling of teachers disenchantment with their
profession and the desire for early retirement, research has not explored
whether this has had a direct impact on pupils.
4: How does teaching compare with other
professions?
14
4.1 Introduction
As there are no reliable statistics on the prevalence of stress in teaching, it is
difficult to make valid comparisons with other professions. In this section
evidence from proxy measures such as absenteeism and retirals is presented, and
also findings from the few studies which have attempted to compare stress in
teaching to that in other professions. Finally the section ends with some
tentative conclusions.
4.2 Proxy measures
Absenteeism
The amount of stress in teaching, or the number of teachers suffering from
stress, has not been, and some would argue may never be, quantified nationally.
It is, therefore, impossible to say whether stress among teachers is increasing or
how this level compares with stress in other professions. Attempts to estimate
trends are further hindered by the suspicion that available figures represent
changes in teachers’ willingness to report stress rather than any real increase in
its prevalence. However, absence rates do provide a proxy measure and a way
of comparing different professions.
In the most recent work undertaken for the DfES, Bowers and McIver (2000)
found that teachers in maintained schools lose less time from work through
illness than comparable social services staff, including social workers, staff in
day nurseries and managerial staff. Altogether, their sickness absence rates are
15% lower than other local government employees doing non-manual jobs.
Specifically:
• The average teacher loses 27% less working time than the UK average
employee, although the typical working year of the latter is longer.
• Nurses and midwives take about a third more time off work due to sickness
than do teachers.
• Central government employees, ie civil servants, lose 30% more time than
teachers due to sickness; but
• Teachers lose 6% more working time than NHS staff with similar levels of
training to teachers, eg speech and physiotherapist.
However, as Bowers and McIver (2000) point out, these absence rates are by
no means uniform across the teaching profession, nor can all absences be
attributed to stress. The average teacher in a maintained school loses 30% more
time due to illness that the average teacher in an independent school. In addition
a teacher in a maintained school is more than twice as likely to take time off for
sickness during the year than a teacher in an independent school. Undoubtedly
these figures reflect the different conditions of employment in which each
How does teaching compare with other professions?
15
operates: Pupil-teacher ratios are generally lower in independent schools and
teachers work on average 17 fewer days per year.
Goss (2001) cites private correspondence with DfES sources which suggests
that to date no accurate assessment of the cost of this teacher absenteeism has
been carried out. Attempts to do so are severely constrained by inconsistencies
in the way sickness absences are recorded both at school and education
authority levels. For example Bowers and McIver (2000) report that absences
of less than 5 days were not recorded by 5–10% of schools, while an absence of
less than a whole day was not recorded by 65% of schools. However, given a
mean annual absence from work rate of 6.4 days per full-time equivalent post
and an average teacher salary of £25,000, Goss estimates that it costs £819.20 in
wages alone per year. This compares with £636 in the food industry; £539 in
vehicle manufacture and £492 in the pharmaceutical industry. It should,
however, be remembered that these figures are based upon evidence from LEAs
in England and it would be unsafe to extrapolate to Scottish schools.
Retirals
Turning to retirals, the Teacher Workforce Planning Projections (Scottish
Executive, 2001) charts both entrants to the profession by sector/subject and
also retirals. The total number of teachers taking early retiral from education
authority schools in Scotland dropped from 294 in 1995 to 196 in 1999. These
figures may not represent a true demand and probably reflect education
authorities’ desire to restrict early retirements during periods of financial
constraint.
The number of teachers leaving posts (for any reason) fell from 3200 in 1989/90
to 1920 in 1998/99. Again these figures must be approached with caution as
they were collected during a period when the number of teachers was declining.
In addition, the Scottish Executive combines the number leaving for marriage, ill-
health or domestic reasons into one category.
Some help in understanding movements into and out of the teaching profession
is provided by Bowers and McIver (2000). In 1999, they surveyed a randomly
selected sample of 570 former teachers. Respondents were asked to classify
their illness at retirement using seven categories. As might be expected individual
illnesses often fell into more than one category. Overall, the ‘psychiatric’
category was the largest single one (57% of male and 42 % of female teachers
retired because of mental health difficulties) Using these figures the researchers
extrapolate to the teaching profession in general and argue that, depending on the
region, between 1 in 177 and 1 in 488 teachers in the 40–59 age group retire
because of mental ill-health. Again the results should be read with caution.
4.3 Available evidence
Few research studies have compared teachers stress levels with those recorded
by members of other professions. The available evidence is explored below.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
16
Pratt (1976) extracted data from the National Survey of Health and
Development cohort, ie 5000 people born in a given week in 1946. At the date
of the survey, the respondents were aged 26. They were asked whether in their
work they felt none, little, some or severe nervous stress. Of the 227 teachers in
the cohort, 61% reported some/severe stress, compared to 51% of the other
professionals. This result is consistent with other research (Griffith et al, 1999)
which indicates that younger teachers are more likely to feel stressed, perhaps
because at the beginning of their careers they have not yet learnt how to cope
with working conditions.
In their study of teachers’ workload and stress, Munn and Johnstone
(Johnstone, 1993b) compared the teachers’ scores on the various components of
their work with those of people in managerial posts. The dimensions used were
job pressure, type A behaviour (ie, aggressive, competitive, striving), locus of
control, coping strategies, job satisfaction, mental health and physical health.
The major points to emerge are that teachers are:
• Less satisfied than the general population with the factors intrinsic to the
job, the organisational climate, and home/work interface; and also
• Less satisfied with their job than are managers.
However teachers are:
• More satisfied than the general population with their career and
achievement.
• More likely than the general population to cope with stress by using social
support.
• More likely to register lower mental and physical health scores than the
general population or managers.
• More prone to type A behaviour than managers.
• More convinced that the job is controlled by someone else than are
managers.
The OSI also provides norms for other occupations, eg police officers, health
workers, water company employees, brewery workers, ambulance workers,
general practitioners, senior civil servants and university lecturers. The only
group which Munn and Johnstone found to approach the score of the teachers
on factors intrinsic to the job (mean=33.25) was general practitioners
(mean=32.48).
The overall conclusion that stress in teachers is not as prevalent as predicted
was confirmed in a more recent study. Pithers and Soden (1998) compared a
sample of 169 Scottish vocational teachers, ie lecturers in further education
colleges, with 163 Australian teachers. Although a heavy workload, lack of
resources and lack of time were common sources of occupational stress in both
How does teaching compare with other professions?
17
groups, all the strain levels remained within the ‘average’ levels when compared
with norms generated by their study and with those from OSI norms.
Further comparative evidence is provided by a survey of safety representatives
across most occupational sectors (TUC, 2000). Stress or overwork was
mentioned as the main work hazard by 82% of the representatives from the
education sector, the same percentage as from the voluntary sector. This was
more than from the health service (74%) but less than banking, finance and
insurance (86%).
The TUC also draws our attention to the ‘long hours culture’ by pointing out
that workers in the UK work longer hours than employees anywhere else in
Europe (43.6 hours compared with an EU average of 40.4). Significantly both
Johnstone (1993) and Hall et al (2000) found that Scottish teachers worked 42.5
in 1993 and 42 hours in 2000 – more than other European countries, but less
than the UK average.
4.4 Summary
Despite the paucity of reliable evidence on the prevalence of teacher stress, it is
possible to make some tentative comparisons between teaching and other
professions. The main points to emerge are summarised below:
• Absenteeism and early retirals from the teaching profession can be a proxy
measure of stress. However, both are under-developed sources of
information.
• Teacher retiral rates have declined over the past decade in Scottish schools
but this may not reflect a true demand. A study in England indicates that
‘psychiatric’ is the largest single cause of teachers’ early retirals.
• The TUC suggests that employees in Britain work on average more hours
per week than those in the rest of Europe. In addition, a higher proportion
of their safety representatives report that teaching is stressful than most
other occupational sectors, second only to the banking and finance
industry.
• There are few studies which have compared teachers’ stress to that
experienced by other professionals. However, two studies in Scotland
indicated that teachers’ stress levels were within the norm for the
Occupational Stress Index.
5: What does the Scottish evidence tell us?
18
5.1 Introduction
Approximately 900 references to teachers’ stress were identified in the course
of this review, of which only 14 referred specifically to Scotland. In this section
that Scottish evidence is summarised together with findings from other Scottish-
based research studies, which while not focusing specifically on stress, do
provide additional insights into the topic.
5.2 Evidence of need in Scotland
Of the 14 references to Scottish-based research on the ERSDAT database, most
were small-scale studies undertaken as part-fulfilment for post-graduate degrees
in education at Scottish universities. Four have been discounted because the
professional group or country was outwith our concern. These encompassed
studies of teachers in Malaysia, nurse tutors, care workers and students in
training. Of the remainder most are now dated; two are the SCRE reviews, upon
which this current review has been built, and two are surveys of teachers’
workload funded by the EIS. The evidence from these latter two will be
reported here.
In 1993, Munn and Johnstone provided a snapshot of teachers’ workload in
schools within four Scottish regional authorities (1993b). 570 teachers from
different sectors and a variety of levels of responsibility responded. These
teachers maintained a workload diary for a week and also completed an
Occupational Stress Indicator questionnaire. The response rate was 66% for the
diary and 62% for the questionnaire. Over a typical week teachers recorded an
average of 42.5 hours of work. As expected, the main elements were teaching,
preparation and marking. Meetings occupied almost as much time as paperwork
in secondary schools.
Turning specifically to stress, 93% (N=531) reported at least one occasion
when they felt stressed during the survey week. Most reported between three
and five such incidences. Significantly, the longer the hours worked, the more
stress occasions were reported. Workload was the most frequent cause of stress;
new demands, administrative tasks and planning associated with change were
also identified as stressors.
At the behest of the EIS, SCRE (Hall et al, 2000) repeated this survey but with
a larger sample. 3000 union members were asked to complete a workload diary
during one week in January 2000. There is a remarkable similarity in the results
emerging from both surveys. Teachers in the second survey worked an average
of 42 hours per week. Again teaching, preparation, planning and marking were
the main items. However, despite the actual hours recorded in their diaries, 93%
believed their workload had increased recently (71% ‘a lot’ and a further 22%
‘somewhat’). The strength of feeling is more apparent amongst those with
longer years of service; however, even relative ‘newcomers’ (ie those will less
than five years service) perceived significant increases in the past few years. If
What does Scottish evidence tell us?
19
this continues, it may impact on recruitment and retention to the profession –
already a problem in some areas.
These results are interesting because again they highlight the influence of
perceptions. Teachers in the second survey believed that their workload had
increased over the period, when in fact they continued to work the same number
of hours as was reported in 1993. The explanation may lie in the distribution of
time to job activities. The majority thought that they now spent more time on
preparation and planning (69%) and record keeping (83%) than they previously
did.
Further illumination of changes affecting teachers adversely is provided in an
evaluation of the first cohort of candidates for the Scottish Qualification for
Headship (Malcolm and Wilson, 2000). Candidates perceive that studying for
the qualification has impacted upon their working lives. On the positive side
candidates ‘reflect more often on the various skills’, ‘have a more helpful
framework within which to work’, and ‘plan work in greater depth than before’;
but this must be counterbalanced by the majority (89% on the standard route
and 83% on the accelerated route) who ‘feel under greater stress than before
SQH’.
Cryptic comments from respondents, many demonstrating the humour noted by
other researchers in this field, help us understand why:
• I have spent a lot of my time at home either reading or working on SQH –
my social life has definitely suffered!
• I have never been so busy. Were I not what I am, I’d be stressed out by
now.
• Exhausted and ill after Christmas term, time for family.
• Too many tasks, too little time.
• I am too tired to think!
• I feel I need to have some life away from work and work-related issues.
• I am also class-committed (and have a husband, daughter, dog, two cats and
a horse to feed and speak to once in a while!).
An earlier study, again from SCRE, shows the impact that a decade of
educational innovation has had on teachers’ stress, albeit a sample drawn from
small primary schools. In a study undertaken between 1996 and 1998 of all
small primary schools in Scotland (N=893), Wilson and McPake (1998)
identified the tension associated with the role of teaching headteacher during
periods of multiple policy innovation. As in the workload survey (Hall et al,
2000) reported above, small school headteachers perceived an increase in the
pace of change. One pointed out:
Although I agree with the philosophy [of 5–14] … there is simply not
enough time to cover all the targets. TIME, TIME, TIME – there is not
enough hours in the day
(Headteacher, 19 pupil school)
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
20
Significantly, small school headteachers indicated that informal discussions with
other headteachers is their first source of support – hence confirming the
important of social support systems as a way of mediating stress (see Chapter
7 below). Informal meetings also served to overcome headteachers’ feelings of
isolation which were not necessarily associated with geographical remoteness in
island and rural areas.
Finally, another article (Pithers & Soden, 1998) which compared stress in a
sample of vocational teachers in Scotland and Australia was located. Although
the respondents in both countries were lecturers in further education rather than
teachers in the compulsory education sector, the results are interesting. The
similarities in overall stress levels of the two groups far outweighed any national
differences, with role overload identified as the strongest source of occupational
stress. Again findings from other research are reinforced in the main conclusion
that individual personal resources play a large part in mitigating the effects of
increased workload.
5.3 Recent developments
The most significant recent development related to teacher stress in Scotland has
been the creation of a Teacher Support Scotland agency. It was launched at a
symposium in Dunblane in December 2001 (TES, 14/12/2001) and welcomed
by influential figures in Scottish education, such as the president of the
Association of Directors of Education and the former registrar of the General
Teaching Council.
The agency’s parent organisation, Teacher Support Network, operates Teacher-
line, a 24 hour confidential counselling service in England which is staffed by
accredited counsellors. This service is free to the user because it is funded by a
grant from the DfES to the Teachers’ Benevolent Fund. Teacher-line reports
taking 13,000 calls a year which is three per cent of all teachers in England
(TBF, 2000). The agency now intends to commission research to assess the
need for, and the extent of, support services in Scotland.
Patrick Nash the chief executive of the Network, reported that it was branching
out into ‘well-being programmes’ in which school staff in eight education
authorities in England would be encouraged to take a proactive approach to their
welfare. It is interesting here to note that Griffith et al (1999) found that ‘active
planning’ did not significantly predict lower stress levels in teachers. The
researchers suggest that as many teachers perceive active planning to be a part
of the normal work of a competent teachers, they would not see it as deliberate
coping strategy for stress reduction.
5.4 Summary
Little evidence relating specifically to teacher stress in Scotland was identified
during the course of this review (only 14 of 897 references). Of these most refer
to small-scale studies completed in the late 1980s and early 1990s as part-
What does Scottish evidence tell us?
21
fulfilment of post-graduate degrees in education. The main conclusions we draw
are:
• Few studies of teacher stress in Scotland have been commissioned. The
exceptions are the previous SCRE reviews upon which this current one
builds, and two surveys of teachers’ workload. All were completed by
SCRE researchers.
• In 2001 a support service to help stressed teachers was launched in
Scotland by the Teachers’ Benevolent Fund. The Fund operates a similar
service in England paid for by the DfES. There appears to be an absence of
research demonstrating the need or demand for such a service in Scotland.
• The most relevant Scottish research on teachers’ stress in Scotland is
provided by two SCRE studies funded by the EIS. Both show that teachers
perceive their workload to be increasing.
• Some illuminative evidence of the potentially adverse impact of educational
innovation on Scottish teachers does emerge from a number of other
research studies conducted by SCRE. Two in particular report that teachers
believe there are now more demands on their time which leads some to feel
more stressed.
6: How do teachers cope?
22
6.1 Introduction
A number of initiatives are aimed at helping teachers cope with the job-related
pressures which many feel have increased during the past decade. These attempt
either to address stress directly by removing or mitigating its perceived causes
or indirectly by suggesting palliative measures which teachers may take to help
them cope more effectively with potentially stressful situations. Each is
considered in turn below.
6.2 Direct action
Probably the most direct action teachers can take to mitigate their occupational
stress is to remove themselves from the situation which they think is causing
their stress. And clearly, as we have seen in Chapter 3 above, a number do this
each year either temporarily through absence or permanently by leaving the
profession. As far as we are able to tell, these number are still relatively small in
Scotland: only 196 teachers took early retirement because of ill-health in 1998–9
(SEED, 2001). The figure for stress-related retirals is not available. It is also
difficult to gain an accurate national picture of the prevalence or costs of stress-
related illness as Education Authorities are responsible for maintaining
sickness/absence records.
Direct action can also be taken by school managers. For example, we do not
know the extent to which disruptive pupils are removing from particular classes
on an ad hoc basis to give class or subject teachers a respite; nor how sets of
pupils are allocated to teachers according to their ability to cope. These are
managed at departmental/school level. In addition, teachers’ requests for transfer
within authorities may contain a percentage who feel stressed in their current
schools. There has also been increasing recognition that it may only be possible
for teachers working in areas of multiple deprivation to maintain their
motivation and enthusiasm, and possibly their health, for a limited time.
A Sabbatical Scheme for Experienced Teachers in Challenging Schools in
England was introduced by the DfES in September 2001. Challenging schools
are defined as those in which 50% or more of the pupils are eligible for free
school meals or equivalent measures in non-maintained special schools. While
the stated purpose of the sabbatical is to create opportunities for experienced
teachers to undertake a significant period of development to enhance their own
learning and effectiveness, there is an implicit recognition that working in such
schools for long periods is stressful and that time out periods will benefit not
only the individual teachers but also the pupils and the schools. The DfES is
currently commissioning a formative evaluation to help shape the programme’s
future direction. However, being realistic, even if these schemes are replicated
throughout the UK, only a small proportion of the teaching professional will
ever gain access to a ‘time-out’ programme.
How do teachers cope?
23
In contrast, the majority of teachers must develop their own strategies. When
asked what strategies they actually pursue to minimise stress, teachers are able
to provide a list of coping mechanisms (see Dunham, 1984b; Kyriacou, 1980d;
Dewe, Guest & Williams, 1979). These were summarised in previous SCRE
reviews (Johnstone, 1989, 1993a) as:
• Keep things in perspective
• Avoid confrontations
• Relax at work.
Unfortunately these strategies are so general that they could apply to almost
any work environment and probably offer little help to teachers who may be
struggling to cope with specific work situations.
Dunham (1984b) on the other hand lists ten most frequently reported strategies
taken by teachers in three English comprehensive schools. These were:
• Set aside a certain amount of time during the evening free from school-
related work
• Try to come to terms with each individual situation
• Talk over stressful situations with partner or family
• Become involved with family and friends when not at school
• Learn to say ‘no’ to unnecessary demands
• Switch off
• Be open about feelings and opinions
• More readily admit their own limits
• Accept the problem
• Talk about the problem with colleagues at school.
Again, although this research gives us a picture of what teachers say they do in
order to cope in general with perceived pressures, it lacks specificity. The
strategies are not grounded in the context of particular incidents in schools or
classes which may give rise to teachers’ stress; nor can we be sure that what
teachers say they do is actually what they do when confronted with potential
‘stressors’.
6.3 Palliative approaches
A number of researchers have pointed out that the actions teachers take to
relieve stress are essentially palliative in nature, ie they serve to relieve rather
than to ‘cure’ or remove the problem. A glance through the list of actions below
which Dunham (1984b) reports that teachers take to relieve their stress
illustrates this point: while undoubtedly teachers may feel better as a
consequence of pursuing alleviating activities, few if any address the stressful
situation directly.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
24
Meditation; jogging, relaxation; becoming more detached; listen to music;
talk to Deputy and Head; live in small community; let off steam verbally;
swimming; dance – where great concentration is needed but of a different
quality to that of school work; going out and getting drunk; taking the
pressure off by playing squash; making love; develop a sense of humour ;
seek promotion elsewhere; learning greater self-control; writing poetry;
grumbling a lot; if I could afford replacements I would probably smash a
lot of china. (Johnstone, 1989: p.33)
However as Dewe (1991) points out, this is not unexpected as there are many
problems which are difficult if not impossible for teachers to deal with directly.
These may require management intervention which may not always be
forthcoming.
A number of evaluations have been undertaken of structured attempts to help
teachers control their stress. These courses usually aim at modifying teachers
behaviour so that they learn more effective coping strategies and abandon
habitual and less effective methods. Woodhouse, Hall and Wooster (1985) claim
that by keeping a ‘stress diary’ participants are encouraged to recognise the
actual classroom or school events which are critical to their stress levels. Of the
327 ‘incidents’ logged in the pre-course diary, 187 involved pupils and 140
other staff, which may not be the balance which most of us would have
predicted. Further analysis of the incidents indicated that both sets of incidents
were of the same nature: disruption of lessons by pupils and disruption of
administrative procedures by staff. This seems to imply that it is the disruption
of planned work, leading to feelings of frustration and loss of control, which
causes teachers the most stress.
Some researchers believe that positive feelings are important in helping
employees cope with stress (Barkdoll, 1991) but that good health may also
increase hardiness (Hannah, 1988; Pierce & Molloy, 1990). In psychological
terms ‘hardiness’ is a combination of control, challenge and commitment felt b y
individuals facing stressful situations. The more positive an individual feels, the
hardier they are and by extension the more able to keep their own stress levels
within manageable limits.
More recent research funded by the Medical Research Council (Griffith et al,
1999) highlights the role of social support systems in maintaining hardiness.
Previous studies in this area had produced equivocal results. For example, Pierce
and Molloy (1996) believed that teachers with high burnout levels lacked social
support, but Sheffield et al (1994) found that social support did not affect the
impact of teacher stress on psychological well-being. In contrast, in a study of
780 teachers in 126 primary and secondary school in south London, Griffith et
al (1999) demonstrate the beneficial effects on teachers of good relationships
with co-workers and a harmonious atmosphere at work. Not only did social
support systems moderate the impact of stressors, they also affected teachers’
perceptions of stress. These psychosocial resources thus operate at an earlier
phase of the teacher’s appraisal process than had previously been recognised.
This is important because it helps to explain why teachers working in the same
How do teachers cope?
25
school may feel differential levels of stress dependent upon their individual
social support systems.
Why some coping strategies are effective and others fail miserably is still a
subject of contention. Cooper (1995), who has written extensively about stress,
observes that:
What is needed here is an appreciation that one coping strategy may be
effective in one situation but wholly inappropriate in another. To suggest
that social support strategies, for example, are effective in all situations is
to misunderstand the role of personality and coping approaches. (p.70)
And irrespective of the social support systems, some researchers claim that our
basic personality types continue to influence our ability to cope. As Pearlin and
Schooler (1978) point out:
Possessing the ‘right’ personality characteristics is somewhat more
effective in dealing with economic and job problems … psychological
characteristics … are more helpful in sustaining people facing strain
arising out of conditions over which they may have little direct control –
finances and job. (p.13)
Less is known about the relationship between personality and other defensive
coping mechanisms which teachers may employ to minimise their stress.
However, McCormick (1997) argues that higher stress perceptions were
associated with ‘immature’ defensive coping responses, such as daydreaming,
avoidance and withdrawal. And Cooper and Kelly (1993) found that teachers
using palliative strategies, such as alcohol, smoking and medication reported
greater stress arising from work overload and handling staff relationships. The
extent to which Scottish teachers resort to these measures is unknown but
Johntone (1993b) reports that one in twelve teachers in her study resorted to ‘a
glass of wine’ or ‘a stiff whisky’ as their coping strategy; while over half
(N=570) had no particular strategy.
Other palliative strategies to reduce teacher anxiety are reported in the literature.
For example, Goss (2001) suggests that workplace counselling may have a role
to play in helping teachers cope with their stress, and the Teacher Support
Network (see Chapter 2) has recently been created to offer such support to
teachers in Scotland (TES, 14/12/2001). However previous SCRE reviews found
few examples of attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of such courses. Six
studies which aimed to decrease teacher anxiety by improving their teaching
skills were cited by Coates and Thoresen (1976). Four offered relaxation and
desensitisation techniques, well-established approaches to modifying behaviour.
Two of these had no effect, one had a good effect and one affected only six
teachers in the group. Given the intensive nature of the work undertaken, it is
highly unlikely that this approach would ever be widely available to the
profession in general.
Since these earlier reviews of palliative approaches, ideas about the teaching
profession and how its members cope with stress have developed further. For
example, some (including Schonfield, 1990) believe that the movement towards
more openness and self-evaluation in schools may actually be protecting
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
26
teachers from occupational stress. Teachers who are accustomed to reflecting on
their practice, should be more able to develop positive coping strategies at work
than other professionals.
6.4 Summary
Earlier SCRE reviews were somewhat pessimistic in reporting research which
seemed to question whether teachers could deal, either directly or indirectly,
with stress.
• The general advice for helping teachers cope with stress is to develop
realistic, positive attitudes and good physical health.
• In practice teachers have adopted a range of coping strategies: most tend to
be palliative as by and large teachers feel they are unable to address the root
causes of their occupational stress. Some strategies may be ineffective or
dysfunctional.
• Some recommend that programmes of behavioural therapy or counselling
services may help teachers cope with stress. But these are largely
unevaluated, labour intensive and unlikely to become widely available.
• More recently, ‘time-out’ sabbaticals and counselling have become available
to teachers in England. But again these are likely to be taken up by only a
small percentage of teachers.
• More optimistically, some researchers suggest that the movement towards
self-reflection helps protect teachers from stress.
7: Conclusions
27
7.1 Introduction
Evidence from published literature on teachers’ stress has been explored in this
review. Despite the volume of the research identified, few Scottish studies
emerge. Most of the Scottish-based information arises from previous SCRE
reviews and teachers’ workload surveys. These were funded by the former
Scottish Office and the EIS.
7.2 Conclusions
What is stress?
It is generally accepted that stress is a multidimentional and multi-level concept.
Specifically:
• Stress was originally defined as a neutral general adaptive syndrome to
demands.
• Increasingly it has acquired a negative connotation, implying excessive
demand or pressure.
• It is difficult to distinguish stress from its causes and effects.
• Three explanatory models of stress have been developed to help us
understand the concept of stress: these are based upon engineering, medical
and inter-active principles. The first two models assume that teachers are
subjects rather than actors in their own destiny; in contrast the third is
predicated on shared responsibility for situations which may give rise to
occupational stress.
• Ways of measuring teachers’ stress levels have relied heavily on information
gained from self-report scales and inventories; more recently log books,
diaries and observations have been used to supplement them. However,
research based upon tests of physiological changes have rarely been
conducted outwith laboratory settings.
What are the causes and effects of stress in teaching?
Despite the difficulties inherent in defining stress, research indicates that its
development is influenced by personal, situational and structural factors.
• Studies of occupational stress indicate that workload and communications
are significant causes.
• Anticipation, worry, helplessness and executive roles have all emerged from
laboratory studies as psychological factors which influence stress.
• Several writers concur in finding that pupils’ behaviour (misbehaviour),
poor working conditions, especially relationships with colleagues, workload
(mainly overload) and poor school ethos are the major causes of teacher
stress.
Feeling the Strain: An Overview of the Literature on Teachers’ Stress
28
• There is considerable evidence, mainly from self-reports, that teachers feel
ill as a consequence of excessive stress. However, available absence and
retirals statistics are not sufficiently detailed to support this connection.
• Despite the widely reported feeling of teachers’ disenchantment with their
profession and the desire for early retirement, there no evidence to show
that these are impacting on pupils.
How prevalent is stress in teaching?
There is a widespread perception that teaching is a stressful job but a paucity of
reliable evidence of its prevalence. However, some tentative comparisons
between teaching and other professions can be made. These indicate that:
• Absenteeism and early retirals from the teaching profession can act as
proxy measure of stress. However, both are under-developed sources of
information.
• Teacher retiral rates have declined over the past decade in Scottish schools
but this may not reflect a true demand. A study in England indicates that
‘psychiatric’ is the largest single cause of teachers’ early retirals.
• The TUC suggests that employees in Britain work on average more hours
per week than workers in the rest of Europe. In addition, a higher
proportion of their safety representatives report that teaching is stressful,
second only to the banking and finance industry.
• There are few studies which have compared teachers’ stress to that
experienced by other professionals. However, two studies in Scotland
indicate that teachers’ levels were within the norm for the Occupational
Stress Index.
What does the Scottish evidence tell us?
From the fourteen Scottish references identified, we conclude that:
• Few studies of teacher stress in Scotland have been commissioned. The
exceptions are the previous SCRE reviews upon which this current one
builds, and two surveys of teachers’ workload. All were completed by
SCRE researchers.
• In 2001 a support service to help stressed teachers was launched in
Scotland by the Teachers’ Benevolent Fund. The Fund operates a similar
service in England paid for by the DfES. There appears to be an absence of
research demonstrating the need or demand for such a service in Scotland.
• The most relevant Scottish research on teachers’ stress in Scotland is
provided by two SCRE studies funded by the EIS. Both show that teachers
perceive their workload to be increasing.
• Some illuminative evidence of the potentially adverse impact of educational
innovation on Scottish teachers emerges from a number of other research
studies conducted by SCRE. Two in particular report that teachers believe
there are now more demands on their time which leads some to feel more
stressed.
Where do we go from here?
29
How do teachers cope with stress?
Teachers can cope by taking direct action to eliminate the causes of their stress
or by adopting palliative measures to ameliorate its effects.
• The general advice in the literature to teachers to help them cope with stress
is to develop realistic, positive attitudes and good physical health.
• In practice teachers have adopted a range of coping strategies: most tend to
be palliative as by and large teachers feel they are unable to address the root
causes of their occupational stress. Some strategies may be ineffective or
dysfunctional.
• Some researchers suggest that programmes of behavioural theory or
counselling services may help teachers cope with stress. But these are
largely unevaluated, labour intensive and unlikely to become widely
available.
• More recently, ‘time-out’ sabbaticals and counselling have become available
to teachers in England. But again these are likely to be taken up by only a
small percentage of teachers.
• More optimistically, some researchers suggest that the movement towards
self-reflection helps protect teachers from stress.
7.3 Suggestions
Finally, although this review concludes that most teachers believe their
workload has increased over the past decade and many researchers implicate
increased workload with rising levels of stress, there is clearly a need for more
information to underpin policy making. Specifically, it would help if:
• A working definition of teachers’ stress were agreed.
• Schools, education authorities and the Scottish Executive collated and
published statistics on teachers’ absence rates and reasons for early retiral.
• Education authorities undertook exit interviews with teachers who take
early retirement.
• A teacher-specific measure of occupational stress were designed. This
should be sufficiently comprehensive to incorporate job, organisational,
personality pre-disposition, and strain scales which apply to teaching and
could be used to monitor the teaching profession’s capacity to adapt to any
proposed educational changes.
• An observational study were undertaken to identify the impact of teachers’
stress on teacher/pupil interactions.
• More monitoring, in particular of the continuing impact of educational
changes on teachers’ experiences of stress, were undertaken.
• Coping strategies and interventions aimed at helping teachers and schools
reduce teacher stress were evaluated.
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Appendix 1: Search Strategy
33
A1 Databases
The following three databases were systematically searched in the course of this
review:
• ERSDAT (Educational Research in Scotland Database, maintained b y
SCRE)
• British Education Index
• ERIC (US-based education index)
A2 Keywords
The following keywords and combinations of keywords were employed in the
search:
• stress (psychological OR variables) OR burnout
• teacher(s)
• 1 AND 2
In addition the search was further limited to literature published during the past
ten years (1991–2001) as this review is essentially an update of SCRE reviews
conducted in 1989 and 1993.
A3 Results
The number of references identified in each database is displayed in the table
below:
Table A3: Number of references to stress, by database searched
Keywords ERSDAT BEI ERIC
• Stress (psychological OR variables) OR burnout 44 249 2689
• Teacher(s) 913 9268 102230
• 1 AND 2 14 133 750
As can be seen from Table A3, although there is a considerable body of
literature on ‘teacher stress’ world-wide (750 references in ERIC and 133 in the
British Education Index), few Scottish references were identified. Most of the
14 references recorded on ERSDAT are MEd dissertations presented as part-
fulfilment for degrees within Education Faculties in Universities in Scotland.
