Job Stress and Its Predictors Among Malaysian Teachers

Abstract:

The success and competency of an education system depend on the main driver of the system. They are the teachers. Teaching is not the only profession associated with a high-stress level job. Instead, almost all other professions are.  High-stress level imposed an occupational threat to the mental and physical state of a person. Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain which results from adverse or demanding circumstances. It provides both physical and emotional effects leading to positive and negative feelings among teachers. Over the years, researchers examined issues about the stress level in the teaching profession. Researchers contended that teaching preparatory work mainly causes teachers to have a high-stress level. However, there is little evidence from the Malaysian literature concerning the stress level among school teachers.  Hence, it is obligatory to explore the factors affecting stress level among teachers in Malaysia. This study may help the researchers to diminish the gap. This study attempts to examine the relationship between variables that affect stress among school teachers in Selangor. This study adopted the quantitative method. Researchers distributed the Questionnaires among 15 secondary schools in Selangor, particularly in Petaling Utama district which totals up to 2259 teachers. The findings reveal that the independent variables are highly significant and positively associated with the dependent variable. Hence, all the hypotheses were accepted. The findings further reveal the teachers' stress awareness. Steps to be taken to keep stress under control were proposed using various stress management techniques. The measures proposed in this study include widespread stress handling program development for teachers.