Scheduled for Research Consortium Pedagogy II Poster Session, Thursday, April 27, 2006, 1:15 PM - 2:45 PM, Convention Center: Exhibit Hall Poster Area I


Occupational Stress in Korean Secondary Physical Education Teachers: Causes and Consequences

Ansu Lee1, Hoyoul Kang1 and Sung-woon Kim2, (1)Kyungpook National University, Taegu, South Korea, (2)Kyungpook National University, Taegu

Stress at work is an increasingly common feature of modern life. In an international review of teacher stress, Kyriacou (1987) indicated that the prevalence of stress among teachers has received a considerable amount of attention in countries such as Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Despite a growing and international concern about occupational stress, little attention has been focused on the phenomenon of occupational stress in Korean secondary physical education teacher. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the causes and consequences of occupational stress in Korean secondary physical education teachers when compared with classroom teachers. The participants consisted of 300 Korean secondary school teachers who attended an in-service program during the summer, 2003. The Pressure Management Indicator (PMI) was used to assess the prevalence of occupational stress in Korean secondary schoolteachers. To verify the precision of measurement obtained using the PMI, the researcher used the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A multivariate statistics and step-wise multiple regression analysis were used for data analysis. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of group (Wilks lambda = 0.639, F(24, 219) = 5.158, p =0.001). This significant overall effect was due to univariate differences on seven subscales. Three of these significant differences were for a stressor scales: workload, organizational climate, and home-work balance. Four outcome scales also exhibited significant differences: job satisfaction, energy levels, organizational security, and physical symptoms. No significant difference was found in a moderator scale. In order to determine the job stressors were served as predictors of the outcome variables, three step-wise multiple regression analyses were computed with the outcome variables for both PE and classroom teachers. Job-related stressors accounted for between 3-30 percent of the outcome variance for PE teachers, and 12-40 percent for classroom teachers. The determinants of outcome variables were generally different for the two groups. However, a common determinant of work satisfaction for both PE and classroom teachers was found. There are some following limitations in this study. First, future research on the causes and the effects of stress in school teachers should include a qualitative component to collect more in-depth information. Second, further research should consider differences between male and female teachers. This study could not address this issue due to the limited number of women.
Keyword(s): worksite

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