Stress management among secondary school teachers in Mbale municipality, Uganda

Abstract

This study aimed find out stress management among secondary school teachers in Mbale Municipality, Uganda. The study focused on various causes of stress among teachers, levels of stress among teachers, comparing stress among teachers based on demographic variables and the attendant coping mechanisms employed by the secondary school teachers in Mbale Municipality. Cross sectional survey research design was used and 205 male and female teachers were selected from 441 and were issued questionnaires. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and standard deviations were used to analyse the data on the research questions. A t-test for independent samples and MANOVA were used to analyse the data. The result showed that teachers are stressed by heavy paper or prep work, low salaries, students' indiscipline and poor working environments with low salaries as the major causes of stress among secondary school teachers. The findings of study established different level of stress among teachers with moderate (overall mean=2.49) levels of stress among secondary school teachers in Mbale Municipality. The findings of study indicate different level of stress among teachers with female teachers (F=2.44, SD=0.31) to have less stress than male teachers (M=2.58, SD=0.30).The findings also indicate that there was significant difference of the level of stress between the teachers with high academic qualifications, diploma (M = 2.5, SD = 0.4), degree (M = 2.5, 0.3) and postgraduate (M = 2.5, SD = 0.3) with those with lower qualifications (M = 3.1, SD = 0.3) in terms of their levels of stress, but there is no significant difference in level of stress based teachers’ working experience. However, the teachers cope with their stress by using mechanisms such as jogging, over eating and only minority cope with their stress by smoking or drinking. Furthermore, it was found that there is gender difference in levels of stress.in addition to this difference, the findings also revealed that educational qualifications of teachers differ statistically in terms of their level of stress. However, it was found that working experience of the teachers do not determine the stress level of the teachers as a result of non-significant difference among teachers with different working experience.it was also found that teachers secondary schools in Mbale Municipality used different coping mechanisms in reducing stress. Thus the following recommendations on coping with stress were made; salary should be increased to meet the demands of the teachers and they need to be paid promptly; incentives such as dressing allowances, transport allowances, should be given to them; schools should monitor the student’s discipline; class size to be standardized, encourage teamwork, teachers with lower qualification should be given the opportunity to further their education and counselling service should be introduced in secondary schools in Mbale Municipality.