Anxiety and Stress in In-service Chinese University Teachers of Arts

Abstract

As revealed by literature, anxiety and stress are complicated yet serious issues among teachers at all educational levels. Though widely studied, research on them often focuses on pre-service or primary and middle school teachers, with little research on in-service university teachers. It is especially so in China. The present study thus examined anxiety, stress and their relations with demographic variables in in-service university teachers in China. 256 teachers from various universities in China answered the Demographic Questionnaire, the Teaching Anxiety Scale and the Teacher Stress Inventory. Analyses of the data revealed the following main findings: (1) the participants were under great stress, but they were generally not so anxious about teaching, (2) teaching anxiety was generally significantly negatively correlated with age, professional title and years of teaching, while teacher stress was significantly negatively related to professional title, and (3) overall teacher stress, professional title and age were powerful predictors for teaching anxiety, while years of teaching, overall teaching anxiety and its subscales were powerful predictors for teacher stress. Based on these findings, some implications are discussed.

Teaching Anxiety and Foreign Language Anxiety Among Chinese College English Teachers

“…Although some respondents reported that anxiety could be a motivator and urged them to do better, more respondents reported it to be a debilitator, as found in studies on SL/FL learners' FLA (Horwitz et al, 1986;Liu & Xiangming, 2019;Tobias, 1979;Tum, 2014). As confided by the respondents, anxiety led to a series of bad consequences, the worst of which were bad sleep, depression, lowered devotion to teaching, lowered motivation to work, becoming nervous, bad-temper, inability to focus on something, gray hair, procrastination, sickness, and lowered confidence, as found in similar studies (Cheung & Hui, 2011;Liu & Yan, 2020;Robinson & Clay, 2005;Yazici & Altun, 2013). All these definitely affected the respondents' work and life.…”

“…The present study revealed that major causes for teaching anxiety were concern about classroom teaching, research, other work and promotion, and interest and confidence in teaching. Similar to their counterparts in other contexts (Ahmed & Julius, 2015;Desouky & Allam, 2017;Liu & Yan, 2020;Parsons, 1973;Robinson & Clay, 2005;Yazici & Altun, 2013), the participants in the present study experienced (great) anxiety due to applying for projects and funds, writing up papers, getting papers published, and getting promoted. Meanwhile, they had to face heavy teaching load and worry about the effectiveness of their teaching and selfdevelopment.…”

“…This added to their pressure and anxiety. Furthermore, lack of training and support, low salary, and low self-confidence in teaching drove some participants anxious, as happened in Parsons (1973) and Liu and Yan (2020).…”

“…With reference to Liu and Yan (2020), a six-factor solution was adopted on TAS (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin [KMO] = .867, Bartlett's test = 2.417, p = .000), with eigenvalues being 5. 895, 3.576, 3.504, 2.487, 2.066, and 1.906, respectively. Accounting for 17.865% of the total variance, Factor 1, Concern About Classroom Teaching (TAS1), included 13 items indicating concerns about classroom teaching such as classroom management, responding to students' questions, teacher-student relationship, being observed, presenting teaching, and effectiveness of teaching.…”

Relationship between sources and manifestations of stress among faculty members in Isabela State University

“…If the faculty stress would not be managed, this might be detrimental to the institution since it affects performance in the workplace. It is a challenge to ensure high-quality education when faculty in higher education can not cope with educational stress [31].…”