Coping is crucial : exploring relations between K-12 educators and staff coping strategies, perceived stress and psychological wellbeing

Abstract

This causal comparative study explored K-12 educators’ and school staff’s self-reported levels of well-being, perceived stress, and use of coping strategies. An online survey was administered to 686 educators consisting of teachers, school administrators, professional support staff, administrative support staff and other school staff in a medium-sized schoolboard in Southern Ontario, Canada. The results show that educators reported overall low scores of wellbeing and higher levels of perceived stress as compared to the general population. Female educators reported significantly higher perceived stress than their male colleagues. A k-means cluster analysis of the educators’ coping strategies identified four unique clusters which were significantly different from each other. It was shown that participants in two of the clusters, consisting of approximately 32% of the participants in this study, used maladaptive coping strategies more frequent and that the participants in these two clusters exhibited significantly poorer wellbeing and significantly more perceived stress than their colleagues in the other two clusters. The limitations and practical implications of this study are discussed.

A Study on the Degree of Perceived Stress among Staff in Public University

“…The present study also explored the association between the mean PSS score and sociodemographic characteristics, including gender, age, education, neighborhood and household income. Regarding gender, the present study did not observe significant differences, which is inconsistent with findings from previous studies where women exhibited higher PSS scores than men, regardless of the population studied (Manaf et al, 2021;Mocny-Pachońska et al, 2020;Savage and Woloshyn, 2022). Research has consistently shown that men and women experience stress differently, with women being more susceptible to both physical and emotional problems compared to men (Mocny-Pachońska et al, 2020).…”

“…In many cases, women face challenges in balancing between work and family responsibilities. For example, female educators often experience career breaks and interruptions more frequently than male colleagues due to maternity and family care reasons (Savage and Woloshyn, 2022).…”