I hereby certify that this dissertation is my own unaided work. It has been
submitted exclusively to the University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Industrial Psychology). / Despite the increasing concerns regarding the levels of stress expenenced by teachers, and
the potential resultant effects of this stress, relatively little is known about the potential effects
of coping strategies and perceived social support in coping with teacher stressors. This study
aimed to investigate whether both general and specific ways of coping (namely, problem focused,
emotion-focused and escape-avoidance coping) heve the potential to moderate the
relationship between stressors and strain experienced by individuals within the teaching
profession. Furthermore, attempts were made to establish which of these types of coping
strategies are most effective for coping with the typical stressors faced by teaching
professionals. Similarty, this study investigated whether perceived social support has the
potential to moderate the stressor-strain relationships experienced by teachers, and examined
which types of social support (namely. perceived social support from famify, friends,
supervisors, or colleagues) have the potential to effectively moderate this relationship. The
data were collected using questionnaires, which were distributed amongst seventeen
elementary schools within the Gauteng region, The sample for this study consisted of 188
English-speaking,elementary school teachers, employed on a full-time basis. Moderated
multiple linear regressions were carried out in order to investigate whether coping strategies
and social support have the potential to moderate the stressor-strain relationships, and
analyses of variance were used to determine which of the three ways of coping (that is,
problem-focused, emotion-focused, or escape-avoidance coping) has the potential to be the
most effective for coping with teacher stressors. Generally, the use of coping strategies was
found to Significantly moderate the investigated stressor-strain relationships of teachers, while
the potential of specific ways of coping to moderate particular stressor-strain relationships
appears to be specific to the situation. Similar results were found with regards to perceived
social support. Problem-focused coping strategies were generally found to be the most
effective method for coping with a range of teacher stressors. but its efficacy was also found
to be situation-dependent. / Andrew Chakane 2018
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/24676 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Fong Chong, , Melanie. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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