Teacher Stress over a School Year

Abstract: Mäkinen, R. & Kinnunen, U. 1986. Teacher Stress over a School Year. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 30, 55‐70. The accumulation of and recovery from stress among teachers was studied longitudinally over a period of 14 months. Variables related to psychological state and health together with hours of work, free time and night time rest, and the quality of interpersonal relations were measured repeatedly (17 times) in a group of 187 teachers. The results indicate accumulation of stress during the autumn term with the result that weekend recovery disappears in November‐December. The Christmas, mid‐winter and Easter holidays seem to prevent stress accumulation during the spring term. As to inter‐individual differences in stress indicators, moderate concurrent correlations with time budget variables (up to .40) as well as with social relations (up to .59) were revealed. True predictive correlations from the autumn term to the spring term, however, were shown only by the quality of teacher/pupil relations.