Stress vulnerability in the first year of teaching

ABSTRACT

Stress is increasingly being linked to teacher turnover. This study examined 1,750 first-year U.S. public school teachers’ classroom-specific appraisals of demands and resources as indices of risk for stress, which was then used to predict their career trajectories in subsequent years. Data from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative survey of U.S. teachers new to the profession in 2007–2008, tracked teacher mobility for five years. One overarching research question guided our study: Are teachers who appraise their overall classroom demands as exceeding classroom resources in their first year more likely to move schools or leave the profession in subsequent years? Using longitudinal weights, the results of bivariate and logistic regression analyses showed that group membership was associated with occupational mobility in subsequent years. These results provide evidence that new teachers’ risk for stress can be operationalized by comparing early-career teachers’ perceptions of classroom demands vis-à-vis classroom resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Stress
• teachers
• appraisal
• mobility
• attrition

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Items used to create the Demands and Resources scale in Wave 1 of the 2007–2008 SASS can be found at: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/pdf/0708/sass4a.pdf and in the Appendix below.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation [201500094].

Notes on contributors

Christopher J. McCarthy

Christopher J. McCarthy is a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. His professional specialization is in Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology and his research focuses on wellness, identification of psychological resources that prevent stress, and group counseling. Dr. McCarthy’s current scholarly focus is on researching factors that cause stress for K – 12 teachers and developing group interventions that help teachers thrive.

Paul G. Fitchett

Dr. Paul G. Fitchett is Assistant Dean for Teaching and Innovation and serves as Professor of Teacher Education in the Cato College of Education. In his current role, he leads efforts to redesign teacher education curriculum across the college’s multiple departments. Dr. Fitchett’s research interests include examining the intersections of education policy, teacher working conditions, and student learning outcomes. His expertise include survey research, secondary dataset analyses, and teacher professional development. He has co-authored 60 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Fitchett’s research has been featured in Theory & Research in Social Education, Education Policy, Teachers College Record, and Teaching and Teacher Education. Dr. Fitchett has received the Cato College of Education Excellence in Research Award three times. He currently serves as an associate editor for Theory & Research in Social Education.

Richard G. Lambert

Richard G. Lambert is a Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership in the Cato College of Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Director of the Center for Educational Measurement and Evaluation, and Editor of the Journal of Applied Educational Policy Research. His research interests include formative assessment for young children, applied statistics, and teacher stress and coping. He currently serves as the principal investigator for a grant from the North Carolina Office of Early Learning where he and colleagues are investigating the validity of a kindergarten entry assessment.

Lauren Boyle

Lauren Boyle is a fifth year doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include teacher stress and coping, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of race and racial congruence on teachers’ risk for stress.