The Effect of Length of Teaching Experience on Occupational Stress

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of length of teaching experience on occupational stress among school teachers. The sample consisted of 819 teachers from 40 schools. The instrument used to measure occupational stress was The Occupational Stress Index by Srivastava and Singh (1984).The findings of the study indicated experience of the teachers had significant influence over role conflict, responsibility for persons, under participation, low status, strenuous working conditions and total occupational stress. However, teachers experience did not have significant influence over role overload, role ambiguity, unreasonable group & political pressure, powerlessness, poor peer relations, intrinsic impoverishment and unprofitability. In role conflict teachers with higher experience had higher role conflict compared to teachers with lower levels of experience. Teachers with highest level of experience had maximum responsibility for persons compared to teachers with other lower levels of experience. In under participation, it was found that teachers with low levels of experience higher under participation significantly than teachers with higher levels of experience. As far as low status is considered, it was found that teachers with 15-20 years experienced significantly higher stress compared to teachers with more than 20 years of experience who experienced lesser low status

Keywords:

Length of Teaching Experience , Occupational Stress , Role Ambiguity , Role Conflict , Role over Load