MANAGEMENT OF ROLE STRESS AMONG THE MALAYSIAN PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

Abstract

The management of role stress is becoming more dominant issue in the career life of teachers due to various roles that teachers need to play in their job. Among the factors of role stress are role conflicts, role ambiguity and role overload. The main purpose of this research is to study the influence of selected factors such as role conflict factor, role ambiguity and role overload on role stress among the Malaysian National Primary School teachers. This study was designed by utilizing the quantitative approach. The instrument used was a questionnaire which has been adapted from various relevant researchers. A total of 150 teachers were randomly selected as respondents and the data obtained were analysed using SPSS for descriptive statistics and Smart PLS for the inferential statistics. The findings show that the level of stress was at moderate level. In addition, the findings indicate that there is a significant relationship between role conflicts (ß=0.212, t=2.640, P=0.009), role ambiguity (ß=0.219, t=2.701, P=0.007) and role overload (ß=0.372, t=4.364, P=0.000) to role stress. As a conclusion, this study demonstrates that role conflicts, role ambiguity and role overload have a major impact to the role stress of teachers in Malaysia. It is hoped that through this study, various stakeholders such as schools, the district education offices as well as the Ministry of Education will be able to assist in planning and organizing efforts to address the role stress issues in order to produce highly qualified teachers.