Causes and Impact of Stress on Teachers ’ Productivity as Expressed by Primary School Teachers in Nigeria

The study investigated the causes and impact of stress on Teachers’ productivity as expressed by primary school teachers in Nigeria. A total 300 primary school teachers were randomly selected to form participants for the study. Four research questions formulated were directed towards issues investigated. A validated Instrument titled “Causes and Impact of Stress on Teachers Productivity Questionnaire” was administered to the participants. The survey research type was employed. Data collected were subjected to percentage analysis of variance and t-test analysis. The result revealed that majority of primary school teachers were stressed on the job and this had negative impacts on their productivity. The study revealed that lack of job satisfaction, inadequate school facilities, were major causes of stress among primary school teachers. The study also revealed that stress had negative impacts on teachers’ productivity. The study recommended the need for government to improve teachers’ conditions of service; teachers special salary scale to be implemented by government; adequate facilities should be provided in schools; establishment of counselling unit in schools to cater for both teachers and students. If the predisposing factors for stress are left unattended to, resultant consequences can have substantial effects on teachers’ productivity.


Introduction
Stress is a psychological and physiological reaction to situation that affects individual total well being.Selye (1978) defined stress as any external events or internal drive which threatened to upset the organism equilibrium.While, Kyriacou & Sutcliffe (1978) defined teacher stress as a response to negative effect such as anger or depression by a teacher, usually accompanied by potentially pathogenic, physiological and biochemical changes resulting from the aspects of the teacher's job and mediated by the perception that the demands made upon the teacher constituted a threat to his or her self-esteem or well being and by coping mechanisms activated to reduce the perceived threat.
Nowadays, many challenges faced by individual in life can produce stress.Stress has become a common issue that almost everyone has to cope with especially those who engage in intellectual activities such as teaching profession.
Teaching as a profession is a demanding job that requires highly intellectual activities however, there are various intellectual symptoms of stress that can affect people in the profession, these includes memory problem, confusion, poor judgment, lack of concentration, while the emotional symptoms can be anger, irritation, moody, and depression, all of these can have negative adverse effects on the teachers' functionality (Morgan & Kitching, 2007).
According to Hock & Roger (1996), the degree of stress which teachers experience is positively related to the degree which he/she perceives as a lack of control over a potentially threatening situation.Kyriacou & Chien (2004) found that 26 percent of the teachers reported that being a teacher was very or extremely stressful.According to Kyriacou, Kunc, Stephens, & Hultgreen (2003), higher levels of dissatisfaction with work and occupational stress have been associated with teacher performance, absenteeism and leaving the job.Kyriacou (2001) listed the main sources of stress faced by teachers as teaching pupils who lacked motivation, maintenance of discipline, time pressures and workload, coping with changes, being evaluated by others, dealing with colleagues, self-esteem and status, administration and management, role conflict and ambiguity and poor working conditions and these could also affect teachers' productivity as earlier research work had shown.
The study conducted by Ololube (2005) assessed the relationship between the level of teachers' job satisfaction, motivation and their teaching performance in Rivers State, Nigeria.The results of the survey revealed that teachers' dissatisfaction was associated with educational policies, administration, pay and fringe benefits, material rewards and advancement.Also, Lee (2006) found that the job satisfaction of Primary school teachers in Cambodia was closely associated with salary level and welfare conditions.

Statement of the Problem
In recent times, there has been an enormous increase in research into job stress.Studies have shown that stress is the cause of a number of physical and psychiatric ailments (House, 2007;Copper, 2004).Stress has been proven to hinder effectiveness at work and can lead to low performance and productivity especially in teachers, job dissatisfaction, poor motivation, absenteeism and turnover (Copper, 2002).Teachers are often exposed to high level of stress as reported by Reglin & Reitzammer (2008).
Arising from the foregoing, this paper examines the causes and impacts of stress on teachers' productivity as expressed by Primary School Teachers in Osun State.

Research Questions
Two research questions were raised to guide the study, these are: 1) What are the causes of stress among teachers as expressed by primary school teachers?2) What are the Impacts of Stress on teachers' productivity as expressed by primary school teachers?

Hypotheses
Two hypotheses were stated and tested: 1) There is no significant difference in the expression of primary school teachers on the causes of stress among teachers on the basis of gender; 2) There is no significant difference in the expression of primary school teachers on the impact of stress among teachers on the basis of gender.

Research Design
The research design adopted for this research study is the descriptive survey method which tries to collect information from a representative group and based on such sample, inferences are drawn about the opinion of the entire population.The researchers therefore, adopted descriptive survey research method and used questionnaire to determine the opinions of the respondents.

Population
The target population for the study comprises of primary school teachers in Osun State.The state is made up of 30 Local Government Areas.

Sample and Sampling Technique
Ten Local Government Areas were randomly selected for the study; Cluster random sampling was used in selecting 600 primary school teachers from the six Local Government Areas; teachers were stratified on the basis of gender.

Instrument
The instrument used for data collection is a researcher-constructed questionnaire titled: "Causes and Impact of Stress on Teachers' Productivity Questionnaire" (CISTPQ).The questionnaire contains 25 items designed to find out expression of primary school teachers on the causes and impacts of stress on teachers' productivity.The questionnaire is divided into three sections: section A requires the respondents' background information of gender, qualification and length of years of service.Section B consists of 15 items, on causes of stress among teachers, while, section C consists of 10 items on impacts of stress on teachers' productivity.Respondents were required to indicate their preference on a 4-point Likert type scale, viz: strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree.

Validity of the Instrument
The content validity of the measuring instrument was determined by giving the questionnaire to a panel of five experts in the field of Education.The experts made corrections and suggestions which were taken into consideration while producing the final draft of the questionnaire.The general consensus of the experts was that the instrument measures what it purports to measure and was therefore adjudged adequate for the study.

Reliability of the Instrument
Reliability of the instrument (CISTPQ) was established using a test re-test method of reliability before it was adopted.The instrument was administered twice with an interval of three weeks to the same respondents.The two sets of scores were correlated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co-efficient.A coefficient value of 0.75 was obtained.This value was adjudged high enough for the instrument usability.

Method of Data Analysis
In analyzing the data collected for this study, both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were employed.That is, frequency counts, percentages were used and t-test statistical tool was used to analyze the data collected.
Research Question 1: What are the causes of stress among teachers as expressed by primary school teachers?Table 1 shows that 96% of the primary school teachers agreed that lack of job satisfaction is the major cause of stress among teachers, the table also revealed that 88% agreed that delay in payment of salary is another major cause of stress among teachers, while 86% of respondents agreed that inadequate school facilities is the major cause of stress among the teachers.
Research Question 2: What is the Impact of Stress on teachers' productivity as expressed by primary school teachers?
Table 2 revealed that 92% of the respondents agreed that lack of commitment to work is one of the major impacts of stress on Teachers' productivity.While 90% of the respondents agreed that transferring of aggression to students is one of the major impacts of stress on Teachers' productivity, 89% of the respondents agreed that distraction at work is also one of the major impact of stress on teachers productivity.Hypotheses 1: There is no significant difference in the expression of primary school teachers on the causes of stress among teachers on the basis of gender.
Table 3 shows that there is no significant difference on the expression of male and female primary school teachers on the causes of stress among teachers.This implies that expression of primary school teachers on the causes of stress among primary school teachers are not differing based on gender.
Hypotheses 2: There is no significant difference in the expression of primary school teachers on the impact of stress among teachers on the basis of gender.
Table 4 shows that there is no significant difference on the expression of male and female primary school teachers on the impact of stress on teachers' productivity.

Discussion
This study was primarily undertaken to investigate the causes and impact of stress on teachers' productivity in order to proffer quick intervention strategies that would help the teachers' to live stress free life.Analysis of the items in the questionnaire revealed the causes and impact of stress on teachers' productivity.
The findings on Table 1 show the primary school teachers expressed lack of job satisfaction as one of the major causes of stress among teachers because the items with highest agreement leading include item 1 which sought to know if lack of job satisfaction can stimulate stress among teachers.The item has the highest mean of 3.540 which means that primary schools teachers expressed lack of job satisfaction to be major causes of stress among teachers.This is in line with findings of Ololube (2005) that teachers' dissatisfaction was associated with educational policies, administration, pay and fringe benefits, material rewards and advancement.
Items 13 stated that stress among teachers can be caused by delay in payment of salary, this item has mean of 3.310, and this means that primary school teachers expressed delay in payment of salary to be major causes of stress among teachers.This is in line with previous study of Lee (2006) which says job satisfaction of primary school teachers is closely associated with salary level and welfare conditions.
Also, the findings on Table 2 show that primary school teachers expressed lack of commitment to work as the one of the major impacts of stress on teachers' productivity because the items with highest agreement leading include item 9 which sought to know if lack of commitment to work can be due to the impact of stress on teachers.The item has the highest mean of 3.300 which means that primary school teachers agreed that stress has negative impact on teachers' productivity.The findings of this study supported the findings of Kyriacou, Kunc, Stephens, & Hultgreen (2003), that higher levels of dissatisfaction with work and occupational stress have been associated with teacher performance, absenteeism and leaving the job.
Item 3 stated that teachers' stress can lead to transferring of aggression to students.The item has the mean o 3.300 which means that primary school teachers agreed that stress can lead to transferring of aggression to students is one of the impacts of stress teachers' productivity.The study revealed no significant difference on the expression on the causes of stress among teachers on the basis of gender.The calculated t-value was less than the critical t-value, hence, there is no significant difference.Therefore, the male and female primary school teachers agreed on the causes of stress among teachers.The findings of this study corroborates the findings of Kyriacon and Chien (2004) that 26 percent of teachers reported that being a teacher was very or extremely stressful.
The study also revealed that the male and female respondents do not express the impacts of stress on teachers' productivity differently.The result may be due to the fact that they are in the profession and they are directly affected by the conditions meted out to the teachers.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions are drawn, the major causes of stress among teachers are: lack of job satisfaction; delay in payment of salary and inadequate school facilities.The major impacts of stress on teachers' productivity are: lack of commitment to work; transferring of aggression to students; and distraction at work.There was no significant difference in the expression of male and female primary school teachers on the causes and impacts of stress on teachers' productivity.

Recommendations
For teachers to discharge their duties effectively and efficiently there is need for Government to improve teachers' condition of service.Government should implement the teachers' special salary scale this will serve as motivation for them to perform their duty with sense of commitment and dedication as this would reduce the financial stress among teachers.Government should provide adequate school facilities in schools to make teachers to discharge their duties without stress, a conducive environment and well equipped classroom will aid effective teaching and learning.
The school authorities should establish counseling units where both students and teachers could be helped to deal with psychological problems associated with stress.
The Government should employ professional counselors for schools to operate or manage the counseling units.

Table 1 .
Causes of stress among teachers.

Table 2 .
Impact of stress on teachers' productivity.

Table 3 .
Means, standard deviation and t-value of the causes of stress among teachers as expressed by male and female primary school teachers.

Table 4 .
Means, standard deviation and t-value of the expression of male and female teachers on the impacts of stress on teachers' productivity.