Teacher Stress, Resilience, and Experience: A Correlational Study

The teaching profession is one of the most critical, yet challenging occupations. The purpose of this dissertation was to identify and articulate the importance of the study exploring the teaching occupation and stress. Specifically, the purpose of the quantitative study was to explore the relationship between self-report educator stress, self-report of resilience, and years of teaching experience. The minimum sample size, determined by a priori power analysis, was 67; however, there were 68 participants in the study. Participants included current, public school educators ages 18 and older licensed to teach in South Carolina. Data collection was completed through three self-report measures (demographics, Teacher Stress Scale, and the Current Experience Scale). The findings of the study indicated no statistically significant relationships between educator stress, resilience, and years of teaching experience; however, there was a statistically significant relationship between occupational experience and the resilience subgroups appreciation for life, personal strengths, and spiritual connectedness. Additionally, descriptive statistics indicated that many educators reported an above neutral level of stress and a moderate to good degree of resilience. Results of the study are beneficial in understanding educator stress across years of experience and resilience as an educator. Thus, the implications of the findings are relevant and should be considered by necessary stakeholders in order to construct systems and methods to better support classroom teachers and the teaching occupation, in general.