A Comparative Study of Occupational Stress among Physical Education Teachers Working in State Government, Central Government and Private Schools

‗Stress‘ word is derived from a Latin word ‗Stringere‘ meaning ‗suffering opposition‘. At present times it is mostly used as a sign of pressure, force, strain or efforts with reference to an object or person. Stress is the process that occurs in response to situations or events that disrupt or threaten one‘s psychology or physiological functioning (Sachdeva & Kaur 2013). Occupational stress often stems from unexpected responsibilities and pressures that do not support with a person's knowledge, skills, or expectations, inhibiting one's ability to cope. Occupational stress can increase when workers don‘t feel supported by supervisors or colleagues or feel as if they have little control over work processes (Roz H et al. 2016).Occupational stress or stressful working conditions have been connected to less productivity, absenteeism, and increased rates of accidents on the job and off the job(Cohen, L et al. 1964). Stress is known to cause emotional exhaustion to teachers and this leads to negative feelings toward students. A stressed Physical Education teacher who is angry will find it difficult to give holistic care to students, which makes the teacher negligent in performing duties. Occupational Stress in Physical

The purpose of the study was to identify of the factors influencing the occupational stress of physical education professionals. Another purpose of the study was to recognize and differentiate the level of occupational stress of Physical Education teachers among different types of schools (State Government, Central Government and Private).

The study was a cross sectional survey. Sixty participants were selected randomly for this study from State Government schools (West Bengal), Central Government schools (Kendriya Vidyalaya) and Private schools. All the participants were working as Physical Education teachers in different schools of West Bengal. Twenty (20) participants were randomly selected from each type of school. Minimum experience level was three years as inclusion criteria for participating in the study.

Misconception, Working Condition, On Job Relation and Personal Status. Occupational Stress Scale (English version) by Awadhesh Kumar Shirotiya and M. I. Quraishi was used to assess Occupational stress. There were five options i.e. strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree and strongly agree for each question out of total 53 questions. Before administering the test, prior permission was also taken from respondents and purpose of the study was described to them. To find significant difference among State Government, Central Government and Private Schools one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used.

Mean and standard deviation of all the six factors were calculated and presented in the table below.

These was a visible difference among State Government, Central Government schools and Private schools, to know whether the difference was significant or not One way analysis of variance was applied and results are shown in the table below. From the above table it is evident that the differences among groups were significant in all the variables except Work Dilemma. This indicates that three categories of school teachers were different from each other. Further, post hoc test was conducted to compare means of groups. As, the groups were of equal sample size, LSD test was used as post hoc. The results of post hoc test were shown in the following table.

In professional growth there was significant difference between Private with Central govt. (p=0.010) and state government and Central Government (p=0.001). In Professional Misconception there was significant difference between Private with Central Government (p=0.011). Significant difference was found between teachers of Private with State Government schools (p=0.000) and between State Government and Central Government school teachers (p=0.000) in case of working conditions. In case of Job Relation significant difference was found between Private with State Govt. (p=0.001) and State Government with Central Government (p=0.000). There was significant difference between Private with State Govt. (p=0.008) and Private with Central Government (p=0.001)in Personal Status.

Work dilemma denotes the difficulty and embarrassment PET‘s face in their day-to-day job. Work dilemma is not a sign of healthy atmosphere in ANOVA was unable to find any significant difference. So, on the basis of the study it can be concluded that PET‘s working in different types of schools don‘t experience different levels of work dilemma. Professional growth is about betterment of professional skills, opportunities for career growth, getting rewarded and recognized for good work and promotional aspects. Results of the study reveal that Central Govt. teacher‘s Professional growth was lower than both State Govt. and Private Schools teachers. Central Govt. teachers participate in more number of Workshops/ Seminars. They also get more opportunity for sports coaching and enjoy higher salary than others. All these support the fact that Central Govt. teachers should have higher ratings in professional Growth. But findings of the study are depicting a different picture. An in depth analysis of Professional growth should be conducted to discover reason behind low professional growth of Central Govt. Physical Education teachers. The dimension professional misconception tells us about the misunderstanding and misinterpretations about Physical Education subject and the problems PET‘s face due to that. Many times PET‘s are assigned works that are unprofessional and unrelated to their skills and interest. This study found that Private school Physical Education teachers suffered with professional misconceptions the most. Though there score was not significantly different from that of State Government teachers. The least sufferers of professional misconception were Central Government school teachers. Permanency of Private school teachers is least and many times they are assigned other duties than teaching. Some of the State Government school teachers who participated in the study said that they did not have playground hence they have to take other subject classes whereas Kendriya Vidyalaya are equipped with excellent facility and Physical Education is an important part of CBSE curriculum. This may the reason of varied levels of professional misconception among teachers in different settings. In this study, working condition refers to facilities available to teachers, how PET‘s are valued in their school, general well-being and satisfaction for teachers etc. Job relation is about Physical Education Teachers personal and professional relation with school colleagues. In both of these variables State Government PET‘s were significantly better than both Private and Central Government School teachers. Central Govt. teachers had the highest personal status among all types of PET‘s. It was significantly better than private school teachers though there was no significant difference between Central and State Govt. teachers. Private school PET‘s scored significantly lower than both Central and State Govt. teachers. (2006). Gender and age differences in occupational stress and professional burnout between primary and high-school teachers in Greece. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), pp. 682-690. Cohen, L., Cooper, S., & Walsh, J. (1964). Working Together. New York State Theater, 18-19. Retrieved from https://www.cwa-union.org/national-issues/health-and-safety/health-and-safety-fact-sheets/occupational-stress-and-workplace on 13th July, 2018. Hasan, A. (2014). A study of occupational stress of primary school teachers. Educationiaconfab, 3(4), pp. 11-19. Jeyaraj, S. S. (2013). Occupational stress among the teachers of the higher secondary schools in Madurai District, Tamil Nadu. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 7(5), pp. 63-79. Kyriacou, C. (1987). Teacher stress and burnout: An international review. Educational research, 29(2), pp. 146-152. Litt, M. D., & Turk, D. C. (1985). Sources of stress and dissatisfaction in experienced high school teachers. The Journal of Educational Research, 78(3), 178-185. Roz, H. K. B., Mondal, S., Podder, P., &Raval, D. T. (2016). A study on occupational stress and burnout among cardiologists: A cross- cultural perspective. Indian Journal of Health & Wellbeing, 7(3). Sachdeva, R., & Kaur, K. (2013). A study of occupational stress of secondary school teachers, Munich, GRIN Verlag, retrieved from https://www.grin.com/document/284351 on 13th July, 2018. Vishnu.Raj,R. (2017). A Study on Occupational Stress among Physical Education Teachers. International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health 2017; 4(3): 511-515 retrieved from www.kheljournal.com/archives/2017/vol4issue3/PartI/4-3... on 13 july,2018 Wu, S., Zhu, W., Wang, Z., Wang, M., & Lan, Y. (2007). Relationship between burnout and occupational stress among nurses in China. Journal of advanced nursing, 59(3), 233-239.

Physical Education Teacher, Bholananda National Academy, Kankinara, West Bengal