Abstract
Questionnaire data collected from a sample of 238 Australian teachers drawn from primary and secondary, government and non-government schools, were used to identify the factors associated with stress arising from four aspects of the teaching role: time/work-load pressures, student factors, school administration/staff tensions, and employment/community factors. About a third of the teachers reported a considerably high level of job stress. The greatest sources of stress were time and work-load pressures, which were related to being female, permanently employed, committed to teaching, and seeing oneself as conscientious, shy and unhappy. Stress arising from student factors was related to being female, highly committed to teaching, degree-trained rather than certificate-trained, lacking masculinity and lacking self-sufficiency. System and community-related stress was associated with teaching higher grade levels, a perceived lack of promotional opportunities, being employed in the government rather than the non-government system, being unwilling to take risks and being understanding. Stress associated with the school administration did not relate to any identifiable variables. All four areas of stress were positively associated with the use of emotion-focused appraisals, but did not relate systematically to the use of problem-focused appraisals despite the relatively high incidence of these appraisals. Implications of the findings are discussed.