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4TIME-MANAGEMENT AS A FACTOR OF THE MODERN TEACHER'S STRESS RESISTANCE
Abstract
The relevance of the study is also determined by the fact that the professional activity of teachers is one of the very intense included in the group of occupations with a large presence of stress factors. The purpose of the article is to show the relationship between the ability of time-management and stress resistance of teachers. The leading method to the study this problem is ascertaining experiment. The composition of the study group consisted of 30 female teachers of secondary school in the city of Tula. Experience of teachers' work varies from 1 to 30 years. The general hypothesis of the study was in the statement that the lack of teachers' skills to manage their work and personal time leads to a decrease of stress resistance; resistance to stress depends on the experience of teachers (the longer teachers have worked at the school, the less they subject to stress and plan their day better); the purposeful work on mastering by the basics of time management will promote a formation of teachers' stress resistance. Article materials can be applied in the practice of modern school teachers and help to optimize their working time, increase the effectiveness of pedagogical activity.
Keywords
pedagogical activity, modern teacher, stress factors, stress resistance, time-management
AUTHOR
Tatyana I. Kulikova
PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Pedagogy Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University. 125, Lenina Ave, Tula, 300026, Russia.
E-mail: tativkul@gmail.com
Introduction
Mutual interference of professional person's activity and features of his personality is ambiguous. According to the professional development model proposed by L.M. Mitina and based on the position of S.L. Rubinstein, a person actively influences on the profession, but the professional activity does not always have a constructive impact on the status and identity of the subject. N. Aminov concluded that professional stress resistance depends on the individual psychological and psycho-physiological characteristics, but to determine the strategy directed at increasing stress resistance, we need to take into account the stress factors faced by the subject as a professional. The problem of stress has become a subject of study of such scientists as L.M. Abolin, A.P. Akimova, A.A. Baranov, V.A. Bodrov, B.H. Vardanyan, A.V. Makhnach, L.A. Kitaev-Smyk, A. Reykovsky et al., nevertheless a single definition of this phenomenon does not exist. Different authors identify stress resistance with emotional stability, neuro-psychological resistance, psychological resistance, emotional and strong-willed resistance, psychological resistance to stress and so forth.
The phenomenon of stress (quality, characteristic, property) is considered mostly as a characteristic that affects the efficiency of operations. Among the factors of stress -physiological characteristics, relevant to the job, personality type (Bodrov, 2000). We will define stress as a combination of stressors and stress reaction, without these two components the stress does not exist. Most teachers work in a constant external and internal control, strictly look after themselves, so as not to make mistakes. Such activity requires from the teacher intensive communication that should be reinforced by positive emotions (Bodrov, 2006; Kitaev-Smyk, 2009).
The problem of stress factors of pedagogical activities is covered in works A.A. Baranov, S.V. Subbotin, B.I. Hassan et al. (Bagriy, 2009; Baholskaya, 2013). The scientists noted that teacher's profession is one of the very intense (in psychological terms) and included in the group of occupations with a large presence of stress factors that makes higher demands on the study of stress resistance.
Researches of E.Yu. Lizunova, A.K. Markova demonstrate that the teacher's work is intertwined with the professional stress of information content, and it requires high qualification to be constantly acquiring new knowledge, processing and interpretation of the received information, the responsibility for the results. Teachers are often meet with stressful effects generated by a variety of conflict situations during the working day. Teachers work closely linked to the need for continuous interpersonal communication that influences the effectiveness of their activity (Kaygorodov, 2011).
Pedagogical activity as a whole it is necessary to equate with the category of "hard work both on the criteria of mental activity, working conditions and sanitary conditions and according to the criterion of working with people" (Bagadaeva, 2014). It is undeniable that teacher's profession is associated with an abundance of all sorts of stresses resulting in the course of activities. Interaction with colleagues, children and their parents require constant mobilization of intellectual, physical and emotional strength. However, not all the teachers manages can save calm and emotional balance in their activities. Usually a teacher does not always understand the causes of irritability, poor sleep and excessive fatigue, that can lead to "burnout syndrome" (Boyko, 1999). It was established that development of burnout syndrome is typical only for teachers who are in transition from primary to secondary professionalization that corresponds to professional experience of 5 to 9 years.
Especially it is great influence of emotional stress on the activities of young teachers. The constant action of intense professional work factors causes the deterioration of their operating results, decreased performance, the appearance of uncharacteristic errors, reduced mental processes (memory, thinking, attention). After staying in stressful situations many teachers feel weakness, depression, desire to lie down to sleep. In some cases, the emotional tension of a teacher reaches a critical point, the result is the loss of self-control and self-control. The activity of the teacher is exposed to a variety of stressors that can have a negative effect on the mental state of teachers, which may lead to stress. Therefore teachers need to use stressors confrontation techniques, which include the ability to manage the time.
Thus, the essence of the problem is the contradiction between that the teacher's profession requires sustained good mood and emotional stability in the process of working with children, colleagues and parents but a teacher does not know how to manage their work and personal time, and it often leads to stressful situations. Living under constant school stress with a high of information complicates the professional work of teachers who have to work with a constant voltage and lack of time (Andreeva, 2009).
Lack of time is a serious stress factor of a modern teacher, so it is necessary to manage the time. Analyzing the activity of the teacher and stressful situations, we can identify a number of parameters which lead to stress as well as demonstrate the
correlation with lack of time. They are goal setting, phased achievement of the goal and planning the time.
Materials and Methods
The aim of our work was the theoretical basis and the experimental study of the relationship of stress resistance of the modern teacher with the ability to manage the time and description of the technology to develop the stress resistance in the process of professional teacher's activity.
We hypothesized that the lack of teachers' skills to manage their work and personal time leads to a decrease of stress resistance; resistance to stress depends on the experience of teachers (the longer teachers have worked at the school, the less they subject to stress and plan their day better); the purposeful work on mastering by the basics of time management will promote a formation of teachers' stress resistance.
The study involved 30 female teachers of secondary school in the city of Tula. Experience of teachers' work varies from 1 to 30 years. The qualitative composition of the experimental sample is presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF TEACHERS INTO GROUPS ACCORDING TO THE EXPERIENCE OF WORK
1-st Group 2-nd Group
Experience of work Number of testees Experience of work Number of testees
1 2 16 1
2 1 17 0
3 3 18 1
4 0 19 1
5 1 20 1
6 1 21 1
7 0 22 1
8 1 23 1
9 1 24 1
10 0 25 0
11 1 26 1
12 0 27 2
13 1 28 0
14 2 29 1
15 1 30 2
Based on the objectives of the study and the results of theoretical analysis of the pedagogical and psychological literature we used the well-known diagnostic methods:
1. Method "The level of subjective control" by Julian Rotter (adaptation by E.F. Bazhin, S.A. Golynkin, A.M. Etkind). This method assesses the extent to which a person is willing to take responsibility for what is happening to him and around him, thus it enables one fast and effectively evaluate teachers' level of subjective control over a variety of life situations.
2. Test of the viability of S. Muddy (translation and adaptation by the D.A. Leontiev, E.I. Rasskazov. This method shows the degree of necessary components for good health and optimum standards of efficiency and activity in stressful conditions.
3. Method of determining the stress resistance and social adaptation of Holmes-Rage. This method is designed to identify all the events that occurred with the teacher during the last year to prevent the stress response in the future.
4. Method "The study emotional burnout" (V.V. Boyko). This method will identify professional burnout syndrome to give timely advices and assistance.
5. Method "Human representations of research on the properties of time" (O.N. Kuznetsov, A.N. Alekhin, T.V. Samokhina, N.I. Moiseyeva). This method will determine the representations of the teachers about the expense of their own time and to identify the problems in time management.
When selecting methods we tried to take into account the positive assessment of the use and reliability of the method according to a number of foreign and Russian researchers; availability of techniques for participants; the possibility of qualitative and quantitative analysis of the results (Vodopiyanova, 2009; Lizunova, 2008).
Results
As a result of the method "The level of subjective control" it can be seen the differences in manifestations of characteristics between the two groups of testees and within the same group. First of all, it is obviously traced the excess of indicators on scales "internality general" (67%), "internality achievements" (77%) and "internality of interpersonal relationships" (70%) in a group of employees with a great experience (16-30 years) over indicators of the same scales in the group of employees with a smaller experience (1-15 years). On the basis of the average of the two groups we can draw the conclusions that the excess of rates on scales "internality general", "internality achievements" and "internality of interpersonal relationships" in a group of teachers with a great experience indicates a higher degree of development of such personal qualities and properties as the responsibility for creating interpersonal relations, a high level of subjective control over the significant situations, focus on success and the realization of this goal.
According to the results of Test of the viability of S. Muddy it is seemed that significant differences in indicators of viability are not observed between the two study groups. However, in the selected scales of control and general indicator of vitality there are some differences. We see that the average indicators of control (75%) and overall vitality (67%) in a group of teachers with experience of 16-30 years somewhat higher than the data of indicators in a group of teachers with experience of 1-15 years. This difference points to the greater degree of formation of such features as control and viability in a group of the teachers with a great experience. Accordingly the level of stress resistance in general in this group of teachers will be higher.
The results of the method "The study emotional burnout" suggest that teachers are divided by the number of the typed points in separate phases and the total number of points. Testees can be grouped according to the criterion of formation of phases:
- Group 1 - emotional burnout appears on the level of one phase (i.e., the final number of points in one of the phases is equal or greater than 61);
- Group 2 - syndrome of emotional burnout is being formed at least in one of the phases (i.e., the final number of points in one of the phases is in the range from 37 to 60 points).
Analyzing the results it must be concluded that for teachers is more typical phase at which burnout syndrome is in the development stage. Positively that among the teachers
stand out those who did not have noted signs of burnout. The largest number of teachers (68%) is in the second phase of burnout - in the phase of "resistance"; in the phase of "exhaustion" 32% of the testees are not affected by the syndrome of emotional burnout. This fact may indicate that during a certain correctional work more and more teachers can cope with the negative manifestations of emotional burnout.
According to the results of method "Human representations of research on the properties of time" it is seemed that teachers with a great experience of work better imagine how to spend their time, try to plan it and give the report to all the actions of the working day. Teachers with less experience have not yet formed the concept of time and are poorly oriented in planning because they like to do several things at once but it does not always lead to success. Based on this we may propose the teachers with a great of experience based on their experience know the concept of time and try to spend it wisely.
In order to establish the relationship between the ability to manage the time and stress resistance of the modern teacher we used the Pearson correlation coefficient. As a result of our analysis we have determined that R = 0,8.
This indicator evidences the presence of direct relationship between the skills to manage the time and stress resistance of the modern teacher. Thus, stress resistance increases if the teachers use their time correctly and know how to manage it, work on mastering the basics of time management in professional work they will form stress resistance sooner.
Discussions
The ability to manage the time - is the path to professional and personal success of teachers. Besides the teacher is an example for his schoolchildren and their parents - a successful and organized teacher everywhere succeeds. The ability to use the time rationally and carefully is not given to a man from the birth. Therefore, mastering this art we come gradually to the standard of living that is acceptable to us.
Individual time management is closely aligned with the personal self-development and carried out by the person who wishes to improve his efficiency. For this each of us use his own methods and approaches, drawing on information from books, internet sites, advice of friends and colleagues, as well as their ideas for improving the efficiency of the use of personal time (Bolotova, 2006). Personal time is a key of human resource, often it has a much higher value than money and can't be accumulated or restored. That is why the ability to make best use of the time and manage it represents significant value for anyone. And it is important to learn how to apply this skill in all areas of life.
General recommendations were made to all participants of the study.
1. Start your day with unpleasant cases, they can't be put off as your thoughts will still come back to them and emotional stress will increase. After completing the unpleasant things you will be free from the burden of need and focus on more pleasant ones.
2. If you face the need to solve some complicated problem and it is unclear exactly how and where to start this case, you need to divide the process into steps and execute them separately. This will not only begin to realize the task but also contribute to a better understanding of it.
3. Learn to say "no." This does not mean that you need to avoid new capabilities, on the contrary, but also to take on too much, even in one area is wrong. Sooner or later people "burn out." Time management does not need to have time to do more but to do the right thing that you need.
4. Always look for opportunities to make routine work easier. For example, if you work with e-mail and have constantly to check your inbox simply configure notification of new messages on your smartphone or computer by means of special services.
5. If you have to make practically identical 2-3 things during the day, carry them in a row. Brain "accustomed" to such problems, and next time it copes with them faster than if there was a break between them.
6. In time management you should pay attention not only to the time as a physical unit. In accordance with their biological rhythms determine the hours of greatest and least activity and engaged in business or let a rest. You may have to sacrifice a traditional cup of coffee from coming to work but you will spend much more productive day.
Conclusion
Man actively influences on the profession but the professional activity does not always have a constructive impact on the condition and personality of the man. Professional stress resistance depends on the individual psychological and psychophysiological characteristics but to develop a precise strategy aimed at increasing resistance to stress, you need to take into account the stress factors faced by the man as a professional (Kulikova, 2014).
Activities of the teacher is exposed to a variety of stressors that can have a negative effect on the mental state of teachers and may lead to stress. Therefore, teachers need to use stressors confrontation techniques which include the ability to manage their time.
In the course of our experimental work the main approaches of foreign and domestic psychologists to the problem of stress resistance and the main factors of development resistance to stress of the modern teacher have been described; we studied the specific nature of the relationship of resistance to stress with the ability to manage the time of the modern teacher.
As a result the following data were obtained.
1. Teachers with a great experience of work are completely able to control their formal and informal relationships with other people. Teachers with less work experience are less capable of self-regulation, that is causing of their low resistance to stress.
2. In most of the group of teachers with a great experience it is typical the Internal type of subjective control that indicates a higher level resistance to stress in this group of teachers.
3. For teachers with burnout syndrome independent-dominant or rectilinear-aggressive type of interpersonal relationships is predominant, and for teachers with unformed burnout syndrome cooperating or conventional and responsible-magnanimous type of interpersonal relations is predominant.
4. The teacher is exposed of psycho-emotional, physiological and social stress, the teacher gets lost in setting goals and time absorbs the teacher.
Based on the data obtained in the course of an experimental work the program on the formation of teacher's resistance to stress with time management techniques was developed. We believe that the mastery of time management technology will help the teacher increase resistance to stress and interest in further self-education.
Structurally the program includes two units. The first one is educational and practical unit which consists of 5 sessions during which members of the group consider and discuss a variety of questions and perform practical tasks. At this stage lectures are held that will expand knowledge about such concepts as "time management", "goalsetting", "stress resistance". Furthering knowledge will lead to a better understanding of the problem among teachers, that would be a good theoretical basis for the second unit.
The second unit includes a training consisting of 10 complex selected classes for each group (Kulikova, 2014).
Developed in the course of the study recommendations and the program of formation of teacher's stress resistance with time-management techniques can be applied in the practice of modern school teachers and help to optimize their working time, increase the effectiveness of pedagogical activity.
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