5-country study: stress and coping with stress among student teachers.

Predictors of work-related coping behaviour and experience patterns in first-year teacher education students: A cross-country quantitative study 

Considering the high levels of stress faced by teachers, individual’s stress-related coping behaviour is crucial in protecting teachers’ physical and mental health and in promoting a high level of professional effectiveness and the quality of education. This research project focuses on the concept of personal experience with occupational stress and of the typical behavioural responses for coping with such stress, referred to as work-related coping behaviour and experience patterns (WCEP). Specifically, it aims to investigate WCEP and its determinants in prospective teachers at the beginning of higher education, i.e., first-year teacher education students from five countries in central Europe. In this respect, the project is a follow-up of a two-country study by Mašková et al. (2022), who showed that German teacher education students displayed healthy patterns of dealing with work-related demand more frequently than their Czech counterparts. To gain more complex evidence about WCEP and its determinants form a larger international perspective, five countries are involved in the present project, out of which two represent the former Western Bloc (Germany and Austria) and three represent the former Eastern Bloc (Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland).

The aim of the study is twofold: 1) To determine cross-country differences in the distribution of WCEP and 2) To determine predictors of WCEP that may explain the supposed cross-country differences in the WCEP distribution. We hypothesise that: 

H1: Participants from Germany and Austria display more favourable WCEP distribution than participants from Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

H2: Selected background characteristics, religiosity, optimism, and career choice motivation partially explain country-related WCEP differences.  

References

Mašková, I., Mägdefrau, J., & Nohavová, A. (2022). Work-related coping behaviour and experience patterns, career choice motivation, and motivational regulation of first-year teacher education students – Evidence from Germany and the Czech Republic. Teaching and Teacher Education, 109, 103560.  doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103560 

Partner Institutions

• University of South Bohemia (Czech Republic)
• University of West Bohemia (Czech Republic)
• Comenius University Bratislava (Slovakia)
• University of Presov (Slovakia)
• Kazimierz Wielki University (Poland)
• University of Klagenfurt (Austria)
• University College for Teacher Education in Vienna (Austria)
• University College for Teacher Education of Christian Churches Vienna/Krems (Austria)
• University of Passau (Germany)
• University of Kiel (Germany)