The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of occupational stress on teachers’ role performance in early childhood education institutes. Teachers spend most of their daily work with children in educational institutions. Therefore, teacher is one of the important components affecting young children’s development among various human resources. Especially, occupational stress of teachers experienced in early childhood education institutions is the cause of not only physical condition but also mental health of young children as well as teachers, which is an important factor in determining quality of education. In other words, teachers are the main drivers of reform and change in education, and they have a great influence on the whole development of young children. Therefore, this study seeks to understand the degree of occupational stress experienced by teachers and to provide basic data for minimizing their stress.
To achieve the purpose, the researcher conducted a questionnaire survey with 226 teachers in kindergartens and child care centers located in Kyonggi-Do, South Korea. Teachers rated 38 items on ‘Teacher Occupational Stress Factor Questionnaire’ and 47 items on ‘Teacher Role Performance.’ For data processing, SPSS 19.0 program was applied to conduct frequency, ANOVA test, and Correlation and Multiple regression analysis.
The results were as follows: First, there were significant differences on teachers’ occupational stress by demographic characteristics such as teaching career and type of institutes. Second, there were significant differences on teachers’ perceptions of role performance by demographic characteristics such as teachers’ age, teaching career, type of institutes, and working hours per day. Third, there were negative correlations between teachers’ occupational stress and their perceptions of role performance. It showed that teacher’s occupational stress affect negatively on the sub-factors of their role performance in education institutes. This study will improve teachers’ occupational desires and create a happy early childhood environment.
