School physical environmental factors responsible for stressful experience among teachers in Kenyan special primary schools

Abstract

Stress is a major global health challenge affecting the well-being of service providers especially those working in the human service sectors like: teachers, health care providers and media specialists. Specifically, the study determined school physical environmental factors responsible for stressful experience among teachers in special primary schools. The study employed descriptive research design. The target population was 138 teachers in special primary schools and 4 head teachers. The study used self-administered questionnaires to collect quantitative data from 138 teachers. Qualitative data was collected from the head teachers using interview schedules. Saturated sampling was used to select the respondents. The instruments were validated by experts’ judgments by University lecturers in the Department of Psychology and Educational Foundations while reliability was estimated by use of Cronbach Alpha method for internal consistency. The questionnaire yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.94. Quantitative data was analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 which yielded descriptive and inferential statistics while qualitative data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The study found a positive significant relationship between social, physical and academic demand factors and stress. The study recommended that Ministry of Education should ensure immediate review of condition of services and develop a policy on stress management to guide the induction, operations and counselling of teachers on their day to day duties.