STRESS LEVELS, IMPACT AND COPING STRATEGIES ADOPTED BY AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE TEACHERS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN A SOUTH EASTERN NIGERIAN CITY

Agricultural Education and Training

Stress happens to everyone and can affect daily activities if not well managed. The study sought to ascertain the stress levels, impact and coping strategies adopted by agricultural science teachers in secondary schools in a South Eastern Nigerian city. Three research questions guided the study while three hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design and was carried out in Awka which is a city in South Eastern Nigeria. The population of the study was 402 agricultural science teachers in secondary schools in the study area. There was no sampling since the population was manageable. Two instruments were utilized for data collection which were an adapted 10-item version of Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Stress Impact and Coping Strategies Questionnaire (SICSQ). The two instruments were validated by five experts; all from the Department of Agricultural Education, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Cronbach Alpha was used to test the reliability of the two instruments which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.83 and 0.81 for PSS and SICSQ respectively. Four hundred and two copies of the two instruments were administered by the researcher with the help of six research assistants. Out of the 402 copies of questionnaire distributed, there was an 82% retrieval rate. Mean, standard deviation t-test was used to analyze data. Findings of the study revealed that; agricultural science teachers were highly stressed, there were nine impacts of stress on agricultural science teachers and they adopted nine coping strategies to mitigate the influence of stress. The findings further revealed that gender plays no significant role on stress levels while experience and age plays a significant role on impacts and coping strategies adopted by agricultural science teachers. The study recommended among others that; Schools administration should ensure factors that can contribute to high stress among agricultural science teachers such as late payment of salaries are eradicated to enable these teachers perform at their optimal abilities; and State Governments should organize conferences for teachers on the negative impacts of stress on their health and life in general so that they make conscious efforts to avoid activities that could trigger stress

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