TEACHER STRESS AND COPING OVER AN AUTUMN TERM IN FINLAND

Psychological stress, coping process and the relationships between str ess and coping were examined among 66 teachers representing comprehens ive and upper secondary schools in Finland. The research design was lo ngitudinal. Each person was studied four times during the autumn term of 1991 using questionnaires, which were focused on teachers' stress f eelings, ways of coping and social relations to colleagues and pupils during Mondays to Thursdays and Friday morning lessons. The results sh owed a clear accumulation of stress during the autumn term. Four diffe rent teacher groups emerged according to the type of stress reported: (1) teachers who were only moderately stressed, (2) those who were not at all stressed, (3) teachers who were exhausted throughout the term, and (4) those whose stress increased strongly during the term. These stress process groups differed with regard to their coping styles, but not background variables. On the level of the whole sample, different ways of coping were quits stable during the autumn term. The study is partially a replication of the longitudinal study on teachers' stress by Kinnunen (1989, 1988) and enables comparisons between stress proce ss groupings between the years 1983 and 1991.