Preschool Teachers’ Experiences of Work-Related Stress: A Pilot Study of Singapore Teachers

Abstract

Research has shown that early childhood teachers play a crucial role in supporting children’s development via the provision of socially and emotionally supportive learning environments. However, teachers’ abilities to provide such high-quality learning environments may be hindered by work-related stress. Prolonged exposure to stress is also associated with several undesirable outcomes, including lower job satisfaction and increased motivation to leave the teaching profession. Although research on teacher stress is actively conducted in many countries, very little has been done in Singapore. Yet, considering recent concerns about the high turnover rates of preschool teachers in Singapore and the scarcity of local studies on teacher stress, more research is needed to understand whether and how work-related stress affects preschool teachers in Singapore. This chapter is a first attempt at bridging the knowledge gap between international findings and local evidence. In the first section, we provide a review of the theory and empirical findings on work-related stress in teachers. In the second section, we report findings from a pilot study involving one-to-one interviews with preschool teachers to understand their experiences of stress at the workplace. We highlight common themes as well as unique perspectives that emerged from the interviews. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings and directions for future research.

This work was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, project number and title: SUG 11/16 NEL, Work-related stress in preschool teachers and methods of assessing stress: A literature review. The views expressed in this paper are the authors’ and do not necessarily represent the views of NIE.