INTRODUCTION

Teaching is a complex job associated with a high level of anxiety. It ranks fourth in terms of emotional stress in the job classification. Researchers (A. A. Baranov, V. V. Boyko, V. I. Zhuravlev, N. V. Kuzmina, F. A. Makarevich, S. V. Subbotin, B. I. Khasan, A. I. Scherbakov et al.) have repeatedly stressed that teaching ranks second to none in terms of multitasking, variety of activities, emotional and physical strain. This said, teacher’s activities and behavior are regulated by generally accepted norms and standards that may be quite hard to meet in practice due to the peculiarities of teaching. Overall compliance with formal and informal requirements – teaching and educating, assessing, promoting conditions for students’ self-fulfillment and implementing an individual approach to each student at the same time – requires teacher’s considerable effort and emotional contribution. The psychological strain that teachers are exposed to results in the development of professional stress. Emotional stress affects young teachers more than others. Study results show that if no regular prevention measures are taken, the ‘emotional burnout’ syndrome begins to show in future teachers already during their university years.

Many papers address theoretical study of manifestation of teachers’ personality traits, anxiety (A. M. Prikhozhan, Ch. Spielberg, D. O. Veldstein, Yu. L. Khanin et al.), aggression (K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, A. Bandura, L. Berkowitz, L. I. Bozhovich, J. Dollard, E. P. Ilyin, N. D. Levitov, K. Lorenz, A. A. Rean et al.), frustration (S. Rosenzweig, L. A. Yasyukova et al.), achievement motivation (W. McDougall, A. Maslow, H. A. Murray, H. Heckhauzen, A. S. Jakub et al.).

Emotional peculiarities and manifestation of teacher’s personality are studied by educational psychology (E. S. Asmakovets, A. A. Baranov, L. M. Mashtakova, L. V. Semenova, S. V. Subbotin, E. G. Schukina, A. O. Prokhorov).

Teacher’s emotionality is a key factor of interaction in training; it determines the outcome of emotional impact, mobilizes and energizes students, promotes their intellectual work.

Teaching is, mentally, a highly active job. Mental strain, in its turn, aggravates character defects – immoderate ambition, jealousy, petulance, brutality, mocking, everything that results in a discomfort in relations between peers, students and parents. To overcome this discomfort, the teacher has to consider the frustration level of basic human needs and develop his/her emotional-volitional skills, appropriate self-evaluation and stress resistance.

However, an extensive study of the teaching emotive rate in scholarly literature does not properly demonstrate the connection between motivational-need sphere and emotionality. Our study relies on the A. Maslow motivation theory [5].

Literature review has revealed modern psychologists’ lack of interest in studying teachers’ emotional issues. There is a shift in the study focus towards emotional intelligence, emotional competence, its components and development methods [4],[8],[9],[10].

E. A. Chelnokova and Terekhina study the concept of ‘emotional culture’. They point out that teachers face the task of improving emotional competence as a teacher’s personality development factor, in which regard the authors pay attention to the characteristics of emotional culture maturity [10].

I. S. Pochekayeva, N. V. Nagovitsyna address effective ways to promote stress resistance in both young and more experienced teachers [7].

Zh. N. Istyufeyeva analyzes emotional intelligence as a subjective resource of teacher’s professional growth [4].

The latest paper addressing frustration in teaching dates back to 2001.

We think that there is a major gap in diagnosing teachers’ emotional problems, the main teaching frustrators, which may significantly complicate elaboration of programs to overcome emotional burnout and maintain professional effect and performance.

The empirical part of the study aims at revealing the adverse factors that affect teachers’ emotional states. The study assumes as its hypothesis that teachers’ emotional issues are associated with a high level of trait and state anxiety and frustration of basic human needs.

General education schools of Zheleznodorozhny and Leninsky districts of Samara were used as the main experimental study site.

A total of 30 teachers took part in the study. The experiment is of ascertaining nature.

The study was conducted in two stages.

The first stage of the study addressed teachers’ ideas of the main frustrators in teaching.

To this end, we elaborated a pilot questionnaire comprising five incomplete sentences. The pilot study selection comprised 30 teachers of both sexes aged from 23 to 28.

The group of test subjects were asked to fill in the questionnaire:

1. “Before class, I normally feel...”

2. “At work (during class) I have the biggest fear, feel strain when……”

3. “During class, I always feel...”

4. “After class, I most often feel...”

5. “To relieve myself from fear, strain, I…”

The second stage of the study addressed teachers’ negative emotional states.

This questionnaire aimed at revealing ideas of the major emotional problems that hampered the initial stage of professional teaching and the level of young teachers’ self-regulation skills. The results obtained were processed using the content analysis method.

The second stage of the study used the following techniques:

- H. J. Eysenck ЕРI test;

- State-Trait Anxiety Inventory;

- T. A. Busygina’s method of determining frustrators of teacher’s basic needs.

T. A. Busygina’s method of determining frustrators of teacher’s basic needs aims at determining frustrators of teacher’s basic needs. It is based on the A. Maslow motivation theory. The test subjects were presented 43 statements – teaching frustrators. They were asked to express their consent or dissent on a 1-3 scale: ‘often’, ‘sometimes’,

‘rarely’. Appendix 1

The table below shows distribution of frustrators according to basic needs.

RESULTS

As part of the pilot experiment, the test subjects were asked to fill in the questionnaire comprising five incomplete sentences. The results distributed as follows.

Finishing the first sentence “Before class, I normally feel...”, the respondents noted that they felt unrest – 90%, fear – 65%, strain – 80%, lack of confidence, embarrassment, awkwardness, downward thoughts – 76%, wish to finish the lesson as soon as possible – 55%, interest – 7%, vigor – 5%, tranquillity – 2%.

Answers to the second sentence “At work (during class) I have the biggest fear, feel strain when……” distributed as follows.

Most of all, teachers have fear and feel strain during class in the situations of criticism, unfavorable evaluation of their activities by students – 62%, misconduct – 83%, disinterest in the lesson – 10%, feeling unable to manage the audience – 68%, raised voices, jokes from farthest seats – 60%, audience’s questions that the teacher is not competent in – 43%.

The third incomplete sentence was: “During class, I always feel...”. It was finished as follows. 85% of the test subjects feel restraint, unrest, aggression towards troublesome students – 75%, fear of looking ridiculous – 37%, concern about lesson material – 47%, lack of confidence – 78%, resentment when their requirements are not fulfilled – 56%, inspiration, elation – 5%.

Answers to the fourth sentence “After class, I most often feel...” showed that after class, the teachers feel dissatisfaction with themselves, their own restraint, disappointment with themselves (“I could do better”) –76%, regrets about the time left – 45%, offended by disrespect – 58%, aggression towards noisy students – 65%, self-criticism for their temper – 52%, wish to complain about students to their parents, form master – 71%, discontent with the lesson given – 75%, feeling of impotence, despair because of the inability to influence the audience – 65%, joy, satisfaction – 12%.

Answers to the last sentence “To relieve myself from fear, strain, I…” showed use of the following self-regulation techniques. Counting from 1 to 10 – 35%, remembering good moments in life – 21%, prohibiting self-order (“Stop to worry!!!” type) – 15%, auto-training (I am calm) – 25%, self-justification (“I’m not working yet, only practising”) – 13%, search for a positive perspective (there will be good lessons, too) – 15 %, doing nothing – 54%.

The last question aimed at revealing methods of teachers’ emotional self-regulation. 75% of respondents confessed that they were not skilled in self-regulation. 25% of test subjects mainly use the following simplified techniques – counting, auto-training, positive thinking, prohibiting self-order.

Naturally, inability to control one’s emotions, high self-exactingness, classroom failures result in discontent with oneself as a teacher after the class, which has sharp teaching demotivation as a later implication.

Analysis of the pilot experiment data reveals a distressing scene – teaching takes places in negative emotional settings. Many answers of the respondents are associated with the lack of confidence, self-offence, self-criticism, disappointment and discontent with oneself, i.e. negative self-conception. Very few experiment participants have positive emotions and feelings from classes.

The following results were obtained using the H. J. Eysenck ЕРI technique.

According to survey results, high level of neuroticism was observed in 45% of the test subjects, medium – 40%, low – 15%.

Level-by-level distribution of the results of diagnosing emotional stability using the H. J. Eysenck ЕРI technique – EPI
Bar chart 1.

Diagnosis results show that the major part of respondents feature emotional instability. A follow-up study is expected to identify the particular factors that cause emotional instability.

To this end, we used the Spielberg-Khanin anxiety self-evaluation diagnosing technique. The following results were obtained.

Distribution of trait and state anxiety diagnosis results
Bar chart 2.

High state anxiety is observed in 53% of teachers. 47% of the test subjects have it at the medium level. No low level was observed.

47% of teachers demonstrate the medium level of trait anxiety, 53% – high level of trait anxiety.

Below are the results of diagnosing frustrators of teachers’ basic needs.

As we see, teachers have a pronounced fear of falling ill among frustrators of physiological needs. This is quite easy to explain as missing classes and instruction hours adversely affects execution of the discipline program. After a sick leave, teachers have to adjust their instructional program and catch up the hours missed. There is a somewhat less pronounced irritation due to physiological discomfort that affects teacher’s performance.

Distribution of frustrators by the need for safety
Bar chart 4.

This bar chart shows that teachers have a frustrated feeling of safety due to the price rise. This fact is easy to explain by humble wages of teachers. The fear of dismissal, feeling rushed, mismatch between reality and idealized expectations demonstrate the medium level. The frustrator of feeling rushed is worth specific mention. A teacher has multiple professional duties – constructive, management, gnostic and communicative. Various state standards, decrease in the number of classroom hours result in the natural shortage of time for classroom management. The fear of not having enough time to get ready, check assignments, write reports, prepare out-of-school activities affects the teacher’s emotional state and causes stress.

Bar chart of distribution of frustrators by the need for affiliation
Bar chart 5.

This group of frustrators yielded curious results. The ‘hyper-responsibility’ frustrator is the most expressed one. This trait is inherent in many teachers – they work two shifts, take notebooks home to check them, blame themselves for students’ poor progress, try hard to please the management, draw the fire upon themselves when investigating school conflicts with the management, plan a lot of school activities often depriving themselves of a good sleep, etc. This trait may be associated with professional attitude, although we should question its absoluteness as a positive quality due to professional deformation.

The fear of saying ‘no’ is also strong. This could be due to the fact that teaching means a lot of giving. Teachers try to help students, explain everything, make everything clear if they are asked for help or explanation, which is rarely the case these days due to low learning motivation. This is why teachers view refusal as professional destruction.

Fear of speaking in public is a big surprise. Elocutionary skills are a part of teacher’s professional competence. Unfortunately, not all teachers develop them. They prefer thoroughly planned class activities according to their sketches instead. Not all teachers are interesting speakers because they show constraint, have flat speech and don’t get attention of the class. Perhaps, it’s when they receive negative feedback from their students in the form of misconduct, etc., that teachers come to realize that they are not good enough at speaking in public.

Pressure by the management causes stress. It happens quite often now that teachers are forced to inflate grades of students whose parents provide financial aid to school. The fear of being rejected by the principal and team makes teachers obey the management as the need to be a part of the team is frustrated.

Quite often, the authoritarian style of communication in teaching yields fruit. Students intimidated by control observe discipline by orders, but they do not accept the teacher, have no affection or respect, give offensive nicknames behind teacher’s back, never ask for help.

Concerns about conflicts in the class, with peers, parents, misconduct, fear of not being able to win the audience, low group cohesion of the class feature the medium level.

Distribution of frustrators by the need for cognition
Bar chart 6.

Underachievement in most students causes the biggest strain in this group of frustrators. This fact is interrelated with hyper-responsibility when the teacher thinks that students’ poor progress is only his/her fault. Currently, underachievement is observed in 90% of students. These results are due to generally low learning motivation and the growing age when personal and intimate communication is the core activity. However, most respondents in the test group believe that they are the only ones in charge of academic progress.

The situations that require flexibility in decision-making also cause stress. Teachers are often baffled by the situation when they have to promptly respond to students’ disruptive behavior, conflicts between students using physical force, uncertainty about how to act in case of an incident.

The frustrator ‘fear of incompetence in one’s subject’ is low. Teacher’s professional ‘self’ makes him/her place heavy demands on him/herself in terms of knowledge, broad interdisciplinary area of thought, willingness to be a role model, affirmation ‘teacher must know everything’. Thus, the situations when the teacher does not know proper solutions and ready answers cause emotional issues and concerns. Perhaps, the teachers in this test group are quite confident in the ‘knowledge’ part of their professional competence.

Strain with different psychological types of students is another frustrator of the need for cognition. Poor knowledge of differential developmental psychology causes difficulties when teachers try to address training issues with students.

In terms of the didactic part of teacher’s professional competence, the frustrator ‘I don’t use active teaching methods’ is, unfortunately, low.

Distribution of frustrators by aesthetical needs
Bar chart 7.

Teachers from the test group have a pronounced fear of overweight. This could be related to the stereotypic negative social attitude towards overweight as a certain defect in appearance. The appearance standards imposed these days require a fit and lean body, which is a value when you deal with people in public.

We see from bar chart No. 8 that there is a pronounced fear of making a mistake, inappreciation by the management and absence of professional growth opportunities. Teachers have an expressed fixation on full knowledge of the subject and high self-exactingness. Situations when students say ‘you calculated it wrong’ cause strain due to a threat of unfavorable evaluation of teacher’s competence by students.

Intensity of the stressor ‘inappreciation by the management’ reveals teachers’ strong dependence on evaluation, attitude of the school management, peers, need for recognition of achievements and merits by the management and team. This dependence is even stronger than that on students’ evaluation, which is evidenced by quite low value of the frustrator ‘absence of authority with students’.

The fear of mockery, fear of humiliation, insults on the part of students is low.

As is seen from the bar chart …the most pronounced frustrators in this group are ‘irritation caused by other people’s negative personality traits and actions’ and ‘fear of professional destruction’. Antagonism to others, irritation shows inability to accept others the way they are. This perception has conditional and evaluative nature typical of teachers. Naturally, this conditional attitude brings about the fear of professional and personal deformation.

Thus, the need for self-actualization is hampered by the position of teacher’s righteousness and opinion authoritarianism.

Distribution of frustrators by the need for self-actualization
Bar chart 9.

Let us take a look at the general distribution of frustrators by needs.

Distribution of results using T. A. Busygina’s method of diagnosing frustrators of teacher’s basic needs.
Bar chart 10.

As is seen from the bar chart, the test subjects feature pronounced frustrators of the need for affiliation and the need for cognition and understanding. Physiological needs, need for safety and recognition are less susceptible to frustration. Teachers demonstrate a low level of frustration in terms of aesthetical needs and need for self-actualization.

CONCLUSIONS

Teaching takes place in the negative emotional settings dominated by pre-class fears, piling up failure thoughts, wish to finish the lesson as soon as possible, which causes strain during class. All the concerns and fears are transmitted to students who can give negative feedback in response to young teacher’s lack of confidence in the form of mockery, misconduct and failure to fulfil teaching requirements. Naturally, these behavior patterns irritate the teacher, put him/her in a deeper strain, which eventually results in aggression towards students or self-aggression, feeling offended, disappointment with oneself as a teaching subject.

1. The test subjects feature pronounced trait and state anxiety.

2. The study has shown that productive teaching is frustrated at the level of basic needs by the following factors: fear of falling ill, fear of price rise, hyper-responsibility, fear of speaking in public, underachievement in most students, fear of overweight, fear of making a mistake, inappreciation by the management, absence of professional growth opportunities, irritation caused by other people’s negative personality traits and actions, fear of professional destruction.

3. The need for affiliation and the need for cognition and understanding are the most frustrated in the test subjects. Physiological needs, need for safety and recognition are less susceptible to frustration. Teachers demonstrate a low level of frustration in terms of aesthetical needs and need for self-actualization.

Thus, teachers’ emotional issues are caused by pronounced trait and state anxiety with underlying frustration of basic human needs.

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Información adicional

CITAR: Busygina, T. A., Rudenko, I. V., Murtazina, D. A., & Shichiyakh, R. A. (2019). Study of future teachers’ emotional issues. Religación. Revista De Ciencias Sociales Y Humanidades, 4(13), 353-365. Retrieved from https://revista.religacion.com/index.php/religacion/article/view/229