CORRELATIONAL STUDY BETWEEN TEACHERS’ JOB STRESS AND TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN SOUTH WESTERN NIGERIA

Incidences of teacher stress are on the increase and seriously impacting on the quality of the educational system. This study investigated the relationship between teachers’ job stress and secondary school teachers’ effectiveness in South Western Nigeria. This study adopted the descriptive survey design. Three research questions and one null hypothesis were formulated. The study sample comprised 720 teachers and 1,440 students drawn from 144 secondary schools in four states in South Western Nigeria. Two instruments were used to collect data from the respondents. These include Students’ Assessment of Teachers’ Effectiveness Instrument (SATEI) and Teacher Job Stress Questionnaire (TJSQ). The instruments were validated by experts in education. Test re-test method of reliability was applied for the reliability of the instruments, using Pearson Product Moment Correlation statistics. The coefficient value of 0.69 was obtained. The findings of the study showed that secondary school teachers in South Western Nigeria experiences high level of job stress (56.9%); that secondary school teachers’ effectiveness in South Western Nigeria was low; and that there was a significant relationship between teachers’ job stress and secondary school teachers’ effectiveness in South Western Nigeria (Cal r-value = .023 and sig = .000), at 0.05 level of significance. The study, therefore, concluded that there is a relationship between teachers’ stress and secondary school teachers’ effectiveness. Thus, it was recommended that psychologists and counsellors should be posted to schools to help teachers with stress related problems handle their concerns. Keywords: Teachers, Stress, Job stress, Teacher effectiveness