“Unrealistic Expectations”: How Teacher Stress Vulnerability Is Associated With Appraisals of Demands and Resources

• In Event: Focus on Teacher Stress

Abstract

A concurrent nested mixed method approach explored associations between teachers’ quantitative ratings and open-ended reflections of their workplace resources and demands. Participants were 131 public school teachers who completed the Classroom Appraisal of Resources and Demands (CARD), a quantitative measure of stress vulnerability, and open-ended prompts about their experiences with classroom demands and resources. The CARD was used to classify teachers’ risk-for-stress (Demanded, Not Demanded), then inductive thematic analysis was used to explore patterns in descriptions of demands and resources. Consistent with theory, a greater number of demand codes were applied to Demanded teacher responses than Non-Demanded teachers, signaling higher prevalence and impacts of stress. Responses to the resources open-ended question reflected concerns about resource unavailability from all teachers.

Authors

• Kristen C. Mosley, University of Texas at Austin

• Trisha Miller, University of Texas at Austin

• Christopher J. McCarthy, University of Texas at Austin

• Aradhita Gupta, University of Texas at Austin