Caring for Principals’ Mental Health: A Mixed-Method Study on the Differential Impacts of Systemic Stressors

• In Event: Caring Leadership Amidst the Chaos: Elevating Care as Resistance, Intervention, and Imperative

Abstract

Work-related stress and mental health are major issues that threaten the personal and professional sustainability of school principals (Carr, 1996; Mahfouz, 2018; Marinac et al. 2024). Increasingly, studies show that a career in education leadership is taxing: more than 60 hours of work per week, unpredictable schedules, conflicting pressures and priorities, and increasing job responsibilities. In a large US study, researchers found that principals experienced more frequent job-related stress and depression than the average working population and experienced more difficulties coping with the job (Steiner et al. 2022). Further, female principals and principals of color were at greater risk of stress and poor mental health. Commonly cited work stressors in the U.S. include accountability, school climate, student-related issues, work-life balance, etc. While it’s accepted that school leaders are subjected to frequent stressors that impact their mental health, less is known about the differential impacts of stressors and coping strategies between principals who experience varying degrees of mental health struggles.

The purpose of this crossover, mixed-methods study is to examine emergent stressors in Texas, USA principals (n=119) and examine the relationship between stressors and psychological symptoms guided by Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional model of stress and Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model. Principals were recruited from K-12 public, non-charter schools to complete a survey that assessed principals’ psychological well-being using the PSS-4 (Cohen et al., 1994); GAD-7 (Spitzer et al., 2006); and PHQ-9 (Kroenke et al., 2001) to assess work-stress, anxiety, and depression, respectively, and asked open-ended question about current and prominent work-related stressors. The qualitative data underwent in-vivo, descriptive, and thematic coding to develop emergent stressors from our participants and were organized using the ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Then, we quantitized principals’ responses for the presence of emergent stressors and the systems which they occupy (Onwuegbuzie & Combs, 2010). Bivariate correlation analyses, multiple regressions, and exploratory step-wise regressions were conducted to determine the relationship between stressors and psychological outcomes and the most parsimonious models of predictors.

We found ten emergent stressors (individual impacts, school-related, parents, district, accountability, funding, systemic educational issues, political attacks, anti-public school culture, and COVID-19) that, based on the degree of control fell within five systems (work-demands, microsystem, macrosystem, exosystem, and chronosystem) of education. Principals scored an average of 6.39 (SD=2.37) in work stress which corresponds to high levels (>6). Additionally, principals scored 10.24 (SD=5.79) and 9.67 (SD=6.34) on the anxiety and depression instrument, respectively, which aligns with moderate levels of anxiety and depression. Inferential statistics confirmed that some stressors and system of stressors significantly predicted psychological outcomes. For example, personal impacts and work demands were significant predictors across outcomes. Interestingly, microsystem stressors including parent and school-related were not significant. Further, we found that race, geographic location and political attacks were significant predictors of lower depression symptoms—a finding needing further exploration. These findings confirm that not all work-related stressors have the same mental health consequences, some stressors may have protective mechanisms, and a need for more targeted interventions to support principals’ well-being.

Authors

• Eleanor Su-Keene, Texas A&M University

• Catie Samson, Texas A&M University

• Shaun D Hutchins, Austin Independent School District