Stress management strategies and their effects on teachers’ commitment in primary schools in Sabatia District, Vihiga county, Kenya

The environment of a working place has great impact on the level of stress. The purpose of this study was to assess stress management strategies used by school management and its influence on teachers’ commitment in primary schools in Sabatia District, Kenya. The study was guided by the following objectives: to identify the key sources of stress among teachers, to identify stress management strategies used to improve teacher commitment by school managers, to find out the effect of stress management strategies employed by school managers on teachers’ job satisfaction and to examine the effect of stress management practices on teachers’ commitment in primary schools in Sabatia District. The study adopted the cross sectional survey research design approach. Target population was 1,695 respondents comprising of 83 head teachers, 83 deputy head teachers, 1,529 teachers of primary schools in Sabatia District. The sample was 203 respondents consisting of 25 head teachers, 25 deputy head teachers and 153 teachers. The study adopted stratified and purposive sampling techniques in order to obtain the sample of the study. In ensuring content validity, suggestion from educational research experts was sought to establish whether the questionnaire truly measured what was aimed at. These suggestions were integrated in designing the main tool that was used in data collection. Data generated by the questionnaires and entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) computer program for analyses and interpretations. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics which included frequencies, percentages and means. The study findings indicated that majority (61.6%) of the teachers believed that stress amongst teachers was mainly caused by school related factors. In addition, majority (79.5%) of the teachers believed that employment of PTA teachers had eased teachers’ workload in most schools reducing stress amongst teachers. It was further found out that majority (69.2%) of the teachers believed that teachers’ self-efficacy contributed to teachers’ job satisfaction in schools. Similarly, the findings suggested that majority (73.3%) of the teachers were of the view that management of teacher stress enabled teachers to be committed to students’ needs. It was recommended that there was need for education stakeholders in the District and the country at large to devise ways of making teachers to be committed to their work and stay more in the teaching profession and at the same time there was need for the government to employ more teachers in public primary schools to reduce teacher workload which has been shown to increase teacher stress. The study will benefit the general society since stress affects many workers and using management strategies is a duty of each organization. The research findings will help head teachers to be able to identify the stress management strategies to be used in primary schools to address stress problems which can help to retain teachers