OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AND TECAHERS’ JOB EFFECIVENESS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN THE NORTH CENTRAL STATES, NIGERIA

This study investigated occupational stress and teachers’ job effectiveness in secondary schools in North Central States, Nigeria. Seven research questions and seven hypotheses guided the study. The literature was reviewed under theoretical framework, conceptual framework, empirical studies and summary. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 34,473 teachers in 1, 949 public secondary schools in the North Central States of Nigeria. A sample of 1034 teachers representing 3% was selected from 58 public secondary schools and used for the study. Multi-stage sampling techniques were used to select the respondents for this study. A 35-item structured four-point scale questionnaire titled “Influence of Teachers’ Occupational Stress Questionnaire (ITOSQ)” and interview schedule was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts in Educational Management and Measurement and Evaluation. The reliability of the instrument was tested and it yielded a Cronbach Alpha Coefficient of 0.90 which was considered high enough and reliable to be used for field survey. Data obtained from the field study were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. Frequency, percentages and charts were used in testing the responses from the interview while the chi-square (χ2) test of goodness of-fit was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings indicated that stress due to unconducive working environment, inadequate infrastructural facilities, excess workload inadequate instructional materials, lack of in-service training and students’ discipline have significant negative influence on teachers’ effectiveness in secondary schools in North Central States, Nigeria. It was recommended among others that the management of the secondary schools, that is the government, parents and other education stakeholders should make teachers work environment more conducive by giving more attention to the motivational needs of teachers such as fringe benefits, good offices, canteen, good recreation centres among others and also ensure good principal-teacher relationship, quiet, cool, clean and beautiful environment that will make the teachers relived of their work stress and be effective in the performance of their job