Job Stress and Coping Strategies of Special Education Directors and Supervisors in Michigan.

This study of 281 special education directors and supervisors employed by public local and intermediate school districts in Michigan investigated major sources of job stress and identified coping strategies utilized by those educational administrators. The surveys completed by the special education administrators included questions regarding demographic information, a stress inventory adapted from Swent and Gmelch's (1977) Administrative Stress Inventory, a coping strategies inventory adapted from the writings of Moos and Billings, and questions regarding job satisfaction. The stress inventory included five dimensions (administrative constraints, role expectations, intrapersonal conflicts, interpersonal relations, and administrative responsibilities). The coping strategies inventory contained three clusters (problem-focused coping, appraisal-focused coping, and emotion-focused coping). Data were collected by mail. The response rate was 57 percent. T-tests, one-way analysis of variance, and stepwise multiple regression analyses were performed on the data. Scheffe test analysis was conducted to identify significant between-group differences when the multivariate F ratios were significant at the 0.05 level. Conclusions drawn included: (1) Special education administrators tended to experience situations regarding compliance with state, federal and organizational rules with greatest frequency and also considered them the most bothersome of the 33 situations included. (2) Special education administrators perceived trying to identify the cause of a problem as the coping strategy they used most frequently and considered it to be the most successful of the 27 strategies listed. (3) Special education administrators employed by local public schools appeared to experience greater job stress than those working for intermediate school districts. (4) Females tended to utilize problem-focused coping strategies more frequently than males. (5) Special education administrators tended to find situations involving administrative constraints to be most stressful. (6) Special education administrators with more than 30 years as director or supervisor perceived: (a) they had personally developed more effective coping strategies, and (b) greater success using problem-solving coping strategies. (7) Special education administrators with more than 30 years in education perceived greater job satisfaction.PhDSpecial educationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161098/1/8621291.pd