Moderating teaching practicum-related stress through religious coping strategy

The teaching profession is a very stressful profession. Student teachers who work in an environment laced with stress are also very vulnerable. They however, use strategies including religious coping to mediate against the stressful teaching practicum events. A quantitative self-administered Religious Coping Questionnaire (RCQ) was used to collect data from the participants. The objectives were to find out whether: student teachers used religious coping to ameliorate teaching practicum related stress; student teacher perceive religious coping as effective in reducing teaching practicum stress; religious coping strategy was gendered. The majority of the participants were religious and therefore used religious coping; the religious students perceived religious coping as an effective moderator of teaching practicum stress; statistically significant gender differences were found among student teachers in the use of religious coping strategies. In conjunction with previous research the findings indicate that religious coping is an effective moderator of perceived stress. It follows therefore that any intervention that may be rendered to student teachers to reduce teaching practicum should include religious coping