Abstract
STRESS AMONG TURKISH PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHERS
Previous research indicates that student teachers experience high levels of stress, depression, hopelessness and anxiety due to various factors such as role clarification, conformity, time, financial worries, and assignments. However, not enough understanding is available regarding the main stressors and levels of stress in the lives of student teachers within the Turkish context. The present study addresses the following questions: Does study stress among pre-service English language teachers vary between study years and are there gender differences? Participants in this study are 138 pre-service English language teachers from a large public university in Izmir, Turkey. Study stress was measured using the Higher Education Stress Inventory, developed by Dahlin, Joneborg and Runeson (2005). A Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation was performed on the stress inventory. Results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS Version 17). Findings indicate that participants are under great stress regardless of the study year. Another important finding is that year 1 students are seriously stressed out, especially when compared with year 2 students. The present study found no significant difference between the mean stress scores of male and female students. There were no significant gender differences on any item, except the variable “Gender and Ethnic Background”. Implications are discussed for teacher education in Turkey.
Keywords
Stress, stressors, student teachers, gender, study year
