The Influence of Time Constraints, Heavy Work Loads and Stiudents Diciplines on Teachers’ Emotional Stress

The emotional stress is the challenge often faced by Malaysian teachers. The seriousness of the work pressure among teachers was repeatedly reported in the media. The issue seem to be continously happened which has triggered the researcher to investigate why such things happen even for primary school teachers. This study had employed a quantitative research methodology using this cross-sectional survey method. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors influencing the emotional stress of primary school teachers in Seberang Perai Utara, Penang, Malaysia. Two validated research instruments were employed in order to collect data for this study. First, the study used the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) by Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein (1983) consist of 14 items. Second, the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) by Fimian (1984) containing 28 items was used. A total of 495 teachers (Female=410; Male=85) were selected for this study. The completed questionnaires were collected and analyzed using IBM-Statistical Package for Social Science (IBM-SPSS) software version 24. The findings of this study show that the majority of teachers are at moderate to high levels of stress. It also showed that there were no significant differences in teacher emotional stress based on gender, age and teacher teaching experience. It is found that there is a significant relationship between workload, time constraints and student discipline with the emotional stress of primary school teachers in Seberang Perai Utara, Penang. These three factors were also found to influence the emotional stress of primary school teachers. The recommendations were suggested on how to Meanimize the emotional stress among teachers. Furthermore, the limitations of the study and improvements for future studies are also included.