Challenge and hinderance stressor appraisals, personal resources, and work engagement among k-12 teachers

Stress has long been conceptualized as consisting of two factors, eustress, or good stress, and distress, or bad stress (Selye, 1956). The occupational stress literature identifies challenge stressors as those associated with favorable outcomes, and hindrance stressors as those associated with negative outcomes (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boudreau, 2000). The current study had three objectives: 1) to investigate occupational level stressor appraisal by K-12 teachers, 2) to explore how the perception of the availability of resources influences individual level stressor appraisal, and 3) to test differential outcomes of challenge and hindrance stress. Results indicate that K-12 teachers appraise workload as a hindrance stressor more than as a challenge stressor, which is contrary to existing management literature categorizing workload as challenge stressor. Perceived resources also accounted for significant variance in individual appraisal of stressors as a hindrance. Results pinpoint precise personal and organizational resources that contribute to stressor appraisals as a hindrance. Finally, hindrance stress significantly detracted from engagement while challenge stress did not affect work engagement.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Thompson, Isaac Benjamin

Contributors dc:contributor

• O'Leary, Brian J.
• Cunningham, Christopher J. L.; Biderman, Michael D.; Carter, Pamala J.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Stress (Psychology)
• Workplace stress

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/410

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1550