Browsing by Subject "työkuormitus"

The aim of this study was to examine the associations of type D personality and its components with effort-reward imbalance based work stress and its components. Previously it has been found that both type D personality and effort-reward based work stress are associated with poorer health status and also to be a risk factor for numerous negative health outcomes. The association of Type D personality with effort-reward imbalance hasn't been previously studied. Based on the previous research, we set the following three hypotheses : 1) Higher effort-reward imbalance is associated with type D personality 2) Higher effort and lower rewards are associated with type D personality 3) Higher negative affectivity and higher social inhibition are associated with higher effort-reward imbalance. There were 1285 participants from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study, who were working full time when the study was conducted and didn't have missing values in the study variables. Work stress was measured with a questionnaire based on effort-reward imbalance model (ERI, Siegrist, 1996). Type D personality was measured with a questionnaire based on DS14-measure (Denollet, 2005). Age of the participants varied between 30-45 years. The hypotheses were tested with logistic and linear regression analyses controlling for age, gender, education and occupational status. In the study type D personality was associated with higher effort-reward imbalance, higher efforts lower rewards. Of the components of type D personality negative affectivity predicted higher work stress but social inhibition was not related to perceptions work stress. The results imply that type D personality is a risk factor for high work stress.

The aim of this article-type master's thesis was to examine the stress, coping, and metacognitive perspectives of special education teachers working in primary school during the remote teaching and learning period caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the study was to examine what kind of stress and coping experiences the teachers had during the remote learning period, as well as what kind of mindset the teachers had when facing the workload. In addition, the dissertation examined the connection between teachers' ways of thinking and experiencing the intensity of workload. Experiences were examined using the Coping-Competence-Context (3C)-model. The data of the study was collected by thematic interviews with special education teachers (n = 11) working in different parts of Finland. Teachers were working in primary schools during the remote teaching and learning period. In these interviews conducted remotely, respondents were asked to describe their experiences of workload, recovery from work, and mindset and attitudes towards work. The data were analyzed using theoretical content analysis. Qualitative analysis program ATLAS.ti version 8 was used to organize the data. The workload experienced by special education teachers was mainly emotional, and often related to daily work changes. The coping strategies were used in a variety of ways, and their use was increased and new means were introduced during the remote learning period. The part of the 3C model focusing on recovery received support from teachers’ experiences, suggesting that teacher workload and recovery are directly related. The link between metacognitive perspectives and intensity of the workload was only partially supported: two teachers who had a stress-is-debilitating mindset experienced a higher-than-average workload. Instead, nine teachers who had a stress-is-enhancing mindset experienced both light and intense workload. The article ”Laaja-alaisten erityisopettajien työn kuormitus ja palautuminen sekä ajattelutavat COVID-19-pandemian aiheuttaman etäopetusjakson aikana: kokemusten tarkastelua Coping-Competence-Context-mallin avulla” is to be published in the NMI Bulletin.

Work related exhaustion is widely known phenomenon in the field of teaching. It is stated to be negatively correlated with teachers work results, the well-being of the work community and the quality of ones personal well-being and private life. Previous study indicates sicnifigant amount of teachers to be exhausted due to the factors in work. This exhaustion leads to absence and even to change of career. The goal of this research is to study the amount and quality of experienced exhaustion in terms of teachers’ age and work experience. The data was gathered from 163 teachers from six different schools from the Helsinki metropolitan area between March 2019 and February 2020. The group of respondents consisted of subject-, primary- and class teachers working primary schools. The data was collected with a survey which included an open ended question: ”What are the factors in your work that make you exhausted?” In addition teachers’ age and the amount of years in duty were sorted out. The quality and quantity of workload were measured with data-driven content analysis, theme design and scoring. For the analysis respondents were divided into three different groups based on their age and to five different groups based on their work experience. The quality and the quantity of work related stress in terms of teachers’ age and work experience were analysed reviewing correlations, running regression- and variance analysis and finally with crosstabulation. Age and work experience were noted to measure the same thing and therefore the analysis concentrated on age as a factor. The results show that age and the amount of experienced exhaustion are correlating negatively. In other words generally younger teachers were more exhausted whereas older teachers were not as exhausted. In addition the differences between age groups were significant in terms of the amount of exhaustion From the exhaustion themes ”students”, work-enviroment”, ”uncontrollability” and co-operation with parents” correlated negatively with teachers’ age. The age groups differed in terms of the quality of the workload, with younger teachers perceiving students, the amount of workload, resources, uncontrollability, the work environment and co-operation with parents as the most burdensome issues in their work. Middle-aged teachers found the lack of time and co-operation with professionals the most stressful factors in their work. The oldest teachers found additional non-core tasks/issues and poor management to be the most burdensome factors in their work. The results were largely in line with the previous study. Lack of time was the biggest exhaustion theme experienced regardless of the group. It is possible that the research results were partly explained by the demands placed on teachers by the change in society, the disregard for the needs of the individual in education policy, the harmful structures of the school for an individual and the individual's lack of influential opportunities. In further research, it would be important to consider the cause-and-effect relation-ships of different work load themes more profoundly and to include a broader and thus more generalized sample of respondents in the research. The research can be utilized in the development of teachers' well-being at work and as a tool in further research.