SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRESS: MATCHING THEORY, HUNCHES AND DATA

Abstract

This study presents data and discusses the relationship between occupational stress and organization theory for school administrators. Classical organization theory, focusing upon organizations as primarily bureaucratic in nature, and person‐environment P‐E fit theory, viewing the employee within the context of a work environment, are two broad theoretical frameworks that serve as bases for analysis and discussion. The objectives of the study follow: to report descriptive data about perceived levels of occupational stress, sources of stress, symptoms and coping strategies for building administrators from differing school settings; to provide comparisons between dependent variables of stress for specific independent variables such as school level and type; to apply organization theory to explain differences and relationships among variables; and to present a conceptually sound basis for further research on stress in education. A factorial ANOVA was used to test for main effect differences for the group dependent means for perceived occupational stress and the independent variables of level of school and school type. Several discriminant analyses were performed to determine the nature of discriminant functions for the dependent variables. Theoretically, highly bureaucratic schools should exhibit less stress than less bureaucratic schools. This was not supported. Person‐environment fit theory was better able to predict levels of perceived stress for school administrators.