Measuring general and specific stress causes and stress responses among beginning secondary school teachers in the Netherlands

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to adjust the Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work (QEEW) in order to measure stress causes and stress responses of beginning secondary school teachers in the Netherlands. First, the suitability of the original QEEW stress scales for use in the beginning teachers (BTs) context was investigated using a sample of 356 beginning teachers from 52 different secondary school locations in the Netherlands. Confirmatory Factor Analyses, Principal Component Analyses and Mokken scaling item reduction was applied to create high concise and precise scales. Hereafter, based on the teacher stress literature, additional teacher specific stress items were added, resulting in the adjusted version of the measure, the Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work – Beginning Teachers (QEEW-BT, study 1). To cross-validate the results and to examine the internal consistency and validity of the adjusted instrument a different sample of 143 beginning teachers from 61 different secondary school locations in the Netherlands was used (study 2). The present findings provide adequate support that the QEEW-BT is a reliable and valid instrument to measure stress causes and responses for beginning secondary school teachers in the Netherlands.