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'l to; .7. 4' : -"v_r gaff-:5, v "‘1! n. . r > n o ' R’ f 1:». a ’ _. , r $9.2”, «3; (a a.“ . -.'.*A‘r,‘;:'~:.r.- 7r.» ‘ ”fififirxfl‘afififk '7 ~ -'" ‘3‘ 412}:- 71-5 . ,Wgtggy "ytfia ~ '1 . ’ k €4‘2?4§§T7¥':fi§5¢yr y., 4 .Zt’ Edam :2- r A '~‘ .1 Date Lnouvua NH | I I. IIIIII II IIIIII III III 'I iiwl/gfivb I IIIIIIII ’ 007188429 LIBRARY Michigan State University L This is to certify that the dissertation entitled AN INTERACTIVE STUDY OF STRESS, STRAIN, AND COPING ON FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND SUPPORT STAFF AT A MID-WESTERN UNIVERSITY presented by R . PAUL SULLIVAN has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Educational Ph.D. degree in Administration Major professor April 16: 1991 MS U i: an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution 0-12771 PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record. TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due. DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE ll MSU I. An Affirmdive ActiorVEqual Opportunity Institution l cmuM-DJ AN INTERACTIVE STUDY OF STRESS, STRAIN AND COPING ON FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS AND SUPPORT STAFF AT A MID-WESTERN UNIVERSITY BY R. Paul Sullivan A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirments for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Educational Administration 1991 ABSTRACT AN INTERACTIVE STUDY OF STRESS, STRAIN, AND COPING ON FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND SUPPORT STAFF AT A MID-WESTERN UNIVERSITY by R. Paul Sullivan There is growing evidence that stress and its effects have a significant impact on the occupational world including the higher education workplace. The purpose of this study was to discover and analyze occupational stress, strain, and coping behaviors across faculty, administrators, and support staff employed at a four-year, midwest university. The three employee groups were compared with an external norm group as well as with each other. In addition, employee . gender and experience as independent variables were studied. Finally, the study sought to determine whether there was a correlation between coping behaviors and levels of stress and strain. The Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow and Spokane, 1987) was administered to a stratified random sample of 17? university employees. The scores of the 120 respondents on all fourteen scales of the Inventory were subjected to multi-analysis of variance, analysis of variance, t-tests, and Pearson's Correlation Coefficient to determine significance of differences at the .05 level of confidence. R. Paul Sullivan Faculty, administrators, and support staff in the sample did not differ from the external combined norming group in reported levels of stress, strain, or coping behaviors. The three sample employee groups also did not differ from one another in reported levels of stress, strain, and coping behaviors. Gender and years of experience did not affect stress levels across any of the three employee groups. Finally, there was a strong correlation found between reported levels of coping behavior and levels of stress and strain. This correlation has important implications for employees in that as coping levels improve for the employee, stress and strain levels decrease for those employees. Copyright by ROBERT PAUL SULLIVAN 1991 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The values of learning and working as life-long pursuits have been a part of me for as long as I can remember. However, the owning of values doesn't always hold the key to the realization of these goals, nor does it preclude the existance of self-doubt, failure, struggle for motivation, or trade-offs for other opportunities. All of these I have experienced at some time in my life and have weathered with a fair degree of success, I might say, through the normal struggling of perseverance, making those necessary compromises as well as more recently managing to stay on the road during those late winter night commutes between Big Rapids and East Lansing. Like most efforts, this one was not accomplished in a vaacum, without the support of other significant people. I would like to thank Dr. Lou Stamatakos, for his encouragement, motivation and confidence in me. Lou's pragmatic attitude toward my goal acheivement, his professionalism, and knowledge in so many areas of education and student affairs has had considerable influence on me since the beginning of my program. Thanks is also extended to Dr. Fred Swartz, whose knowledge, iv encouragement, and sincerity aided me throughout the dissertation process, and also to those other collegues who provided help and encouragement. Two additional people who influenced my life and deserve thanks are Dr. Harry Pike and the late Dr. Fred Birkam, mentors and friends who I will not forget. Special thanks goes to my parents, including my father for teaching me his work ethics, honesty, and great gentleness and kindness, and to my mother for her enouragement and support to this day and for a lifetime of confidence in me. Finally, to the closest people in my life today, my wife Susan, and our children, Jennifer, Brian, Jeffrey, and Caitlin: Susan for her love, support, motivation, and her parenting in my absence, and the kids for their unquestionning love, patience and acceptence of my missing time and activities while on the road. I hope that the values and ethics of life to which we have ascribed will be felt by our children in their growth and development. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES..........................................viii LIST OF FIGURES ...... .... ........ .........................ix CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION.........................................l Background.......................................l Reasons for the Study............................2 Purpose of the Study.............................5 Research Questions and Hypotheses................7 Definition of Terms..............................9 Methodology.....................................14 Limitations of the Study........................17 Delimitations of the Study......................17 Summary.........................................18 II. REVIEW OF THE REMTED LITERATURE...’0.00.00.00.0000019 Introduction....................................19 Historical Overview of Stress Research..........20 Summary.........................................22 Stress Theories and Related Concepts............23 Stimulus-Response Theory........................24 Life Events Theory..............................26 The Interactive Theory of Stress................27 Related Concepts................................28 Summary.........................................32 Stress in Higher Education......................33 Faculty Stress.................................35 Administrator Stress...........................42 Support Staff Stress...........................47 Summary........................................48 The Interactive Measurement of Stress, Strain and Coping.....................................48 The Conceptual Model...........................48 The Occupational Stress Inventory...............50 Summary........................................52 III. METHODOLOGY.........................................53 Introduction....................................53 The Population and Selection of the Sample......53 Sampling Design.................................56 vi CHAPTER Research Design.................................59 Measures........................................60 Reliability.....................................61 Validity........................................62 Norms...........................................64 Research Hypotheses.............................64 Method of Data Analysis.........................66 IV. ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS................68 CHAPTER Description of the Sample.......................68 Sample.........................................68 Descriptive Characteristics of the Sample.......70 Results of the Tests of the Hypotheses..........73 Summary........................................9l V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS............93 Summary of the Study............................93 Introduction...................................93 Purpose........................................94 Method.........................................95 Results of the Tests of the Hypotheses.........96 Limitations....................................99 Conclusions...................................lOO Implications for Practice.....................105 Recommendations for Further Research..........106 LIST OF REFERENCESOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.0110 APPENDICES A. B. C. D. LETTERS To RES PONDENTS O O I O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 115 DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE......................121 ENCIDSED POSTCARD. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 122 FOLLOW-UP REMINDER POSTCARD....................123 vii TABLE 10 11 12 13 LIST OF TABLES Page Sample Description and Response Rate by Employee GrOUPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOO0.0...0.0.0.00000000000069 Frequency of Respondents by Employee and Gender Group00OOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOO0.0.0......0.0.0.00000000000071 Number of Years of Experience in Present Occupa- tionOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIOOOOOCOOOOOOO00.0.000000000000072 Summary of T-Tests Yielding T-Values For Sample Groups and Combined Norming Groups...................79 Wilks Multi-Variate Test of Significance for Employee GrouPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO00.0.0.0..80 Summary of Univariate F-Tests on Fourteen OSI SUb-scaleSOOOOOO ........ 0......0.00.00.00.0000000000081 Summary of T-Tests in Employee Group Comparisons on Role Insufficiency (RI) and Physical Environment (p3).................................................33 Summary of Results of Hypothesis Testing for the T- Value Between Employee Groups........................84 Wilks Multi-Variate Test of Significance for Gender by Employee GrOUPOOOOOOI.0.0IO0..0.00.00.00.00000000085 Summary of Univariate F Tests on Gender for Employee Groups on Fourteen OSI Sub-Scales....................86 wilks Multi-Variate Test of Significance for Experience by Employee GroupOOOOOO0.0.00.00000000000087 Summary of the Univariate F Tests on Experience for Each Employee Group on Fourteen OSI Sub-Scales.......88 Summary of Pearson's Correlation Coefficients for for Stress and Coping and Strain and Coping..........9l viii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 1 Selye's General Adaption Syndrome (G.A.S.)...........25 2 The Four Basic Variations of Stress..................26 3 Chart of Occupational Stress Inventory Scales and SUb-Scaleso.OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.00.0000000000000051 ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 3221531921151 Stress and its effects are widely recognized as a pervasive influence in the daily lives of all individuals (Bensen, 1975; Seyle, 1976; Beech, Berm and Sheffield, 1982: Altmairer, 1983). As people strive to achieve "the good life", struggle to keep up with the rapid rate of change in today's society, and try to balance individual and family demands with job and career pressures, they are subject to an unlimited number of stressors which have an impact upon them in a variety of ways. The concept of stress has been increasingly studied as a phenomenon in our society by various professional researchers since the original works of Canon (1939) and Selye (1956). Stress research has been categorized in terms of its causes or origins, its negative impact on individuals, and the methods used to manage or cope with stress (Richard and Krieshok, 1989). Stress has also been studied as an occupational phenomenon (Cooper and Marshall, 1976) and as a concept related to personality (Freuden- berger, 1982; Eysenck, 1983). Stress theories vary from 2 those which are response-based in which stress is understood as a response of the individual to the stressful situation (Selye, 1956), to stimulus-based in which stress is viewed as any event or change which impinges upon the individual (Holmes and Masuda, 1974). Another theory, often called the person-environment stress theory, conceptualizes stress as a product of the particular characteristics of one's environment and reactions of the individual to that environment. The nature of potential stressors, and the individual's perception of those events help determine the resulting interaction of each or the degree of fit between person and environment (Lazarus, 1966; Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Rea§2n§_fer_tbe_§t2dx There is growing evidence that the problem of stress and distress significantly affects Americans psychologically, physiologically and economically. One strong link exists between stress and depression (Rabkin, 1982), while physiological disorders connected with stress include coronary heart disease (French, Caplan and Harrison, 1982; Cooper and Marshall, 1976), some types of head-aches (Sargent, 1982), and maladies of many other body systems. There is now evidence that some types of cancers are associated with stress and failure to adequately cope with stress (Cooper, 1983). It is widely recognized that stress 3 interferes with concentration, reduces job productivity, satisfaction, and happiness. Blackburn et al. reports the following: On a practical level, stress—related medical and health care costs to this nation may be over $200 billion annually. It is in the best interests of employers to understand the effects of stress on lost workdays and health care costs, and to act accordingly to help employees learn to manage work related stressors (Blackburn et al., 1986, p. 31). While occupational stress has been widely recognized in the American business and industry workplace, it has only recently been studied as a phenomenon in higher education (Blackburn et al., 1986; Brown et al., 1986a: Gmelch, 1986: Benjamin and Waltz, 1987; Richard and Krieshok, 1989). This same research indicates that the emotional, educational and economical cost of the failure to address stress in colleges and universities can be very high. Moreover, it is believed that stress among staff and faculty is also increasing, in a manner similar to that of business and industry (Shuster and Bowen, 1985; Brown et al., 1986a; Rasch, Hutchison and Tollefson, 1986). The number of organized, published studies on stress among college and university staff is extremely limited even though there are a number of articles and materials on stress management for students. Gmelch, Wilke and Loverich (1986) studied faculty stress and found five specific stressors including lack of reward and recognition, time 4 pressures, departmental influence, professional identity and student interaction conflicts. Bucci (1983) investigated administrator stress in higher education and discovered that sources of stress on this group included the general environment, job-related, internal or psychological and student-initiated stress. Such studies have yielded important information about the nature and sources of stress in academia. However, Brown et al.,(1986) and Richard and Krieshok (1989) have taken the investigation of stress among college and university professional staff and faculty a step further by studying stress interactively in order to discover relationships between and among occupational stress, stress reactions or strain and coping with stress. Significant differences were found among faculty from different disciplines, between gender, and across time of semester. Stresses included time pressures, work load, interpersonal relationships while strain and coping behaviors varied depending on the time of the semester. There have been stress-related studies of members of all organizational levels including blue collar workers in business and industry (Cooper and Marshall, 1976). No studies of stress in college and university support staff including clerical, technical, maintainance and food service 5 workers have been found, thus reflecting a void in knowledge of stress at this level in higher education (Austin, 1984). This is an especially important missing link if it is accepted that support staffs in colleges and universities are integral to the accomplishment of the institution's mission, and that helping those employees manage their stress is necessary for enhancing employee and organizational effectiveness. If stress among college and university employees is high and is becoming even higher, there exists a need to know more about those specific stressors and strains and to reseach what coping behaviors or stress management strategies are most useful to various employees. This study addresses not only stresses but employee responses in the form of strain to those stresses as well as how they cope with those strains. In addition, this study included support staff which none of the above interactive studies did in their research. EEIEQ§§_QI_LDQ_§LQQY The focus of this study was on stress as an interactive concept involving person and environment, stressful stimuli, reactions to those stimuli, as well as coping responses in the occupational environment. Specifically, the types of occupational stress, corresponding reactions or 6 psychological strain and coping or stress management techniques were identified and analyzed in three separate populations in a university setting. The central focus was on specific occupational stressors, strains and coping behaviors which interact with each other. The main purpose of this study was to discover and analyze the three dimensions of occupational stress, strain and coping behaviors across three different groups of employees including faculty, administrators, and support staff in an institution of higher education. In conducting the investigation, an attempt was made to determine the presence of significant occupational stresses, strains and coping behaviors in faculty, administrators, and support staff in a medium-size midwest state university. A second purpose was to analyze the relationship between occupational stress, strain, and coping and the types of employee group (faculty, administators, support staff), as well as gender and years of experience in their present occupation. Finally, this study sought to determine whether the presence of coping behaviors or stress management techniques influence stress and strain of the total scores of the three employee groups. For example, are high levels of coping correlated with low levels of stress and strain? The reason for investigating this relationship was to assist in 7 identifying effective coping behaviors for dealing with strain, which is important knowledge for employee assistance and staff development. It is believed that the findings will contribute to the theory which states that because stress is a continuing and naturally-occurring event, coping behaviors will affect the amount of occupational stress and strain experienced by employees (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). W The purpose of this study was to discover and analyze the three dimensions of occupational stress, strain, and coping behavior across three groups of employees in a higher education institution. The first purpose was to determine the presence of significant occupational stresses, strains, and coping behaviors among faculty, administrators, and support staff: ~ 1) What are the most significant occupational stressors, strains, and coping behaviors for each of the three groups of faculty, administrators and support staff? Hypothesis one then stated that occupational stresses, strains, and coping behaviors reported by faculty, administrators, and support staff did not differ from a combined norming population. The second purpose was to analyze the relationship between stress, strain, and coping and the characteristics of 8 employee group (faculty, administrators, support staff), gender, and years of experience in present occupation: 2) Did reported stress, strain, and coping behaviors differ among faculty, administrators, and support staff? Hypothesis two then stated that there would be no significant differences across the three employee groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff according to measures of stress, measures of strain, and measures of coping. 3) Was there any significant differences between men and women in reported stress, strain, and coping in each of the three groups of the University staff? Hypothosis three stated that there would be no differences between men and women in reported stress, strain, and coping behaviors for faculty, administrators, and support staff. 4) Was there a difference in reported stress, strain, and coping in terms of experience levels of faculty, administrators, and support staff? Hypothesis four stated that there would be no differences in reported stress, strain, and coping for faculty, administrators, and support staff across experience levels. The third purpose of this study was to determine whether the presence of coping behaviors or stress management techniques 9 influences stress and strain of the total scores of the three employee groups: 5) Was there a relationship between coping behaviors and stress and strain for all employees? Hypothesis five stated that the coping measures of the combined employee groups would not be negatively correlated with: a) measures of stress: b) measures of strain. Definition 9: Terms The following terms are defined as they are used in this study: Stress: Any situation, event, demand or characteristic which is perceived as a threat to the individual based on the nature (number, type) of the demand and the individual's perception and/or actual ability to cope with the demand (Lazarus, 1966: Osipow and Spokane, 1983). Stress is a neutral concept until the individual makes a judgment about its potential threat, or its harmful nature. Strggggr: The conceptualization of stress as a specific event or situation confronting a person. Examples of stressors can range from normal daily problems to death of a loved one, financial problems or loss of a job (Holmes and Masuda, 1974). 10 Q;ggpg§igngl_§txg§§: Any characteristic or feature of the work environment which is perceived by the individual to pose a threat. Specific occupational stressors include role overload, role insufficiency, role ambiguity, role boundary, responsibilty, and physical environment (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Q2s22ati2nal_§tre§§_Inxentgrx_IQ§11= is a Specific measure of the three dimensions of occupational adjustment including occupational stress, psychological strain, and coping resources. Each of these areas are measured by a number of specific attributes of the environment or by the individual representing the features of the three dimensions. 39;; Qveriogg(gg): measures the extent to which job demands exceed resources (personal and workplace), and the extent to which an individual is able to accomplish expected workloads (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Role Insufficiency(RI): measures the extent to which the individual's training, education, skills and experience are appropriate to job requirements (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Role Ambigui§y(RA): measures the extent to which the priorities, expectations and evaluation criteria are clear to the individual (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). 11 Bgig_figgggg;yigfii: measures the extent to which the individual is experiencing conflicting role demands and loyalities in the work setting (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Responsibilityigl: the extent to the individual has, or feels, a great deal of responsibilty for the performance and welfare of others on the job (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Physics; Environment(PE): the extent to which the individual is exposed to high levels of environmental toxins or extreme physical conditions (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Qgggpgtigggi_§;;gin: a psychological, physiological, behavioral and occupational reaction to occupational stress. Examples of occupational strain include anxiety and depression, cardiovascular disorders, eating and sleep disorders, social and interpersonal problems, and work performance problems. Specific categories of this strain include vocational, psychological, interpersonal and physical strain (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). ygggtigggi_§;;giniy§i: the extent to which the individual is having problems in work quality or output. Attitudes toward work are also measured (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). 12 W: the extent of psychological and/or emotional problems being experienced by the individual (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). W: the extent of diemptien in interpersonal relationships (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). £hygiggi_§t;ginl£fl§1: complaints about physical illness or poor self-care habits (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Qgping_§gh§yigz: a repetoire of cognitive and behavioral resources and skills which can be used by the individual as a way of reducing, detracting, or intervening with stress. Coping includes the categories of recreation, self-care, social support, and rational/cognitive coping behaviors (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). B§2£§§£12213E1= the extent to which the individual makes use of and derives pleasure and relaxation from regular recreational activities (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Self-care(sg): the extent to which the individual regularly engages in personal activities which reduce or alleviate chronic stress (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). l3 Sggigi_§gpr;§1§§1: the extent to which the individual feels support and help from those around him/her (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). nal C 'v o : the extent to which the individual possesses and uses cognitive skills in the face of work-related stresses (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Eaguity: full-time nine or twelve month teaching staff member employed in one of the seven schools or colleges in a non-administrative position. Support Staff: full-time staff whose responsilities are to support the academic and administrative functions and mission of the university and includes the clerical- technical, public safety, health center nurses, administrative-technical, food service and residence hall directors. Admigigtratgr: full-time professional staff members as classified by the Human Resource Department to perform administrative and/or leadership responsibilities. This definition includes staff from Business Affairs, Student Affairs, University Advancement and non-teaching academic administrators, department heads, directors, and chairs. l4 MELBQQQIQQI The setting for this study was Ferris State University, a public four year institution that enrolls approximately 12,000 students and is located in Big Rapids, Michigan. Ferris, a private school until 1950 that underwent several name changes including Ferris Industrial School, Ferris Institute and Ferris State College until it was named a university in 1987, is historically a career-oriented technical school. The institution presently offers a broad range of career and professional programs including a variety of technological curricula, business administration, education, allied health, pharmacy, and bachelor's degrees in general arts and sciences. The university also offers Doctoral degrees of Optometry and Pharmacy and several Masters degrees in business and education. The university is proud of its open-door admissions policy although many specific programs have minimum requirements. The school is accredited by the North Central Accreditation Association and many individual programs are accredited by curricula- related or professional bodies. The population of this study included all Ferris full-time employees including 538 faculty members, 207 administrators, and 679 support staff. Selection of this population was based on interest and uniqueness of such a university and its staff, ease of researching a specific group, and the 15 uniqueness of studying stress among and between three such sub-groups which have never before been compared. A stratified random sample of the three sub-groups was taken and allocation proportions determined sample sizes for the three groups. Each of the employees in the sample was asked to complete the Occupational Stress Inventory, a 140 item paper and pencil questionnaire which measures occupational stress, strain, and coping and is composed of three parts including the Occupational Roles Questionnaire (ORQ) which measures stress, the Personal Strain Questionnaire (OSQ) which measures strain, and the Personal Resources Questionnaire (PRQ) which measures coping or stress management strategies. This instrument is based on the interactive theory of stress which describes stress as an objective event, strain as the individual's response or reaction to stress, and personal resources as the individual's repetoire of coping behaviors which act to reduce the strain and stress. A combination of statistical procedures were employed including tests of significance and multi-variate analyses of variance to describe and analyze differences in stress, strain, and coping among employee characteristics. There are only a handful of interactive studies of stress, strain and coping at the higher education level (Richard and 16 Krieshok, 1989). No known research of any type has been conducted on stress among faculty, administrators, or staff at Ferris State University. The closest measure of assessment of stress consisted of the Ferris State University Organizational Effectiveness Surveys of 1987 and 1888 which were initiated to measure perceptions of staff on such issues as campus climate and managerial functioning with the overall goal of improving communication channels. To study stress as a singular entity among faculty, administrators and support staff was hopefully beneficial to the Ferris community for their knowledge and to further the cause of research of the interactive theory because no such population has ever been studied, compared and analyzed. The interactional study, however, shed light on strains and coping behaviors for three different populations and the information could be helpful in assessing organizational climate and evaluating needs for a proposed employee assistance program. The information also has implications for any kind of staff or faculty development or stress management program. W This study was limited to the number of full-time employees at Ferris State University and the results may not be generalizable to such employees at other colleges and 17 universities, especially to those institutions with a very different mission. Secondly, the study was limited by the self-reporting nature of the assessement instrument. The willingness to report honest and valid information and the ability to understand the test items on the part of the respondents determined the validity of the results (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). The final limitation pertained to the focus of the hypotheses, the test instrument and its measurement of stress, strain and coping behaviors in that it meaSured what it purported to measure according to the authors' theory and definitions of stress, strain, and coping behaviors. W The purpose of this research was to analyze occupational stress, resulting strain and coping mechanisms across employee groups at an institution of higher education. No attempt was undertaken to identify other kinds of stress apart from that which was defined as occupational stress. In addition, no effort was made to elaborate on stress management techniques or interventions except to identify those coping behaviors defined by the study and measured by the test instrument. 18 SBEEQIX This study was organized into five chapters. Chapter One has included an introduction to the study, reasons for the study, purpose of the study, as well as research questions and hypotheses, definitions of terms, methodology, limitations and delimitations, and finally, this summary itself. Chapter Two includes a review of the relevant literature on stress and its related theories and concepts, as well as stress which faces faculty, administrators, and support staff, and an overview of the interactive approach to studying and assessing stress, strain and coping behaviors. Chapter Three, Methodology, details the basic design of the study, which includes a description of the population and sample, the research design itself, the test instrument and data collection process, a statement of the research hypotheses and, finally, the analysis of data plan. Chapter Four includes an analysis and interpretation of the collected data and the disposition of the testing of the hypotheses. Finally, Chapter Five summarizes the purpose of the study, the methodology, and it presents major findings, conclusions and implications for practitioners in higher education administration. The same chapter also contains recommendations for further research. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE IDLIQQQQEIQD This chapter consists of a review of the related literature relevent to stress and occupational stress, which is the focus of this study. A history of the significant studies on stress is presented as well as a review of theories, related concepts, and the consequences of stress including strain and burn-out, and coping behaviors or stress management. The efforts of researchers regarding the specific identification and measurement of stress is also described during this historical review. In addition, the chapter includes a review of stress and its relationship with, and meaning to, employees in the higher education environment. A review of the literature about organizational stressors internal and external to the university is also presented. In addition, a review of the literature specifically related to faculty, administrators, and support staff is presented. Finally, a review of the research on the work by Osipow and Spokane (1987) on measuring stress, strain and coping was outlined since the investigator believes that this method of measuring and 19 20 analyzing occupational stress can be a useful way to assist the institution and employee in managing stress in the workplace. WWW Research on psychological stress emerged over fifty years ago as a result of concern about emotional breakdowns, psychotic behavior, anxiety, and other situational concerns such as military combat, concentration camps and other injuries and illnesses including hypertension (Holroyd and Lazarus, 1982). The pioneers who first studied stress included Walter Canon (1939) and Hans Selye (1956), both of whom studied the body's reaction to stress. Canon (1939) observed that the human body, when faced with a threat, experiences various physiological changes which he termed a fight-or-flight response meaning that the individual could either stand ground and fight or run away from the threat. Selye (1956) demonstrated in laboratory studies that rats experienced physiological changes regardless of the source of induced stress. This research reflected the thinking of the time that stress, regardless of the stress stimulus, and regardless of whether it is positive (eustress) or negative (distress), would cause the same general physiological responses in every individual (Greenberg, 1987). This model has become known as the stimulus-response model of stress (Benjamin and Waltz, 1987: Richard and Krieshok, 1989). 21 Other studies which were taking place concurrently with Seelye's work included Harold Wolf's research on the emotional effects of American prisoners held in German and Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, Wolf and Wolffs' work on stress and headaches, and Engel's studies on stress and ulcerative colitis, all reported by Greenberg (1987). Those early stress studies were related in one way or another to disease, illness or the bodily systems and they stood as a partial background for later studies of the 1970's and 1980's involving Simonton and Simonton's (1975) work which related stress, the emotions and cancer, and Freidman and Rosenman's (1974) studies on type A personality, stress and the cardio-vascular condition. In the meantime, other researchers who have contributed knowledge to the field of stress include Arnold Lazarus (1966) for his work on studying peoples' perceptions of the degree of threat associated with stressful events, and Holmes and Rahe (1967) for studying the relationship of significant life events as stressors and resulting illness. These researchers have contributed to the basic theory of stress and will be referred to again during the discussion of the theoretical concepts of stress. A final historical note includes not so much a time line of the development of stress research but an explanation of how 22 stress research and study appears to be otherwise categorized by subject and author. Greenberg (1987) summarized stress-related illness and disease research to have been conducted by Canon, Selye, Freidman and Rosenman, Simonton, and Wolff while the study of life-event stressful situations is associated with the names of Lazarus and Holmes and Rahe. Finally, according to Greenberg (1987), the area of stress management and coping behaviors is most often associated with Jacobson, Benson, and Meichenbaum. Richard and Krieshok (1989) categorized the study of stress according to sources of stress (Beehr and Newman, Brown et al., and Newman and Beehr), physiological and psychological responses to stress (Cooper, Jenkins, Krantz et al., and Linden), measurement of stress (Derogatis, Katkin and Hastrup) and occupational stress (Cooper and Marshall, French and Kaplan). These categorizations of stress research are by no means comprehensive, represent part of the historical overview, and provide a basic understanding of the origins of research on the phenomenon of stress. ar ° The history of stress research reflects that its early study, with the exception of Selye's concentrated works, was carried out in a very pragmatic way, depending on the times and conditions of the world, and on the particular interests of the researchers themselves. The early research, however, 23 formed the basis and impetus for the more recent development of stress theory. W The study of stress and its implications on human beings is diverse and even confusing (Richard and Krieshok, 1989). Certainly, the history of research on stress reflects this point and it is supported by other reviewers of the literature such as Chesney and Rosenman (1983), and Goldberger and Bresnitz (1982) who report that the field has been plagued with confusion and controversy: The stress field is a sprawling one, characterized by unevenness and lack of coordination (not unlike many other domains within the behavioral sciences and mental health sciences) with pockets of substantial development separated by faddish, superficial, or one-time forays (Goldberger and Breznitz, 1982, p.xi). Despite the confusion, there appear to be three basic theories of stress that have emerged from the research (Goldberger and Bresnitz, 1982: Cooper, 1983: Richard and Krieshok, 1989). Those theories include the stimulus- response theory constructed by Selye (1956, 1974, 1976), the life events theory (Holmes and Rahe, 1967; Holmes and Masuda, 1974), and finally a theory of stress which combines the first two theories, had its origins in the work of Lazarus (1966), and defines stress as a result of the interaction between person and the environment or situation. 24 The person-environment theory, as stated in Chapter One, is based on the interaction of the stressful event and the individual's perception and reaction to it. The first two theories will be briefly outlined and the third interactional or person-environment stress theory will be elaborated upon because of its implications for occupational stress and the measurement of occupational stress, strain and coping behavior for this research. s- s o o The stimulus-response theory reflects Selye's findings that stress is the biological response of the body to any demand (stimulus) made on it (Selye, 1956). Stress, by this definition, is a common psychological and physical reaction to the stimulus impinging on the person regardless of the type of stimulus. Stress occurs as a three-stage process (Figure 1) called the General Adaptation Syndrome: Phase 1: Alarm reaction. The body shows the changes characteristic of the first exposure to a stressor. At the same time, its resistance is diminished and, if the stressor is sufficiently strong (severe burns, extremes of temperature), death may result. Phase 2: Stage of resistance. Resistance ensues if continued exposure to the stressor is compatible with adaptation. The bodily signs characteristic of the alarm reaction have virtually disappeared and resistance rises above normal. In get 25 Phase 3: Stage of exhaustion. Following long- continued exposure to the same stressor, to which the body has become adjusted, eventually adaptation energy is exhausted. The signs of the alarm reaction reappear but now they are irreversible, and the individual dies. (Greenberg, 1987, p.5) Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 .////r ‘\\\\\ No Resistance Alarm Reaction Resistance Exhaustion Figure 1. Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (G.A.S.). (Greenberg, 1987, p.5) Selye (1974) went on to coin the terms eustress, a positive stress (obtaining a job, marriage) to which the body must adapt, and distress, a negative stress (death of a loved one, job dismissal) to which the body must adapt as eliciting the same physiological and psychological responses regardless of the individual. He went on to explain overstress (hyperstress) when the individual exceeds the limits of stress, and understress (hypostress) when there is not enough stimuli. Selye (1983) advocated that: Our goal should be to strike a balance between the equally destructive forces of hypo- and hyperstress, to find as much eustress as possible, and to minimize distress (Selye, 1983, p. 18). In other words, too much distress and too little stress in general is to be avoided as illustrated in Figure 2. 26 Overstress (hyperstress) Good stress STRESS Bad stress (eustress) (distress) Understress (hypostress) Figure 2. The Four Basic Variations of Stress (Cooper, 1983, p. 18) The_Life_Exent§_Theerx The life events theory of stress (Holmes and Rahe, 1967: Holmes and Masuda, 1974: Dohrenwend and Dohrenwend, 1974) conceptualizes stress to be an internal or external event or situation that impinges on a person. The person will be affected psychologically and physiologically in the demand for adjustment depending on the seriousness and number of life events or stressors impinging on the individual in a given time. Stressful life events such as marriage, death of a spouse, buying a home, getting a job promotion, holidays or vacations were assigned numerical values that purported to measure the adjustment demands and any subsequent illness from the stressors. Holroyd and Lazarus (1982) report that research has not yielded a strong 27 relationship between life events and illness. How significant life events of either positive or negative value directly affect the adjustment of the individual remain a subject for further research. MW Neither of the first two theories of stress take into account the role of peoples' cognitive and emotional reactions and individuals appraisals of stressful events. The human being is not a passive or helpless creature subject to environmental demands and able only to respond after the fact. Therefore, the third definition of stress is defined as the result of the interaction of person and environment or life situation. Environmental or life events are mediated by the individual's appraisal or evaluation of stress and his/her coping behavior in managing stress (Lazarus, 1966: Holroyd and Lazarus, 1982). Stress experienced by a person is contingent on the adequacy or perceived adequacy of one's personal resources and coping strategies (Richard and Kreishok, 1989). The concept of appraisal of the stressful event, first denoted by Lazarus (1966), refers to the evaluation of what is at stake, or how the individual is in jeopardy, and the evaluation of challenge of what can be gained or mastered from the stressful situation. Holroyd and Lazarus (1982) 28 report that appraisal of the stakes is often in the form of a question asked by the individual, "Am I okay or am I in trouble?" Finally, appraisal is influenced by several factors including past experiences in similar circumstances, perceptions of available resources, and beliefs about the self. The other mediator, coping behavior, refers to the person's managing internal and external demands or life events: The term ”coping" refers broadly to efforts to manage environmental and internal demands and conflicts among demands (Lazarus, 1966,1981). This definition focuses explicitly on efforts to manage, that is, on the dynamic constellation of thoughts and acts that constitute the coping process (Holroyd and Lazarus, 1982 p. ). Holroyd and Lazarus (1982) continue by stating that what people think about and do in a stressful situation represents an important departure from the other theories that do not account for the person-environment relationship. Finally, Holroyd and Lazarus (1982) report on the research of Folkman and Lazarus which indicates that coping or stress management efforts are multi-faceted in that not one but many coping responses are made by those who encounter stress. W Stress, strain and burn-out as well as stress management are additional significant features of this interactive, person- 29 environment theory of stress, especially as the terms relate to the study and measurement of stress, strain and coping. In the general literature, much has been studied about the effects of stress regardless of which theory is held in highest esteem (Goldberger and Bresnitz, 1982). However, strain and burnout are of particular importance to the interactive model because the terms are defined as a collection of symptoms and behaviors resulting from stress and the fit between the person and environment (Melendez and de Gusman, 1983). Person-environment fit can be explained as the position of, or relationship between, the person and the environment. It involves the characteristics of the environment and the reactions of the person to those characteristics. Strain is the result of stress (Selye, 1966; Cooper, 1983: Osipow and Spokane, 1987) and it is manifested in a variety of ways depending on the individual. Strain includes physiological and psychological responses to stress and includes various somatic and emotional disorders. Osipow and Spokane (1987) defined strain as a reaction to stress manifested by various psychological, physical, interpersonal, and vocational behaviors. Burnout, a term often related to strain, has such symptoms as exhaustion, bordom, a feeling of being unappreciated, psychosomatic complaints and is described by Maslach and Jackson as: 30 a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that frequently occurs among individuals who do "people work”- spend considerable time in close encounters with others under conditions of chronic tension and stress (Maslach and Jackson, 1984, p.5). It appears that prolonged behaviors or symptoms of strain can lead to burnout. Maslach and Jackson (1982) reported three aspects or phases to burnout including development of a detached concern or depersonalization of co-workers and others, perceptions of low personal accomplishments and uselessness, and finally, emotional exhaustion. While burnout is a well known phenomenon in the helping professions and education, it is also an issue studied by organizational psychologists in the business and corporate world (Melendez and de Gusman, 1983). Finally, burnout is most destructive because it affects the highly enthusiastic, concerned and productive people as they are not only concerned about helping others and getting things done, but they tend to encounter more organizational and individual pressures and resistance compared with those who are indifferent to their jobs (Pines, Aronson, and Kafry, 1981). Stress management or coping, terms also related to the interactive theory of stress, imply that the individual, given the the knowledge, is instrumental dealing with or coping with stress using a variety of psychological and behavioral techniques at his/her disposal (Breznitz and 31 Goldberger, 1982). This definition refers to what Holroyd and Lazarus (1982) called "the dynamic constellation of thoughts and acts" that constitute " efforts to manage" stress and strain. Currently, there are a variety of coping or stress management approaches including self-care or health care, Social support, cognitve skills, and recreational activities (Newman and Beehr, 1979: Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Other techniques reported in the stress management literature include cognitive-behavioral interventions and biofeedback (Holroyd and Lazarus, 1982: Meichenbaum, 1977). While research on stress management is still in its infancy (Holroyd and Lazarus, 1982), it is apparent that the concept is central to the interactive stress defintion because it requires activity and response by the individual as a result of the appraising of stress and strain. The chain of events in the emotional and cognitive processing of stress begins with some kind of event or situation which is followed by an appraisal by the individual. If the individual's perception appears to include threat, strain is the result. Knowledge and use of stress management or coping behaviors will govern or moderate the amount of strain experienced by this individual. 32 The measurement of stress has been impeded by lack of a common theory and understanding of stress and its related concepts (Haan, 1982: Richard and Kreishok, 1989). In fact, Haan (1982) claimed that psychometric assessment is essentially premature until the arguement over the definition of stress is resolved. A review of the literature on the measurement of stress (Richard and Kreishok, 1989) shows that what is commonly attempted in measuring stress is not stress itself, but the individual's response to stress, namely strain or burnout. The same authors cite physiological measures studied by Katkin and Hastrup and self-report measures as two broad assessment efforts each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Two of the most significant problems cited by Richard and Kreishok (1989) were lack of clarity on the symptomatology being measured and the unavailability of any one instrument to measure stress, strain and coping or stress management. EQEEQIXL Three major theories of stress include the stimulus-response theory, the life-events theory, and the peson-environment or interactive theory. The latter theory conceptualizes stress as an objective or neutral phenomenon in the environment, strain as being the individual's response to stress depending on the appraisal of the event by the person, and 33 finally, coping behavior as stratigies of managing stress, and particularly strain. Burnout was noted to be related to strain and constitutes a prolonged reaction to stress. Assessement of stress, still in its infancy, has generally focused on the measurement of strain or burnout rather than stress itself. W This section begins with a brief discussion of the organizational pressures and other tensions in colleges and universities that appear to contribute to employee stress and strain. The section then includes a review of the literature concerning faculty, administrator, and support . staff stress. Included in this review is an examination of the higher education literature on the interactive model of occupational stress, strain and coping behavior. Pressures and stressful influences in colleges and universities which, in turn, have an impact upon the quality of work life in those institutions, have increased tensions and have made the career setting less appealing in recent years (Austin, 1983: Benjamin and Walz, 1987: Brown et al., 1986: Shuster and Bowen, 1985). Economic pressures including increasing costs and decreasing levels of state and federal support to colleges and universities (Austin, 1983), demands for accountibility, as well as diminished public confidence 34 in education, and increasing federal and state regulations all represent threats to the organization and its workforce who must deal with these issues in their roles as institutional representatives and careerists. In addition, the formal organizational structure that is expected to accomodate collegial, political, and bureaucratic policies and practices (Austin, 1983) along with faculty governance tensions (Gmelch, 1986) add to these organizational stresses. Benjamin and Walz (1987) charge that academic institutions have been slow to adopt policies and practices that promote and encourage effective stress management, professional staff development and creativity, and pride in the educational process: Thus, there is increasing and wide-spread dissatisfaction with the quality of academic life, and many educators who entered the profession with idealism and high expectations have been frustrated because they feel powerless to change the problems they encounter daily (Benjamin and Walz, 1987, p.11). These organizational and environmental pressures interact with other more specific job stressors (Austin, 1983: Benjamin and Waltz, 1987) to produce strain and the need to cope with such stress and strain. 35 t 8: Virtually all the research on college and university faculty occupational stress has occured since 1970 and much of it has been organized along the lines of identification of the origins or sources of stress. A few other studies have focused on the results of stress including strain, burnout and other symptoms of stress. One large national study (Gmelch, Wilke, and Lovrich, 1986) of the patterns and dimensions of faculty stress demonstrated that stress is common to a wide variety of academic disciplines, and of the teaching, research and service functions, teaching is the most stressful activity. In this study of eighty randomly selected universities and 1,920 faculty members, respondents reported that 60 percent of the total stress in their lives originated from work, the highest proportion citing such reasons as lack of reward and recognition for their work. Time and resource pressures were also high on the list of faculty stressors by virtue of non- teaching activities such as paperwork and frequent interuptions. Untenured, younger and female faculty members report more stress than other colleagues. Gmelch, Wilke and Lovrich (1986) report that married women faculty bear more responsibility for family tasks, additional work duties, and 36 have less support than their male colleagues. These reseachers advocated: communities are warned to take heed of high risk groups among their faculty, and individual faculty are warned to take note of the dimensions that they and their colleagues identify as the major causes of strain in the professional life of academe (Gmelch, Wilke and Lovrich, 1986, p. 283). Faculty morale, in particular, seemed no better than fair at two-thirds of the campuses surveyed by Shuster and Bowen (1986). Other specific stressors identified by faculty included excessively high expectations, lack of financial support for research, lack of time to keep professionally current, publishing pressures, work overload and lack of career progress. Benjamin and Waltz (1987) reviewed research on faculty/counselor stress citing compensation, and institutional policies and lack of support (Armes and Watkins, Bender and Blackervill, Grahn) and discrepancies between professional expectations and institutional realities (Armes and Watkins) as stressors reported by faculty members. In another study, Shuster and Bowen (1986) cited threats to job security, academic freedom, compensation, and work environment as major stressors which have caused weaker morale, anxiety, and a sense of isolation. These threats, the authors claim, could result in 37 a serious lack of interest in the academic and teaching careers by the public during the next twenty-five years. And if there are doubts about the validity of faculty reports of remuneration as a stressor, one need only to look at the twenty percent decline in real earnings between 1970 and 1983 (Shuster and Bowen, 1986). Another summary of research studies by Seldin (1987) revealed that college and university professors experience such stressors as inadequate participation in institutional planning and governance, time pressures, low pay and poor working conditions, inadequate recognition and reward, career development problems, and poor relationships with students and staff. Seldin believes that excessively high promotion and tenure requirements, economic retrenchment, career stagnation and a growing awareness of the discrepancy between expectations and actual rewards are causing those stressors for faculty. For example, faculty are concerned about inadequate and unequal pay across the academic disciplines and compared with the business and industry sector. Austin (1983) cites studies which indicate that faculty workload, restricted opportunity structure, role conflict and reward structure can be significant stressors. First, organizational and institutional pressures involving 38 financial cutbacks or even steady-state economics are compelling college leaders to reduce personnel costs while delivering the same teaching output. This trend, in turn, causes faculty to assume overload assignments and coupled with an increasing need to publish, causes increased pressure. Second, lack of career and faculty development opportunities as well as the pyramid squeeze in which there are fewer jobs in higher education into which an employee can hope to advance may cause discord. Third, role conflict, according to Austin (1983), because of conflicting allegiances between the collegial profession and the bureaucratic organization, and among the activities of teaching, research and service may contribute to the strain. Finally, although intrinsic rewards of the profession may be most satisfying to teachers, the extrinsic factors of compensation may be very troublesome, especially when compared with similar professions outside of the learning environment. It is difficult to believe that these pressures are not contributing to the undesirability of the profession of teaching. Of faculty members in a study by Koester and Clark (1980), married women and unmarried men faculty experienced more stress than their respective counterparts. Reasons cited for such findings included lack of a supportive spouse to 39 maintain the household and to encourage the professional's career development. According to Blackburn et al, (1986) only a few empirical studies have connected job strains to such quality of life outcomes as life satisfaction, job satisfaction and health. Their study attempted to measure how a series of variables or intervening moderators affect job strain. As a result of administering a series of test instruments to faculty and administrators, Blackburn et al (1986) discovered that administrators experienced less strain than their colleagues in the academic sphere. Moreover, it was shown that the selected moderators or intervenors such as social support, physical fitness and positive self-esteem, significantly reduced the correlations between job stress and quality of life indicators. Brown et al. (1986a).in surveying several studies on faculty stress, related lack of time, poor facilities, administrative red tape and high self-expectations as origins of faculty stress. In their study, Brown et al. (1986a) found that faculty and student affairs administrators reported time pressures, work overload and interpersonal relationships to be the greatest stressors. Symptoms of strain most often listed were somatic complaints. This same study surveyed the populations for 40 coping strategies used to deal with their stresses and strains. Self-care activities including recreation, exercise, sleep and relaxation were reported by forty-five percent of faculty and student affairs administrators, while twenty-five percent of all the respondents listed taking specific action such as time management and reducing responsibilities as coping behaviors used to deal with job stress. When asked to describe changes in work environment which might help reduce stress, respondents as a whole suggested more equipment, a higher budget and more clerical help. Higher salary, more recognition and different job characteristics were suggested by fifteen percent or more of the study's participants. Student affairs staff listed job characteristic changes which include better role clarification, physical arrangements, and quality of time significantly more than faculty. Brown et al (1986a) continued by studying stress and the characteristics of campus role, time of semester and gender of both faculty and student affairs administrators. Faculty members reported more stress in the areas of role overload and responsibility compared with student affairs administrators. The latter, however, reported significantly more role insufficiency (individual's training, education, skills, and experiences not appropriate to job requirements) stress than the faculty. This type of stress was very high 41 at the middle and end of the semester for student affairs professionals compared with faculty as evidenced by comparable scores for this occupational stressor at the beginning of the semester. In terms of cognitive coping behaviors (use and posession of cognitive or rational/logical thinking skills to deal with work-related stresses), student affairs staff experienced less of this coping behavior during the middle of semester than the beginning or end compared with faculty counterparts. Self- care activities for both faculty and student affairs staff dropped significantly from the beginning to the end of the semester. There were no significant results in the analysis of stress and different categories of faculty members, thus supporting the findings of Gmelch (1983), who found no differences in reported stress among different categories of faculty members. Finally, women reported more strain than men, and women student affairs staff demonstrated less recreational and self-care behavior than female faculty, while male student affairs staff reported more recreational and self-care activity than male faculty. More will be said about this study since it was the first piece of research to utilize the interactive theory of stress and the Osipow- Spokane Measure of Stress, Strain and Coping (1983) with higher education employees. 42 Finally, in another interactive study of stress on faculty members using Osipow and Spokane's test of stress, strain and coping, Richard and Krieshok (1989) could find no differences in occupational stresses or coping behaviors on the basis of gender or rank of the professor. However, strain decreased for males and increased for females as they moved up in faculty rank. m'n s r t S ss- Faculty members in colleges and universities often percieve administrators as possessing significant control and authority over policies and practices in the institution (Austin, 1983). While senior level executives do wield such power in certain areas of their control, the vast majority of administrative staff do not percieve their situation similarly. This section centers on a review of the studies pertaining to administrative professional staff in general and not just the executive level administrator. Austin, in reviewing the literature of the 1970s pertaining to middle level administrators, including directors and department heads, found mixed perceptions and attitudes of administrators. She reported studies by Bess and Lodahl, Solomon and Tierney, Baldridge et al., and Scott who found a high level of administrators reporting job satisfaction but that they themselves were not satisfied. When low 43 satisfaction was reported by individual administrators, it pertained to job advancement issues, time for scholarly activities, family and recreation, as well as limited resources and staff, paperwork and lack of cooperation and recognition. Satisfaction was evidenced in these studies by reports of opportunities to help students and faculty and to work independently and to facilitate the acheivement of the mission of the institution. Finally, while there is a paucity of research for lower level administration such as staff counselors and residence hall directors (Austin, 1983), their positions are most vulnerable to cutbacks and they may be subject to stress due to having little authority but much responsibility. In another study of the causes of stress for administrators, Bucci (1983) identified general environmental stress, job related stress, internal or psychological stress and stress having to do with student encounters. Bucci reports that sixty administrators from forty—four institutions accept job or organizational stress as a fact of life whereas they try to deal more effectively with thier own internal psychological and student stress. Bucci concluded by listing important coping strategies such as healthy life style, good support system, effective time management, positive attitude and perception of change as a challenge. 44 Development of a positive attitude toward life and work is seen by Bucci as the best approach of stress management. Rasch, Hutchison and Tollefson (1986) after reviewing the related research, identified five major occupational stressors including job stressors, role stressors, interpersonal factors, career development, and organizational structure and climate. When developing their own specific instrument to measure stress among college and university administrators, Rasch, Hutchison and Tollefson (1986) determined through factor analysis that four sources of stress existed, including role-based, task-based, conflict-mediating and social-confidence-based stress. Department chairs reported higher levels of role-based stress than central administrators. As administrators move up the organizational ladder, task-based stress decreased. Perhaps, as Rasch, Hutchison and Tollefson indicated, logistical support is more available at higher organizational levels. Finally, there were no differences among administrative levels regarding conflict mediation and social-confidence stress. This may be due to the fact that all levels of administrators deal with conflicts and the public under various circumstances. 45 Student affairs professionals who are usually classified as administrators have been the subjects of research on the sources and effects of occupational stress. In a trio of related studies on stress and burnout among career placement administrators, it was found that such professionals do not experience higher degrees of stress, strain and burnout compared with other direct service helpers who are on the front lines of daily activities with clients and other people. DeVoe, Spicuzza and Baskind (1984), using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (1982) randomly sampled 237 career services directors in higher education and found that burn- out did not exist in this sample. Spicuzza, Baskind and Woodside (1984) asked whether professional staff in career placement offices experience burnout and found, as a result of a 98 percent return rate of 143 randomly selected professionals, that burnout did not exist in this sample either. The third study (Wiggers and Forney, 1984) employed the Occupational Environment Scales (Osipow and Spokane, 1983) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory, with a random sample of 200 career placement directors and workers. The career placement group scored significantly lower on the stress scale with the exception of role overload, lower on the strain scale, and approximately the same on the coping behavior scale. While seventy-five percent of the career professionals reported experiencing burnout in the past, only seventeen percent said they experienced on-going or 46 trait burnout as defined by Maslach and Jackson (1981). Forney and Wiggers (1984) suggested that burnout can be reversed by employing stress management techniques. Another administrator study pertaining to student affairs professionals involved an investigation of individual and organizational factors contributing to stress among chief student affairs offices of mid-west colleges and universities. In an unpublished dissertation, Erickson (1985) found that factors intrinsic to the job such as frequent interruptions and role in the organization comprised the most frequent sources of stress, and career development and work relationships were the least frequent sources with organizational structure and climate falling in the middle of the group of sources of stress. Fifteen percent of student affairs officers reported work as a whole to be frequenty stressful. A final student affairs administrator study by Brown (1986b) involved the use of the Measures of Stress, Strain and Coping (Osipow and Spokane, 1983) and an open-ended questionnaire to analyze origins of stress, strain and coping and job satisfaction. Over 67 percent of the student affairs professionals reported relationships with people (administrators, students) and 31 percent listed job characteristics (budgets, resources, salary) as stressful 47 items. Strain was evidenced by body signals such as tiredness, head-aches, and muscle tension and by relationships with others as evidenced by social withdrawal, grouchiness, and irratibility symptoms. Most administrators used such coping behaviors as exercizing (22 percent), taking specific action (17 percent), self-care (17 percent) and seeking social support (15 percent). Su 0 t Sta St e ° Virtually no empirical or non-empirical investigations of work and stress have taken place on clerical and other support staffs in colleges and universities (Austin, 1983) despite the fact that secretaries, physical plant and food service workers play a critical part in the daily functions of the institution. Austin reports that Caston and Bess relate sources of stress such as lack of reward for hard work, no real payoff for associating with prestigious teaching and research personnel, arrogant faculty members, disrespectful students, insecure job futures and poor morale connected to financial uncertainties of the university. It would appear that support staff have the perception that colleges and universities are a pleasant place to work and are proud of their work despite the above possible sources of stress. More empirical studies of this population are needed to confirm or deny some of the assumptions postulated above. 48 umm : A review of the literature revealed that stress in higher education involves internal and external pressures at the organizational level and it can also comprise stress, strain, and coping at the occupational level. Organizational stresses include political, economical, and environmental pressures while occupational stresses are apparent in faculty, administrators, and support staff employees in colleges and universities. Major faculty stresses include time pressures, lack of reward and recognition, institutional conflicts, and restricted career opportunities. Administrator stresses include lack of recognition, conflicts with job roles and tasks, pressures related to organizational structure and climate, and general relationships with people. Support staff pressures involve lack of reward and poor morale because of their relatively low position on the organizational ladder. h a ' The interactive model of stress is related to the person- environment fit paradigm originated by Lofquist and Dawis which focuses on the importance of the characteristics of the person as well as the occupational environment (Richard 49 and Krieshok, 1989). Stress, a neutral event, must be perceived by each individual based on his or her appraisal of the stress. Stress, therefore, has a subjective and objective quality about it. Strain is the result of the individual's reaction to stress, and finally, the presence of coping behaviors can mediate both stress and strain. Based on the stress research of French, Shuler and Lazarus, Osipow and Spokane (1983, 1987) identified three dimensions critical to the model of occupational stress: psychological stressors at work, occupationally induced strain and coping resources used to counter the strain brought on by the initial stress. According to Osipow and Spokane: the social psychology of work suggests that a worker can potentially occupy a variety of social roles, each of which has the potential to be stressful in some particular way (Osipow and Spokane, 1987 p.8). While each of these roles can be positive or negative, it is the negative characteristics of these roles that are stressful. The collection of work roles including role overload, role insufficiency, role ambiguity, role boundary, responsibility and physical environment resulted in the construction of a scale called the Occupational Role Questionnaire. The resulting strain, something that is perceived and interpreted as positive or negative according to Lazarus (1966), is manifested in several ways including psychological, physical, interpersonal and vocational 50 strain. These four measures of strain resulted in the the Personal Strain Questionnaire. Based on Newman and Beehrs' (1979) review of coping resources, Osipow and Spokane identified self-care behavior, social support systems, cognitive skills and recreational activities as specific scales constituting the Personal Resources Questionnaire. In the interactive model, using the Occupational Stress Inventory, each of the three factors, stress, strain and coping, yield certain information. There is also an interaction between stress roles and the individual's ability to cope as well as the degree of strain experienced by the individual. The model of stress, strain and coping: postulates that where perceived occupational stressors are equal for two people, differences in coping resources would serve to moderate the resulting strain. Thus high occupational stress by itself does not necessarily predict strain. Only to the degree to which coping resources exist is an adequate prediction of strain possible (Osipow and Davis, 1988). Richard and Krieshok (1989) repostulated this relationship by stating that strain is a function of stress and coping. The interaction of stress and coping will determine the amount of strain. The Qccupeeiogei Strese Invegtogy; The Occupational Roles Questionnaire (ORQ), previously entitled the Occupational Environment Scales (Osipow and Spokane, 1983), the Personal Strain Questionnaire (PSQ) and the Personal Resources 51 Questionnaire (PRQ) combine to form the Occupational Stress Inventory (OSI), formerly entitled the Measures of Occupational Stress, Strain and Coping (Osipow and Spokane, 1983). The chart in Figure 4 represents the name of each questionnaire and their respective scales. QQQQEAIIQNAL__§IBE§§__IEYENTQBX Occupational Roles Personal Strain Personal Resources Questionnaire Questionnaire Questionnaire Role Overload Vocational Strain Recreation Role Insufficiency Psychological Strain Self-Care Role Ambiguity Interpersonal Strain Social Support Role Boundary Physical Strain Rational Responsibility Cognitive Physical Environment Figure 3. Chart of Occupational Stress Inventory Scales and Sub-Scales. The test items of the Occupational Roles Questionnaire (ORQ), the Personal Strain Questionnaire (PSQ), and the Personal Resources Questionnaire (PRQ) are contained in an eight-page reuseable booklet. Responses are made on a separate sheet according to a five-point, Likert-type scale which reflects the frequency of an item, thus showing rarely or never, occasionally, often, usually or most of time choices. The test is divided into three sections according to the three questionnaires. The ORQ contains ten items for each scale for a total of sixty items while the PSQ contains ten items for the four scales totaling forty items. The PRQ 52 also has ten items for each of the four scales for a total of forty items. The 081 Manual (Osipow and Spokane, 1987) consists of a twenty-five page booklet with the typical and appropriate sections covering the conceptual model, validation and reliability studies, administration, scoring and interpretation as well as an applications and a reference section. Validity is derived from factor analytic studies, correlation studies and studies involving the 081 and other comparison groups. The Manual reports that the test can be self-administered and requires about twenty minutes for completion but it must be scored and interpreted by a qualified professional. mma : The interactive stress model is based on the theory that stress, strain, and coping are parts of a system involving stress. Stress is the neutral event, strain is the response, and coping helps to moderate the stress and strain. Measurement of stress in the model is accomplished by the Occupational Stress Inventory, a three part questionnaire comprised of items which serve to measure stress, strain, and coping behavior. The test has been studied for validity and reliabilty and has adult norming groups. QHAEIEBLLLI METHODOLOGY IDLIQQBQLIQD This chapter contains an explanation of the population and sample, the research design, and the methodology followed in conducting this study. The selection of the sample, the data analysis procedures to be used, the process of collecting data, and the nature and characteristics of the test instrument, the Occupational Stress Inventory, are discussed. Finally, the research hypotheses are stated. The purpose of this study was to discover and analyze the three dimensions of occupational stress, strain, and coping behaviors across three groups of employees including faculty, administrators, and support staff in a higher education institution. The 0 a o The population of this study included teaching faculty, administrative professional staff and support staff employed at Ferris State University located in Big Rapids, Michigan. Only full-time employees were included in this study in order to maintain some homogeneity in the population as many 53 54 part-time staff have different full-time careers with different respective stresses. In the case of eligible faculty, their academic appointment consisted of a 100 percent full-time equivalent teaching load of twelve credits during the quarter term of the study. Faculty members in the sample were drawn from the entire population of schools and colleges including the Schools of Allied Health, Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, and Technology, and the Colleges of Optometry and Pharmacy. All faculty members are assigned to departments according to their discipline and hold rank from instructor to professor. Faculty members all belong to the Academic Senate which is an active body involved in the participatory governance of the University. In addition, the faculty is represented by the local chapter of the Michigan Educational Association. Administrators in the population consisted of full-time forty hour per week employees who are officially classified by the Human Resources Department as Administrative Professional employees. Administrators include all professionals in the Student Affairs, Institutional Advancement, Business Affairs and Academic Affairs divisions who are in an administrative position. Academic affairs administrators include deans, assistant and associate deans, department heads and chairs. The non-academic affairs administrative professionals include department heads and 55 professional staff. Administrators are not part of any bargaining unit. Finally, support staff consisted of those also designated by Human Resources as full-time employees. This population consists of clerical-technical, physical plant, food service, and administrative-technical workers as well as public safety officers, health center nurses, and residence hall directors. A varied group, most of the support staff are represented by the Michigan Educational Association and the American Federation of State and Municipal Employees and have collective bargaining agreements of various types and lengths of terms. Some groups such as the deputized officers and nurses hold degrees and are certified while others hold other certificates of training, associate degrees or no degrees at all. Some of the population have nine month contracts although the majority have twelve month appointments. For example, all administrators in the population are twelve month employees while most faculty and some support staff have nine month contracts. Part-time employees are excluded from this study. 56 WW5. A stratified random sample was taken of the 1424 full-time employees of Ferris State University. There were three natural sub-groups of this population which clearly comprised three strata or levels in which all sampling elements fell without overlap. These sub—groups consisted of faculty, administrators and support staff as defined earlier in this paper. Assistance from the Human Resource Department and the Office of Assessment Services was obtained to secure employee lists and other relevent information from the three groups and to calculate the sample for each employee group. Individuals were then chosen, using a random number generator, to participate in the study. The stratified random sampling design was most appropriate for two reasons. First, college and university personnel are naturally grouped in three ways in terms of organizational divisions and levels, job responsibilities as well as line and staff activities. It is generally assumed there are some natural differences of thinking and opinion between and among academic faculty, administrators, and support staff. Secondly, it logically followed that these three strata would act as very appropriate variables upon which to measure stress, strain and coping across one university. The 1,424 elements or individual faculty, staff and administrators comprise the population. This number was 57 obtained from the Fall term, 1990 listing of full-time employees as reported by the Ferris State University Human Resources Department. Stratified sampling allows the opportunity to produce mean sample sizes for each strata as well as estimates and generalizations with regard to the statistical analysis of data obtained from the survey sample (Schaefer, Mendenhall, and Ott, 1986). Each strata should show very little variance from within and more variance among each level. The three strata are more naturally occurring and heterogeneous in the way that they function. Sample size calculations are important for a number of reasons including precision and influence of the sample statistics to the populations parameters we well as cost and logistics of sampling various populations and sub- populations (Schaefer, Mendenhall, and Ott, 1986). Since this study involved a stratified random sampling design in which three strata (faculty, staff and administrators) were being sampled from one institution, availability of materials and associated costs were relatively uncomplicated. Even the partial use of campus mail, in combination with university support for such a project reflected an equal cost of $1.00 per respondent across all three strata. The formula and calculations that represent 58 the most efficient approach (Schaeffer, Mendenhall and Ott, 1976) to determining sample size for this survey are as follows: N’ - Population size - 1424 personnel N1 - Size of population in each strata 1%. a Population for strata 1 - 538 faculty 15 - Population for strata 2 - 679 support staff :5 - Population for strata 3 - 207 administrators 0: -= $1.00 0' - 1.42 1 c3 - $1.00 8' - .20 2 c, - $1.00 n_(£N10/fc—)(EN10JCT) N2 33/4 + N, 0', - (2g22.gg) (292.08) (2027776) (.01) + 2870.999 23,148.759 - 176.631 or 177 Since the allocation proportions were .38 (faculty), .48 (staff), and .14 (administrators), the following strata sample populations served as a basis for three separate simple random samples: Faculty: 177 x .38 - 67 Staff: 177 X .48 - 85 Admin.: 177 x .14 - 25 1. o' is an average variance of a cross-section of questions. 2. B‘ is the value of error which was inferred to the population. 59 13W Because this survey research was concerned with obtaining current information about stress, strain, and coping, the research was considered descriptive. Even though the sub- groups of this sample, faculty, administrators, and support staff were compared in several ways, there were no causal linkages studied. Data were collected from a sample of the larger population in a way that respondents were asked for information at one particular point in time. Therefore, the design of this survey of stress among higher education personnel was cross-sectional. The Occupational Stress Inventory, demographic question- naire, and cover letter was mailed through inter-campus and regular mail during the fourth week of Fall Quarter, 1990. In the case of the faculty sample, the cover letter was signed by the University president, the president of the Ferris Faculty Association, and the researcher. In the case of administrators, the letter was signed by the president of the University and the researcher. Finally, the support staff cover letter was signed by the respective union presidents and the researcher. A self-addressed postcard was also included so that the respondent could notify the researcher of the separate mailing of the questionnaire. This also informed the researcher as to who should receive reminder postcards. Those postcard reminders were sent to 60 the appropriate participants one week after the initial mailing to extend thanks for responding and to remind them to return their completed questionnaires. Measures The measuring instrument (see Appendix A) administered to all participants in the survey sample will be the Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). In addition, a brief demographical questionnaire (see Appendix B) pertaining to employee group, gender, and years of experience was included with the 081. Since this survey was completely anonymous, no information regarding name, address or any other information was be requested as part of the questionnaire and response sheet. Formerly called the Measures of Stress, Strain and Coping (Osipow and Spokane, 1983), the Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow and Spokane, 1987) is composed of three related questionnaires, including the Occupational Roles Questionnaire (ORQ), the Personal Strain Questionnaire (PSQ), and the Personal Resources Questionnaire (PRQ). The instrument is predicated on the interactive theory of stress which intreprets stress to be an objective event or characteristic, strain as the individual's reaction to the stress, and personal resources as the individual's array of 61 coping behaviors which act to deal with the stress. The ORQ has six subscales containing ten items each and contains generic measures of occupational stress across varied occupational levels. The subscales include role overload, role insufficiency, role ambiguity, role boundary, responsibilty, and physical environment. The PSQ and the PRQ have four subscales and ten items in each one. The subscales for the PSQ include vocational strain, psychological strain, interpersonal strain, and physical strain while the PRQ subscales include recreation self-care, social support and rational/cognitive coping. These subscales were named, described, and defined in Chapter One. The items of the three subscales are contained in a single reusable booklet and respondents answer on a separate rating sheet according to five point scale including rarely of never, occasionally, often, usually, and most of the time, thus reflecting the frequency of the particular item for the respondent. The OSI is written at the seventh grade reading level and can be completed in approximately twenty to thirty minutes. E II 1.1.! Reliability testing was accomplished through internal consistency analysis of the present OSI Form E-2. Alpha coefficients for the ORQ, PSQ, and the PRQ were .89, .94, 62 and .94 respectively and the coefficients for the individual subscales ranged from .71 to .94 (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Since the interactional theory assumes a relationship among stress, strain, and coping, it was reasonable to expect evidence of relationships among the three scales. A high negative correlation was indeed found by Osipow and Spokane (1987) between the total scores the PRQ and the PSQ as well as the ORQ and the PRQ, thus demonstrating that high levels of coping are negatively correlated with low levels of strain and that high levels of stress are negatively correlated with low levels of coping behavior. The correlation between stress and strain and the moderating influence of coping behaviors was further substantiated in a more recent study by Osipow and Davis (1988) in which role overload on the ORQ was the most significant source of strain but the total coping behavior score on the PRQ moderated this relationship. 211.151.1511 Validation studies on the OSI resulted from factor analyses, correlation studies, a comparison of treatment and other miscellaneous studies with Osipow and Spokanes' test results of the OSI. Each of the questionnaires and their items underwent factor analysis using a varimax rotation procedure. Osipow and Spokane report that the analysis 63 provided enough evidence to show the items' validity. The authors also claim that an independent factor analysis by Alexander confirmed their findings. A variety of correlational studies arranged by the relationship of work- related characteristics to stress, strain, and coping demonstrated fairly strong concurrent validity of the OSI (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). Only two treatment studies have taken place, but both studies show that treatment effects are significantly correlated to the PSQ and the PRQ and not the ORQ which shows stress to indeed be the objective constant while strain and coping are the sensitive measures. Finally, Osipow and Spokane (1987) cite a variety of studies, some of which were described in Chapter Two, which demonstrate that the OSI is actually measuring what it is supposed to measure in terms of stress, strain, and coping behavior. Osipow and Spokane recommend further studies should be initiated on the relationship of stress, strain, and coping with work-related behaviors, studies involving stress and blue-collar workers, research on stress and health, and studies on the relationship between stress and the person-environment fit theory. The OSI showed good reliability and internal consistency as well as good validity and it appears that there is an interactive relationship among the three concepts of stress, strain, and coping and their respective questionnaires, thus 64 helping to support the validity of concept of interactivness of stress, strain and coping, and the validity of the person-environment theory. HQIEE Since the OSI is considered a research version, the norms which are available in the manual are limited (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). The only norms in the manual are from a study by Alexander (1983) in which the sample comprised 155 physicians. Another study by Osipow and Doty (1985) yielded normative data from a sample of 310 individuals from unspecified occupations. Finally, a third study by Richard (1987) contained a sample of 83 university faculty members in which norms were obtained. All three studies utilized the former version of the 081, the Measures of Occupational Stress, Strain, and Coping (Osipow and Spokane, 1983). Since the test is essentially the same except for the name revision, it was appropriate to use the three studys' normative data by combining the means, standard deviations and samples to yield statistics which could be compared to the local norms of this study. W The purpose of this study was to discover and analyze the three dimensions of occupational stress, strain, and coping behaviors across the three employee groups including 65 faculty, administrators, and support staff at a higher education institution. The discovery of significant specific occupational stressors, strains, and coping behaviors provided information about each employee group and served as a basis apon which to analyze several ralationships between the independent variables of employee group, gender, and job experience level and the dependent variables of stress, strain, and coping. Finally, the relationship of coping behaviors to stress and strain for the sum total of employees was analyzed to better understand the role of coping or stress management in dealing with occupational stress and to substantiate one aspect of the interactional theory that states that coping behavior is negatively correlated with stress and strain measures. Hypotheses designed to test the discovery of such information and the relationships of the variables were proposed in the null form as follows: Hypeghesie 1; Occupational stresses, strains, and coping behaviors reported by faculty, administra- tors, and support staff did not differ from a combined norming population. The subscales of the total sample group and of each employee group will be compared with a combined norming group using a t-test to test for significance at the .05 level. sis : There were no significant differences across the three employee groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff according to measures of stress, measures of strain, and measures of coping. 66 fiypeeheeie_;e There were no significant differences between men and women in stress, strain, and coping behavior in each of the three employee groups. s' 4° There were no significant differences in stress, strain, and coping among experience levels in each of the three employee groups. Hypofihesis 5: Coping measures of the combined employee groups were not be negatively correlated with: a) measures of stress: b) measures of strain. The Pearson Correlation Coefficients were calculated with a one-tailed test of significance provided by the SPSSx. MQLDQ§_Q£_DQEQ_ABQ1¥§1§ Data was analyzed at the Ferris State University Computer Center using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSSx). In addition to the processing of the normal descriptive statistics, several procedures were employed. Multi-variate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedures and analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures as well as t-tests were utilized to analyze the relationship between groups by determining whether differences between sample means were significant and to analyze the relationship between samples and their populations by determining whether differences in respective group means were significant. Another procedure, Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, was utilized in Hypothesis Five to identify the degree of relationship between two pairs of variables. In this case, stress and coping and strain and coping were the two pairs 67 which were correlated and then subjected to tests of statistical significance. The level of statistical significance was set at the .05 level for the rejection of all five hypotheses. The test of significance permits the measurement of differences between sample means and of determinations about inferrences made about samples to their populations which are not attributed to chance. In fact, a .05 significance level would indicate that there is one chance in twenty that there would be no difference between sample means or between sample means and population means due to chance (Borg and Gall, 1979). CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION OF RESULTS This chapter contains the analyses of the results of this study on occupational stress, strain, and coping behaviors upon faculty, administrators and support staff in a higher education setting. First, the main characteristics of the sample are presented, followed by descriptive results of the data collection by employee group. Finally, the results of the analyses of the hypotheses testing are reported. WW Sample; Participants in the study were selected by using a stratified random sampling procedure, the results of which were confidential and anonymous in nature. A sample of 177 faculty, administrators, and support staff was drawn from a total population of 1424 employees. Of the sample, 124 employees responded by returning completed questionnaires. Of the 124 completed questionnaires, 120 were usable, yielding a return rate of 68% (Table 1). An allocation proportion of .38 of the total sample resulted in a sub-sample of 67 faculty from which 52 respondents 68 69 returned completed questionnaires, yielding a 78% return rate for this employee group. An allocation proportion of .14 of the total sample resulted in a sub-sample of 25 administrators, of which 20 respondents returned completed questionnaires, yielding an 80% return rate for this group. Finally, an allocation proportion of .48 of the total sample resulted in a sub-sample of 85 support staff, of which 48 respondents returned usable questionnaires, yielding a 56% return rate for this group. There were a total of four unusable questionnaires, two belonging to faculty respondents and one each to administrator and staff respondents. Table 1 contains frequencies of participants according to employee group. .-_- a-o_- Des r'e -_ :1! 1';9-18‘ f:,- F was . -= Group Emelezee #994411 at'0 $289.12 Usable Return epoup Proportion Size Respensee Bepe Faculty .38 67 52 78% Administrators .14 25 20 80% Support Staff .58 e; 58 56% Total 1.00 177 120 68% Further examination of the frequencies contained in Table 1 revealed that the faculty and administrator employee groups were slightly over-represented, and the support staff group 70 was somewhat under-represented in the percentage of responses to the survey instrument. W In addition to employee group classification, the other descriptive characteristics about which information was sought included gender and years of experience in present occupation for each employee group. The faculty response rate consisted of 41 males and 11 females while the administrator group was composed of 13 males and 7 females. The support staff included 18 males and 30 females. Gender frequencies are found in Table 2. Representations of male and female sample respondents compared with the population by gender revealed that the total sample was almost exactly proportionate to the population. Faculty and support staff groups were very closely represented while the administrator group was slightly over-represented by females and slightly underrepresented by males compared with the population proportion. The experience levels of respondents for each employee group are reported in Table 3. Since no information regarding the Ferris population experience categories was available, it 71 o.ooa owe o.ov we o.om up ooa ewes me omm am «as maasmm Hmuoe o.o¢ we m.~m on m.sn we can as» «w mae an own mumum uuomdsm 5.8H om o.mn s o.mm ma ooa non mm mm as fine muoumuumacaene m.ne mm u.a~ Ha «.ms He ooa «an em mad as nmv seasons » m m» m «m m m m» m. m a m Haydn. « mama“ Mam: Auden.) u ”mew“ u ”mu mmflwummmum qmflmummqum mmmum u o m 3% 300 o s I E ere u..- o. I o :t. a-.. “low!“ achOo o c n” 72 was impossible to compare sample experience categories to the population. The most frequently reported experience category listed by faculty (38.5%) was the 20 year or more bracket while 17.3% reported 16-20 years and 11-15 years: 13.5% of the faculty reported 6-10 years and 0-5 years of experience in their present occupation. The most frequently reported experience category listed by administrators (25%) was 0-5 years; 20% reported 6-10 years, 11-15 years and 20 or more years respectively. Finally, 15% of the administrator respondents reported 16-20 years of experience. The support staff respondents (29.5%) most frequently reported 0-5 years; 22.9% of the respondents reported 6-19 years and 11-15 years each. Finally, 14.6% reported 20 or more years, and 10.4% of the respondents reported 16-20 years of experience. as S W Wise o-s 6-10 11-15 16-20 agiyrg Faculty 13.5% 17.3% 13.5% 17.3% 38.5% Administrators 25% 20% 20% 15% 20% Support Staff 29.2% 22.9% 22.9 10.4% 14.6% 73 It was evident by examining Table 3 that a higher percentage of faculty were more experienced than support staff. About 55% of faculty respondents fell in the two highest experience categories compared with with 25% of the support staff. Administrator respondents were nearly evenly distributed across the five experience categories. WW There were five hypotheses that comprised this investigation of stress, strain, and coping behavior in university employees. The first hypothesis, based on the purpose of determining the presence of significant occupational stressors, strains, and coping behaviors among faculty, administrators, and support staff, stated in null form that employee stress, strain, and coping would not differ significantly from a combined norming population. The second, third and fourth hypotheses were based upon the purposes of analyzing the relationship between stress, strain and coping and the characteristics of employee group, gender, and years of experience in present occupation. Hypothesis Two stated in null form that there would be no significant differences across the three employee groups according to measures of stress, strain, and coping. Hypothesis Three stated in null form that there would be no 74 significant differences between men and women in reported stress, strain, and coping behaviors. Finally, Hypothesis Four stated in null form that there would be no significant differences across experience levels in reported stress, strain, and coping in the three employee groups. Hypothesis One was tested using a custom-written basic program of t-tests to compare means of the total sample group and each employee group to the combined norming group. The level of significance was set at .05 for rejection of the hypothesis. Hypotheses Two, Three, and Four were tested using multi- variate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test the null hypotheses. Rejection of the null hypothesis occured if the F-values for the ANOVA were lower than alpha = .05. When, in the second hypothesis, two of the sub-scales in the Occupational Roles Questionnaire yielded significant scores, a two-tailed t- test was used to test for further significance. Finally, the purpose of Hypothesis Five, was to determine whether coping behaviors influence stress and strain for the total of the three employee groups. Hypothesis Five stated in directional form that coping behaviors of combined employee groups would not be negatively correlated with 75 measures of stress and measures of strain. Pearson's Correlation Coefficient was employed to test for the directional hypothesis using a one - tailed test of significance at the .05 level. Hypothesis 1: Occupational stresses, strains, and coping behaviors reported by faculty, administrators and support staff did not differ from a combined norming population. The subscales of the total sample group and of each employee group were compared to the norm group using a t-test to test for significance at the .05 level. In this research hypothesis, it was thought that there might be some differences between Ferris State University employees and the combined norming group. The mean scores of the total FSU sample of 120 employees as well as the sample groups including faculty, administrators, and support staff, where compared with the combined means of three other published studies which comprised the norm group. Researchers in each of the three studies which comprised the norm group utilized the Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow and Spokane, 1983, 1987). Significant differences at the .05 level regarding the total FSU sample (Table 4) were found on the Role Ambiguity (2.1832) and the Vocational Strain (-2.2683) scales and at the .01 level for the Physical Strain (-2.9893), Recreational (-3.1904) and Social Support (12.3713) scales. The total employee group reported higher role ambiguity or 76 unclear expectations and roles as well as lower vocational strain and physical strain on the job when compared with the norm group. The total employee group also reported the experiencing of lower recreational coping but higher social support coping compared with the norm group. Social support is the extent to which the individual feels support from those around him/her. The remaining ten values were not significant. In the faculty sample of the FSU study, significant differences at the .05 level were found on the Role Insufficiency scale (-2.4624), and at the .01 level on the Physical Strain scale (-3.3995) and Social Support scale (9.4083). The faculty group reported experiencing more role ambiguity and less role insufficiency, or the extent to which the individual's knowledge, skills and experience are appropriate to job requirements, compared with the norm group. This group also reported less physical strain on the job. Finally, the faculty sample also reported higher social support coping compared with the combined norming group. The remaining ten values were insignificant. The t-values of the administrator sample reflected only two significant scores, both of which were at the .01 level. The two significant values were found on the Physical Strain 77 (-3.0648) and Social Support (6.1457) scales. The administrative sample reported fewest differences of any of the sample groups with t-values reflecting lower physical strain and higher social support coping when compared with the combined norm group. The remaining thirteen values were not significant. Finally, the t-values of the support staff group were significant on three scales at the .01 level. They included Physical Environment (3.6072), Recreational Coping (-3.1087), and Social Support (6.1434), and indicate higher physical stress, as well as lower recreational coping and higher social support coping. The eleven remaining values were not significant. The number of significant scores equals fourteen of the fifty-six scales. Six of the fourteen significant scores were found on the Personal Resource Questionnaire or coping behavior sub-scale. Four of the six scores reflected significantly better social support coping skills for all sample groups compared with the combined norming group. The only other trend appeared to be reflected on the Physical Strain sub-scale of the Personal Strain Questionnaire in which three of the four sample groups including total employees, faculty, and administrators reported less physical strain than the norming group. Support staff 78 reported higher Physical Environment stress than the norm group but not significantly higher Physical Strain. Because only 25% of the total scores were significant, and the overwhelming proportion of 75% of the scores were insignificant, the null hypothesis was not rejected. There were no significant differences between the sample group in this study and the norming group used for the comparison. 79 Coping - . Summa O - .‘ ‘ 0 1° 'V : o u. u n EAL-£9212 1.181.925 IQLQL.EEDIQ¥§§§ EQEQLLX Administl fiiflfii a ' a 0 Role Overload - .1006 1.0257 .6479 -1.4037 Role Insufficiency - .9547 -2.4624 -1.7536 1.6574 Role Ambiguity 2.1832 2.8249 .9754 - .0817 Role Boundary - .2867 - .6672 .0307 .1658 Responsibility - .5683 1.5112 2.6328 - .5368 Physical Environment .5556 - .7222 - .7916 3.6077 MW Vocational Strain -2.2683 - .9800 -2.0839 -1.1247 Psychological Strain - .6236 -l.1772 -1.0672 .8251 Interpersonal Strain - .1169 -l.5237 - .5105 1.1735 Physical Strain -2.9893 -3.3995 -3.0648 - .1874 Personal Resources Quesrignngirg Recreation -3.1904 -1.7996 - .1004 3.1087 Self-Care -1.4999 - .5919 .2826 -1.8778 Social Support 12.3713 9.4083 6.1457 6.1434 Rational/Cognitive -l.3314 -1.5783 .2157 .5006 80 Hypothesis 2: There were no significant differences across the three employee groups of faculty, administrators, or support staff according to measures of stress, measures of strain, and measures of coping. It was thought in this research hypothesis that there would differences in stress, strain, and coping scores across the three employee groups. The results of a MANOVA (Wilks multi- variate F) revealed a significant F-value of .004 (Table 5). When univariate tests of significance were calculated on all fourteen sub-scales of the OSI (Table 6) , results indicated significant F-values of .004 and.002 for Role Insufficency and Physical Environment respectively and no significant F- values for any of the other sub-scales at an .05 significance level. ,a- - W ks - -V. g - es . ion' a; - o. Employee group c Va ox Group 62638 1.95753 28.00 208.00 .004 81 SC e Q§I_§BD:§§§1§§ Occupational Roles Questionnaire Role Overload Role Insufficiency Role Ambiguity Role Boundary Responsibility Physical Environment Personal Strain Questionnaire Vocational Strain Psychological Strain Interpersonal Strain Physical Strain Personal Resources Questionnaire Recreation Self-Care Social Support Rational/Cognitive Coping .167 .151 .847 .079 .320 .262 .178 .079 .223 .416 .085 .530 82 Two-tailed t-tests were then calculated for each of the three employee groups on the Role Insufficiency (RI) and Physical Environment (PE) scales (see Table 6). Results of the t-test when comparing faculty with administrators on both the RI and PE scales showed p= .782 and p= .768 respectively. Using an .05 level of significance, the scores are well within the bounds of the null hypothesis, thus showing no significance. When comparing administrators with support staff on the two sub-scales, RI and PE, the probabilities were .021 and .010 respectively, thus demonstrating significance at the .05 level. Finally, when comparing faculty with support staff on the RI and PE sub- scales, probabilities of .006 and .002 respectively showed a significant difference between the two groups on both sub- scales. A summary of the results of the SPSSx two-tailed t- tests for this hypothesis can be found in Table 7 while a further summary of the hypothesis testing on the Role Insufficency and Physical Environment scales is found in Table 8. b e -ll-!1-.Q O - ’= 9 5m.- 0 “ ,°__° '!!."'_ =01; 0! W (23) Sgales WW Mean Malia: DE W W RI Faculty 22.23 Administrator 21.70 .28 32.60 .782 PE Faculty 15.75 Administrator 15.30 .30 34.16 .768 MW RI Administrator 21.70 Support Staff 26.60 -2.40 40.81 .021 PB Administrator 15.30 Support Staff 19.56 -2.71 38.28 .010 EQ291§22§EERQ£§_§LQII RI Faculty 22.23 Support Staff 26.60 -2.82 90.69 .006 PE Faculty 15.75 Support Staff 19.56 -3.19 95.30 .002 The faculty, administrator and support staff employee groups were compared with each other on the fourteen scales of the Occupational Stress Inventory to discover significant differences in stress, strain, and coping behaviors. While the support staff differed significantly from the other two groups on the Role Insufficiency and Physical Environment scales, there were no other significant differences for the support staff group. In addition, there were no significant 84 differences for any of the three groups on any of the other stress, strain, and coping behavior scales across the employee groups. Therefore, the null hypothesis was not rejected. o..- ‘3 JUL-.5 0 i':. ; 0 14°- 9:—‘ : fl: go 0 : '- WW __§_ca__sub- 1e weec; n W flywheels RI Faculty-Administrator .782 Accept Null PE .768 Accept Null RI Admin.-Support Staff .021 Reject Hull PE .010 Reject Hull RI Faculty-Support Staff .006 Reject Hull PE .002 Reject Hull Hypothesis 3: There were no differences between men and women in reported stress, strain, and coping behaviors for faculty, administrators, or support staff. The research hypothesis stated that their would be differences in stress, strain, and coping based on employee gender. The results of a HANOVA, again using the Multivariate F, indicated no significance at the with probabilities of .108 for faculty, .875 for administrators and .293 for support staff (Table Wilks .05 level 9). 85 Table 9. ' .: g- a . 2 :: -‘ ., a; z . :12: B¥_EleQ¥§§_§IQBR Effect MWMWW Ginger. Faculty .61410 1.66079 14.00 37.00 .108 Administrator .42955 .47429 14.00 5.00 .875 Support Staff .65461 1.24370 14.00 33.00 .293 Univariate tests of significance were performed separately for faculty, administrators, and support staff on all fourteen sub-scales of the OSI. The tests yielded no significant gender differences for the three employee groups on any of the OSI sub-scales (Table 10), thus not rejecting the null hypothesis. 86 WWW Occupational Role Questionnaire Role Overload .864 Role Insufficiency .120 Role Ambiguity .792 Role Boundary .559 Responsibility .409 Physical Environment .736 Personal Strain Questionnaire Vocational Strain .951 Psychological Strain .299 Interpersonal Strain .218 Physical Strain .609 Personal Resources Questionnaire Recreation .931 Self-Care .053 Social Support .113 Rational/Cognitive .149 .443 .293 .453 .579 .433 .535 .030 .338 .916 .658 .856 .659 .129 .234 .638 .976 .960 .225 .215 .055 .108 .965 .337 .470 .190 .522 .278 .194 87 Hypothesis 4: There were no differences in reported stress, strain, and coping for faculty, administra- tors, and support staff across experience levels. In this case, the research hypothesis predicted that there would be differences among faculty, administrators and support staff in stress, strain and coping based on the number of years of experience which the employee possessed in his or her present occupation. As with Hypotheses Two and Three, multivariate and univariate tests of significance were applied to the data for each of the three employee groups. The Wilks multivariate test yielded probabilities (Table 11) of .634 for faculty, .471 for administrators, and .874 for support staff, all of which were within the null range. o.°_‘ W_ 8 U . . - ‘ e 0 '1 a! 1 0 Erperience by Employee Group WMWMWM W Faculty .28357 .91853 56.00 134.43 .634 Admin. .00047 1.09720 56.00 9.95 .471 Staff .30410 .75997 56.00 118.87 .874 When an ANOVA was administered to each of the fourteen OSI scales for the effects of experience for each of the three employee groups, F-scores all fell within the range of the 88 null hypothesis, thus showing no significance at the .05 level. Therefore, the null hypothesis was not rejected (Table 12). WWW Occupational Roles Questionnaire Role Overload Role Ambiguity Role Insufficiency Role Boundary Responsibility Physical Environment Personal Strain Questionnaire Vocational Strain Psychological Strain Interpersonal Strain Physical Strain .490 .178 .791 .993 .908 .130 .479 .324 .391 .102 .209 .236 .173 .344 .903 .520 .071 .202 .068 .145 .667 .162 .433 .525 .497 .204 .033 .085 .053 .606 89 MM). W WWW Personal Resources Questionnaire Recreational .526 .016 .977 Self-Care .542 .566 .667 Social Support .566 .305 .848 Rational/Cognitive .448 .469 .541 Coping Hypothesis 5: Coping measures of combined employee groups were not negatively correlated with: a) measures of stress: b) measures of strain. The research hypothesis stated that there would not be a negative relationship between stress and coping and strain and coping. High coping scores would be associated with low stress and low strain scores while low coping scores would be associated with high stress and high strain scores. Using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, calculations on stress and coping scores were produced for each of the six stress sub-scales and each of the four coping sub-scales (Table 13). Twenty-four coefficient calculations yielded twenty-two (92%) which were negative. Fourteen of the the twenty-two were significantly negative. Only two (8%) were 90 positively correlated but not significantly correlated at the .05 level. When correlating strain with coping, calculations on the four subscales of occupational strain and the four of coping yielded sixteen out of sixteen scores negatively correlated (100%). Fifteen out of the sixteen scores were significantly negatively correlated at the .05 level. Thus, there were twenty-nine out of forty correlations (73%) which were significantly negatively correlated at the .05 level of significance, and thirty-seven of the forty which were negatively correlated. This overwhelming negative correlation demonstrated rejection of the null hypothesis and confirmation of the research hypothesis. 929.1119 Stress R0 RI RA RB R PE Recreational -.283 -.283 -.170 -.248 -.041 -.145 P=.001 P=.001 P=.032 P=.003 P=.330 P=.057 Self-Care -.083 -.208 -.l43 -.253 .047* -.258 P=.184 P=.011 P=.060 P=.003 P=.305 P=.002 Support P=.104 p=.ooo p=.ooo p=.ooo P=.360 p=.022 Rational/ -.236 -.037 -.214 -.190 -.053 .050* Cognitive P=.005 P=.343 P=.010 P=.019 P=.282 P=.293 *non-negative coefficient (n=2) Coping fitiéin VS PSY IS PHS Recreational -.149 -.355 -.378 -.360 P=.053 P=.000 P=.000 P=.000 Self-Care -.203 -.409 -.409 -.423 P=.013 P=.000 P=.000 P=.000 Social -.158 -.423 -.450 -.463 Support P=.043 P=.000 P=.000 P=.000 Rational/ -.338 -.363 -.278 -.204 Cognitive P=.000 P=.000 P=.001 P=.013 Summer! The analyses of the five hypotheses have revealed several points of information related to the basic purpose of the study. Occupational stress, strain, and coping behaviors do not differ significantly between the study's sample groups and the outside combined norming group (Hypothesis 1), or 92 between or among the sample sub-groups of faculty, administrators, or support staff (Hypothesis 2). There were also no significant differences found in employee gender (Hypothesis 3) or in years of experience in present occupation (Hypothesis 4) across the three employee groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff according to reported stress, strain, and coping behavior. Therefore, the first four null hypotheses were not rejected. The study of the relationship between coping behavior and stress and coping behavior and strain (Hypothesis 5) revealed that there was a negative correlation between coping behaviors and a) measures of stress: b) measures of strain. Therefore, the last null hypothesis was rejected and the research hypothesis was accepted. CHAPTER V SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS W This chapter contains the summary, conclusions, and recomendations of the study of stress, strain, and coping on faculty, administrators, and support staff in a higher education setting. The phenomenon of stress and the purpose of the study of stress is reviewed, followed by the results of hypothesis testing and the limitations of the research itself. Finally, the implications of the research and recommendations for further research are presented in the chapter. Introduction: The phenomenon of stress has been studied in many ways and in a variety of contexts by interested researchers during the last sixty years. Theories of stress range from definitions focusing on stress as an event or stimulus in the environment which impinges on the individual to definitions of stress as a response by the individual to an event. More recently, stress is thought to involve a combination of both stimulus and response involving the person and environment. Stress has been related to 93 94 personality development, linked to a variety of problems and disorders, as well as applied to various contexts such as the world of work. As stress and its effects are studied, there is growing evidence that this phenomenon affects many people, and that stress can be associated with negative psychological, physiological and economic implications. While occupational stress has been recognized as an issue of concern in the American workplace in general, its presence has not been studied to any degree in the environment of higher education. What the research has discovered in this work environment is that stress and distress does occur among employees, that the nature and types of job stress can be identified for this population, and that the economic, psychological, and physiological implications can be costly for both employee and organization. What research has not yet addressed in the higher education workplace are the characteristics of stress across specific groups of employees, especially support personnel or the non-teaching, non-administrative staff in the workplace. Egrpggg: The purpose of this study was to discover and analyze the three dimensions of occupational stress, strain, and coping across three groups of university employees. First, an attempt was made to identify important occupational stressors, strains, and coping behaviors in the 95 three groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff compared with another norming population. Next, an attempt was made to analyze the relationship, if any, between occupational stress, strain and coping and the three types of employee groups, as well as employee gender, and number of years of experience in present occupation. Lastly, the study sought to determine the correlation between coping on the one hand and stress and strain on the other hand. The overall expectation and rationale of this study was that knowledge about stress, and its effects, would contribute to the general information base and to the amelioration of strain and to improve the management of stress for a happier, more productive occupational environment within the collegiate setting. ngrggg: The Occupational Stress Inventory was administered to a stratified random sample of 1424 full-time employees of Ferris State University. The Inventory was mailed to the sample during the fourth week of the fall quarter of the academic year. The results, composed of demographic and response sheets which were confidential and anonymous, were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. From a total sample of 177 faculty, administrators and support staff, 120 employees (68%) responded to the 96 Inventory. The respondents included 52 of 67 faculty members (78%), 20 of 25 administrators (80%), and 48 of 85 support staff (56%). A higher proportion of faculty and administrators responded to the study compared with support staff as indicated by the sample allocations of .38, .14, and .48 for faculty, administrators and support staff respectively. The faculty response was composed of 41 males and 11 females, while the administrator group consisted of 13 males and 7 females. The support staff respondents contained 18 males and 30 females. Years of experience in present occupation showed that faculty reported more experience with 58.8% of the respondents having 16 or more years, while 45% of administrator respondents reported 10 years or less of experience. Resu s of e sts t e e There were five hypotheses formulated as a result of the purposes of this study of occupational stress. The null hypotheses and the results of their statistical tests are presented below. H oo h-s's 1° 0 cu-. '01: s e ;-: : _=_;: 1!. .. ,. beha io s reoo -- b 1 l .au71,s_ a . s - . : 99-1 . -,9 om-a --. w , ;e on 1° . ou- __: 1° .. -t . WWW It was concluded that occupational stress, strain, and coping behavior found in the total sample and in each employee sample sub-group is not different than the combined norming group. Despite evidence of significant differences in a minority of the comparisons, the majority of values were insignificant. Therefore, the null hypothesis was not rejected. WM While the support staff employee group demonstrated significantly more stress on the Role Insufficiency and Physical Environment scales compared with both faculty and administrators, there was no significance for any of the employee groups on any of the remaining twelve scales (Figure 3). As a result, the null hypothesis was not rejected. W No significant gender differences were found for any of the three employee groups 98 on any of the 14 scales of the Occupational Stress Inventory (Figure 3). Therefore, the null hypothesis was not rejected. 00 hes 5 '° 1e - We ‘ 1° = °1. :1 2 “.‘1 == 1 St ess St «_1 :1! °° 1° =u°1° ‘A°=_ 1! = ‘ ‘ = 1 :2 1 W No significant differences were found for faculty, administrators, or support staff at any level of experience on any of the 14 scales of the Occupational Stress Inventory. In this case, the null hypothesis was not rejected. 0 -7- - ‘ - - - -- ,‘eo ‘- : ee ,0 u-.- : e ,. eue !-e no e -_ - -1 1 _ I-“ - orouos were 1o e-. v- . :_= -. w 1' : ue:;-_:: . s esS° meas Coe icie ts w- - 1 - a -~ ,1 a onr- 111-1 -_ . eignifieance previgeg by the §E§§x, Significant negative correlations were found when attempting to link stress and coping as evidenced by calculations involving Pearson's Coefficient of Correlation. In addition, there were no significant positive correlations of stress and coping. Significant negative correlations were also found between strain and coping as evidenced by nearly all negative correlation scales (15 out of 16). Therefore, the null hypothesis which correlated stress and coping and strain and coping was rejected. 99 Linitatiens There were some limitations of the present study which must be taken into account in light of the results and conclusions. Since only one university's employees were studied, results cannot be generalized to employees at all other universities, especially those institutions of different types and characteristics. In addition, the sample sub-groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff are unique to any known studies using the Occupational Stress Inventory (other studied groups include physicians only or faculty only), thus limiting generalizations which could be made on the basis of the sample. A second limitation was found in the lack of normative data available in the manual or from the test publisher. While there was some indication of the availability of raw data from one of the authors of the Inventory, none was forthcoming, thus forcing the use of combined norming from several studies. Another problem consisted of a lack of information and normative data in the literature about blue collar workers which would have provided a more accurate comparison group for the support staff group. This absence of information prevented adequate validity and generalizability because two 100 of the three comparison norming groups consisted of professional workers. A final problem which limited the study involved the variability of the time of the academic quarter and when the stress inventory was completed by the respondents. The degree of stress, strain, and coping for faculty, administrators, and support staff may be different at the beginning of the term as compared with the end of the same time period. While an attempt was made to study the topic at a neutral time of the term, other studies indicate the need to consider the time of the term as a factor in the measurment of stress or longtitudinal studies which span the term or the academic year. 9mm Any of the major conclusions of this study must be considered in light of the limitations discussed previously in the chapter. Likewise, any generalizations may only be made on the basis of the population of employees which were studied. This section of the chapter contains the conclusions of the study as they are related to the findings of each hypothesis. Conclusion 1: Given that a negative correlation was found between measures of coping and measures of stress and strain 101 (Hypothesis Five), it can be concluded that levels of coping behavior for all three employee groups influence levels of stress and levels of strain. Low levels of coping behavior are correlated with high levels of stress and of strain, while high levels of coping behavior are correlated with low levels of stress and strain. This conclusion was based on the overwhelming strength of the correlations in Hypothesis Five and is consistent with the research, as described in Chapter Two, that shows a strong connection between coping skills and job stress and strain. The information yielded by Hypothesis Five testing directly contributes to the interactive theory of stress, strain, and coping which claims that coping behaviors influence stress and strain levels (Osipow and Spokane, 1983, 1987). As coping behavior increases as measured by the Occupational Stress Inventory, stress and strain levels decrease. As coping behaviors decrease as measured by the Inventory, stress and strain levels increase. The data yielded by Hypothesis Five testing also contributes to the research base of the Occupational Stress Inventory (Osipow and Spokane, 1987). This corresponding conclusion has very significant implications as indicated in the next section. Conclusion 2: Given that the combined norming population and the sample group of faculty, administrators, and support 102 staff did not differ from one another on measures of stress, strain, and coping behaviors (Hypothesis One), it can be concluded that the sample group and the norm group are similar to each other in levels of stress, strain, and coping. The majority of values found as a result of hypothesis testing reflected no significant differences (Table 4). On this basis, the null hypothesis was not rejected. Employees and groups of employees can be expected to report varying levels of stress, strain, and coping behaviors when they are questioned about their occupational roles, responses, and reactions to those roles. It is not a question of whether the presence of stress, strain, and coping behavior differs between or among employee groups: it is a matter of how various elements of stress (according to Inventory scales) differ as they are reported by those employee groups. While it has been concluded that the sample group is similar to the norm group, there were some interesting differences between the sample and norm groups on some of the scales of stress, strain, and coping behavior (Table 4). For instance, the study's total sample group and the faculty and administrator groups experienced lower physical strain and higher social support coping behavior compared with the norming group. In addition, the total sample group and the faculty group experienced higher Role Ambiguity or unclear 103 expectations, priorities and evaluation criteria compared with the norm group. The total sample group and the support staff sample group made less use of Recreational or relaxation activities compared with the norming group. Finally, the support staff experienced more Physical Environment stress or exposure to extreme physical conditions than the comparative group. It was reported in Chapter Two that while some general studies of stress in higher education have occured, little information exists concerning the measurement of stress, strain, and coping among university employees and no information is available about support staff in higher education. Furthermore no information base about employee coping behavior has been developed, and until recently, there were no studies which yielded specific Occupational Stress Inventory norms. Given the general lack of information and limited norming data of the Inventory, at least for higher education employees, it can be stated that results and conclusions of the present study do contribute to the general information and research base on stress, to the literature on university employee stress, and to the research base of the Occupational Stress Inventory. Conclusion 3: Given that the three employee sample sub- groups of faculty, administrators, and support staff did not 104 differ from one another in levels of stress, strain and coping (Hypothesis Two), it can be concluded that these three sample groups of university employees experience similar levels of stress, strain, and coping behavior while performing their jobs. The majority of values found as a result of hypothesis testing showed no significance. One notable exception included the support staff's exhibiting of higher Physical Environment stress on the job compared with faculty and administrators. It should be noted that support staff also reported more Physical Environment stress compared with the norming group as measured in Hypothesis One and as stated in the previous section. However, because of the limitations of the study and test instrument, caution must be used in concluding that support staffs, including secretaries, food service workers, and physical plant workers are subjected to more physical environment stress. The normative data base is simply not large enough to warrant such a conclusion. The literature base (Chapter Two) on stress, strain and coping experienced by faculty, administrators and support staff in higher education and the comparison of three such groups is non- existent. Therefore, information yielded by the testing of this hypothesis can be said to contribute to the research base. 105 Conclusion 4: Given that gender (Hypothesis Three) and years of experience in present occupation (Hypothesis Four) of the three employee groups did not differ from one another, it can be concluded that men and women as well as employees with varying levels of experience have similar levels of stress, strain, and coping. The results of testing both hypotheses were not significant. Neither hypothesis was rejected. The lack of significance of gender as a factor in occupational stress was not surprising because the research (Chapter Two) has reported mixed results, at best, of the effects of gender. When studies have shown that women do experience more stress, they have controlled such factors as age and organizational rank. There is at least one study (Richard and Krieshok, 1989) which reports that as years of experience increase for faculty at least, stress actually decreases. However, the lack of significance of years of experience as an indicator of stress, strain, and coping in the present study is consistent with most other research (Chapter Two). W The results and conclusions of the study have some important implications for professional practice and continuing research. Human resource managers, employee assistance staff, campus leaders, counselors and collegues must consider that occupational stress, resulting strain felt by 106 employees, and coping behaviors exists across the academic environment and that these three dimensions of stress do interact with one another in particular ways as evidenced by the results of Hypothesis Five and the first and most important conclusion. Staff development specialists and other leaders should develop programs, retreats, employee assistance programs which include stress management seminars to improve coping skills which ameliorate stress and strain. Likewise, organizational development specialists should examine the organization for unnecessary stress and distressful situations or ”problem" areas. Human resource practitioners, employee assistance counselors and supervisors should be skilled in the identification, evaluation and treatment of employee stresses, and resulting strains to assist the employee in reducing unwanted distress and to thrive on positive eustress (Selye, 1976). Given that high levels of coping are associated with low levels of stress and strain, it is imperative that all constituents in the workplace learn effective Coping skills and behaviors which can reduce stress and strain. d ' Fo t The lack of an adequate information base on stress and the collegiate setting implies that further research is needed 107 to address concerns about this phenomenon. The lack of significant findings in this study concerning differences among employee groups, gender, and experience should actually encourage further investigation. It is strongly recommended that additional research be undertaken on the relationship between occupational stress, strain, and coping and other stress which originates from external sources such as family, social, and personality factors. The application of the Occupational Stress Inventory combined with other stress assessement instruments in a variety of collegiate workplaces would not only contribute to the research base of the OSI but to a more realistic understanding of all the factors of stress which affect employees while on and away from the campus. Another approach to a more comprehensive measurement of employee stress would involve the inclusion of items pertaining to those external sources of stress. It is further recommended that the Occupational Stress Inventory could be employed to assess stress and strain factors inherent in the work environment itself. An understanding by employees of organizational factors which contribute to strain, even if little could be done about them, would place both the organization and workers in a better position to cope with those factors. 108 Further study of occupational stress and the use of the Occupational Stress Inventory to evaluate stress, strain, and coping in individual employees could lead to more accurate identification of educational and treatment interventions for such employees. In addition, further treatment studies could identify various preferred coping techniques to combat stress and strain. Such research leads to knowledge of what interventions are most helpful and meaningful to the individual, the organization, and different groups of employees, and avoids the habit of carelessly created staff development, educational and employee assistance programs which may or may not assist the individual or targeted population. Additional study is also advised to be undertaken on the relationship between coping and stress and strain. In the present study, there was a relationship found between coping in general and stress and strain in general. A further question to be investigated involves what kinds of coping behaviors affect what kinds of stresses and strains. For example, do high levels of recreational coping correlate with low levels of physical stress and strain? While Osipow and Spokane (1987) have initiated some study of such correlational relationships, further research needs to occur in order to discover such relationships. 109 Finally, further study of stress, strain and coping behavior is recommended in the higher education environment with additional populations, especially with non-teaching personnel such as support staff, student affairs professionals, and staff from other areas of the institution. 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QLQEQQ, Sept/Oct, pp. 13-21. Simonton, C.O. and Mathews-Simonton, S. (1975). Belief Systems and Management of the Emotional Aspects of Malignansy- l2urnal_gf_Transpersgnal_£sxtheles¥. 7. pp- 29-48. Spicuzza, F.J., Baskind, F.R., and Woodside, M.R. (1984). A Continuing Dialogue on Burnout. legrne1_er_geiiege Eiacemegt, Fall, pp. 30-33. APPENDICES APPENDIX A 115 APPENDIX A LETTERS TO RESPONDENTS September 28, 1990 Dear Faculty Member, The work lives of teaching faculty in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of faculty as well as administrators and support staff to respond to the enclosed questionnaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of professionals who will represent the concerns of the entire faculty here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of the factors that create stress and strain in individuals, and how people in higher education cope with stress and strain. The survey, found to be psychometrically sound, was developed by Samuel H. Osipow of Ohio State University and Arnold R. Spokane of the University of Maryland, two of the more outstanding figures in the field of counseling psychology. The design of this survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using campus mail or the pre-paid postage by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990, to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support. Sincerely, Helen Popovich, President R. Paul Sullivan, Director Counseling Center Russell E. Moffett President, Ferris Faculty Association 116 September 28, 1990 Dear Administrative-Professional, The work lives of the professional staff in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of administrators as well as faculty and support staff to respond to the enclosed questionnaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of professionals who will represent the concerns of the entire administrative-professional group here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of the factors that create stress and strain in individuals, and how people in higher education cope with stress and strain. The survey found to be psychometrically sound, was developed by Samuel H. Osipow of Ohio State University and Arnold R. Spokane of the University of Maryland, two of the more outstanding figures in the field of counseling psychology. The design of this survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using campus mail or the pre-paid postage by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990 to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support for this research. Sincerely, Helen Popovich President R. Paul Sullivan Director, Counseling Center 117 September 28, 1990 Dear Staff Member, The work lives of staff members in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of staff as well as administrators and faculty to respond to the enclosed questionnaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of staff members who will represent the concerns of the entire staff here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of stress and strain in individuals, and how people cope with stress and strain. This survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using the pre-paid postage or campus mail by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990 to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support with this project. Sincerely, Helen Popovich, President R. Paul Sullivan, Director Counseling Center Charlie Baker President, American Federation of State and Municipal Employees 118 September 28, 1990 Dear Staff Member, The work lives of staff members in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of staff as well as administrators and faculty to respond to the enclosed questionaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of staff members who will represent the concerns of the entire staff here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of stress and strain in individuals, and how people cope with stress and strain. This survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using the pre-paid postage or campus mail by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990 to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support with this project. Sincerely, Helen Popovich, President R. Paul Sullivan, Director Counseling Center Kristi Andres President, Michigan Educational Support Personnel Association 119 September 28, 1990 Dear Staff Member, The work lives of staff members in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of staff as well as administrators and faculty to respond to the enclosed questionnaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of staff members who will represent the concerns of the entire staff here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of the factors that create stress and strain in individuals, and how people in higher education cope with stress and strain. This survey, found to be psychometrically sound, was developed by Samuel H. Osipow of Ohio State University and Arnold R. Spokane of the University of Maryland, two of the more outstanding figures in the field of counseling psychology. The design of this survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using campus mail or the pre-paid postage by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990 to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support with this project. Sincerely, Helen Popovich, President R. Paul Sullivan, Director Counseling Center Greg Delaney President, FSU/MESPA Hall Director's Association 120 September 28, 1990 Dear Staff Member, The work lives of staff members in higher education can be both exciting and complex. While some activities are novel and interesting, others can be routine or even stressful. This study, being undertaken by R. Paul Sullivan of the Counseling Center, involves research on occupational stress, strain, and coping in university employees. We are requesting a number of staff as well as administrators and faculty to respond to the enclosed questionnaire. Your responses are critical to this study since you are part of a small random sample of staff members who will represent the concerns of the entire staff here at Ferris State. The results will contribute to an understanding of the factors that create stress and strain in individuals, and how people in higher education cope with stress and strain. This survey, found to be psychometrically sound, was developed by Samuel H. Osipow of Ohio State University and Arnold R. Spokane of the University of Maryland, two of the more outstanding figures in the field of counseling psychology. The design of this survey assures complete anonymity. Your name will not be associated with your response. Please complete the survey and postcard and send them separately using campus mail or the pre-paid postage by Friday, Oct. 5, 1990 to R. Paul Sullivan, Counseling Center, 221 Rankin, Ferris State University. If you do have any questions, please contact him at the above address, or by phone at ext. 5968 or 796-0285. Thank-you for your support with this project. Sincerely, Helen Popovich President R. Paul Sullivan Director, Personal Counseling Center APPENDIX B 121 APPENDIX B DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE --PERRIS FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND STARE-- PLEASE CHECK THE APPROPRIATE ITEMS EELOU AND RETURN NITH THIS RATING SHEET AND QUESTIONNAIRE: 1) wORx GROUP: STAFF BELONGING To ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BARGAINING UNITS (AFSME, MESPA, HALL DIRECTORS, PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICERS, PUBLIC SAFETY SUPERVISORS, NURSES). FACULTY MEMBER FORMER AD.-TECH./ NON ADMINISTRATIVE-PROFESSIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE-PROFESSIONAL 2) GENDER: MALE FEMALE 3) TOTAL YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN PRESENT OCCUPATION8__0-5 __6-10 __11-15 __16-20 __20+ APPENDIX C 122 APPENDIX C I HAVE COMPLETED AND RETURNED MY RESPONSE FOR THE OCCUPATIONAL STRESS STUDY. I WOULD LIKE A COPY OF THE OVERALL RESULTS OF THIS STUDY. Name Side A R. PAUL SULLIVAN DIRECTOR, PERSONAL COUNSELING CENTER 221 RANKIN FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY BIG RAPIDS, MI 49307 Side B APPENDIX D 123 APPENDIX D DEAR FERRIS EMPLOYEE, LAST WEEK, A QUESTIONNAIRE ASKING POR.YOUR OPINION ABOUT OCCUPATIONAL STRESS WAS MAILED TO YOU. YOUR NAME WAS DRAWN FROM A RANDOM SAMPLE OP FACULTY, ADMINISTRATORS, AND EACULTY. IF YOU HAVE RECENTLY RETURNED THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND ORIGINAL POSTCARD, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION. IF NOT, PLEASE COMPLETE AND RETURN THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. IF YOU HAVE MISPLACED THE QUESTIONNAIRE, PLEASE CALL ME (x5968) AND I WILL MAIL ONE IMMEDIATELY. SINCERELY, R. PAUL SULLIVAN COUNSELING CENTER m MAILING LABEL Side B HICHI willillflffliflllflllf