Stress bei Sportlehrkräften. Zum Zusammenhang von Stresserleben und Copingstrategien

Physical education (PE) teachers face several demands in their working life, including elevated noise level, a perceived low social status, and limited equipment and facilities to perform their duties. PE teachers, and in particular novice PE teachers, often feel overburdened by these demands and therefore suffer negative psychological and physiological health consequences. As a result, a significant number of PE teachers drop out the profession to pursue different careers. Previous research on perceived stress and coping with perceived stress in (prospective) PE teachers contains a number of theoretical and methodological limitations. Therefore, the scientific work presented herein aims to comprehensively examine the perceived stress and coping of PE teachers, PE pre-service teachers and PE students. The results show that PE pre-service teachers have a higher level of perceived stress than PE teachers and PE students. Moreover, the results indicate that coping strategies such as positive reframing and planning appear to be more effective in reducing perceived stress than venting of (negative) emotions. Furthermore, the results show that emotion-regulation abilities partially determinate the use of coping strategies what results in different levels of perceived stress. In more detail, emotion-regulation abilities determine the use of evasive coping strategies and in turn, they was associated with higher perceived stress. Future studies should focus on the interaction between coping and the cognitive appraisal in order to uncover deeper insights into the mechanisms behind the development of perceived stress. Experimental and longitudinal studies with measures in a real-time setting would provide valuable insights. With regard to PE teacher education, the results emphasize that prospective PE teachers should be taught to deal with the demands and stress in their working life.