The examination of teacher stress among Turkish early childhood education teachers

The purpose of this study is to examine the level of teacher stress experienced by Turkish early childhood education teachers working in public and private preschools serving children from three to six years of age. The participants of the study include 1119 early childhood education teachers gathered through simple random sampling. The data are gathered through teacher stress inventory developed by Micheal Fimian [1984. The development of an instrument to measure occupational stress in teachers: The teacher stress inventory. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 57, 277-293], which is adapted into Turkish through preliminary psychometric investigation of its validity and reliability. Based on correlation analysis, one sample t-test and analysis of variance findings suggest that teachers' occupational stress is related to teachers' monthly income, gender, years of experience in occupation and age level of children that they are working with.