Coping Behavior of Primary School Teachers with various professional experience

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of the coping behavior of primary school teachers with different professional experience: up to 5 years, 5-15, 16-25 years and more than 25 years. The questionnaires ‟Strategies for overcoming stressful situations” by S. Hobfall and ‟Coping behavior in stressful situations” by N Endler – J. Parker were used as research methods. It is claimed that the coping behavior of elementary school teachers is characterized by high indicators of constructiveness, interconnectedness of prosocial strategies. Concerning the structure of coping behavior groups of teachers differ in preferences for coping strategies with minimal differences. It was revealed that in the group of young teachers, the frequency of using the strategy of cautious actions decreases with an increase in experience, after 5 years the desire to seek social support increases, teachers with experience from 16 to 25 years have a decrease in the desire to enter into social contacts and the orientation of coping to problem solving. Teachers with more than 25 years of experience implement pro-social strategies for seeking social support, combined with a low level of anti-social actions. The low level of emotionally-oriented coping in all groups, along with the high stressfulness of the activity of a primary school teacher, indicates a certain deficit in the self-regulation of emotional states.