TEACHERS’ SELF-EFFICACY AND COPING WITH STRESS AT WORK PLACE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN MATHARE SUB-COUNTY, NAIROBI COUNTY KENYA

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study evaluated teachers’ self-efficacy and coping with workplace stress in Mathare Sub-County, Nairobi County, Kenya. This study's main objective was to determine whether teachers’ self-efficacy influenced teachers in public secondary schools in Mathare SubCounty, Nairobi County, Kenya to handle workplace stress. The study's specific objectives were to evaluate whether teacher’s mastery experiences influenced coping with stress at work place, to assess whether the teacher’s vicarious experiences influenced coping with stress at work place, to determine the influence of teacher’s social persuasion on coping with stress at work place, to examine whether teachers' ability to cope with stress at work was affected by counseling and to assess whether coping mechanisms helped teachers to cope with stress at workplace. The study used Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (1986) and Lazarus (1966) Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping. Census sampling technique was used to select the sample of the study. This study used a mixed-methods approach which is a convergent parallel design. Eighty-six respondents made the study's target population. Questionnaires and interview guide were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used to run descriptive and inferential statistics on the data. To present the data, frequency distribution tables were employed. The study's findings demonstrated that there was a positive moderate correlation (r=.451; p<0.05) between teachers' mastery experiences on proactive coping with a weak negative correlation (r=-0.025, P> 0.05) on avoidance coping. Teachers’ vicarious experiences showed a positive strong correlation (r=.563, p<0.05) on reflective coping with a weak negative correlation (r= -0.102, P> 0.05) on avoidance coping. Teachers’ social persuasion had a strong positive correlation (r=.579; p<0.05) on reflective coping and a weak negative correlation (r= -.096, P> 0.05) on avoidance coping. The study revealed that counselling helped teachers to mitigate against stress at workplace. The study recommended the entrenchment of coping skills into teachers’ professional development programmes to empower them with techniques to manage stress at workplace. The results of this study are expected to equip teachers in Mathare Sub-County to enhance teacher self-efficacy by equipping them with different ways of coping with stress at work place.