Role stressors, workload and job stress among teachers in Putrajaya, Malaysia

Teaching profession often associated with high complexities and demands in comparison with other profession. There have been a few studies that have indicated that teachers work longer hours than many other professions, which can lead to stress. It is believed that one of the many contributing factors to the problem is work-life balance, role clarity, the role of the administrator, and inadequate resources. The purpose of this study is to explore whether there is a correlation between role stressors (role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload) and job stress among public school teachers in Malaysia. Furthermore, the study also examined the teachers' working hours and its effects on job stress. This study was conducted with the participation of 320 academic teachers from primary and secondary schools in Putrajaya. The findings of the study indicate that role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload are all associated with significant relationships with job stress. Role ambiguity is the most predominant stressor, with a strong positive relationship, followed by role overload, which has a moderately positive relationship. Despite this, there were negative correlations between role conflict and job stress, which emphasizes the need for a more detailed review to be made. On the contrary, the working hours of teachers are found to be insignificant and, consequently, have been omitted from this study. From the findings, there are two main suggestions recommended: (i) develop a work-distribution framework as a supplementing document to the existing MySG documents, and (ii) conduct time and motion analysis from the activities listed in MySG to identify teachers’ capacity and headcount, work redundancy and ultimately to improve overall efficiency of process workflow at school. Discussion, implications, and recommendation for future studies have also been covered at the end of this research paper.