Date

5-20-2026

Department

School of Education

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Education (PhD)

Chair

Melinda Carver

Keywords

teacher stress, teacher anxiety, stress, anxiety, class size, planning time, private schools, work week

Disciplines

Education | Educational Administration and Supervision

Abstract

The purpose of this correlational predictive study is to examine the factors of class size, hours worked during the week, and hours given to plan a week and determine if there is a predictive nature between these factors and perceived stress and anxiety in private school teachers. Determining the root causes of the rising rates of teacher stress is imperative to the future of the education system because teacher stress has a direct relationship to attrition, job satisfaction, teacher physical health, and job performance. A group of 115 private school teachers from a southern state participated in online surveys to collect data on their class size, hours worked during the week, minutes of planning time given in a week, and their stress scores as determined by the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21). The factors were analyzed using a multiple linear regression. This study found a predictive relationship between the factors of minutes of planning time given in a week and the teacher’s perceived anxiety score. This study did not find a predictive relationship between class size, hours worked during the week, minutes of planning time given in a week, and the teacher perceived stress scores of private school teachers. It also did not find a predictive relationship between class size and hours worked during the week and teacher perceived anxiety scores. Recommendations for future research include analyzing other factors that may better predict teacher stress, specifically internal factors that would not be situationally based, and comparing private school teacher stress to public school teacher stress.

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