WORK STRESS AND ADJUSTMENT PATTERNS AMONG WORKING MOTHERS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ANAMBRA STATE
Abstract
The study investigated work stress and adjustment patterns among working mothers in public secondary schools in Anambra state. Three research questions and two null hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance guided the study. The study adopted correlational research design. The population of the study comprised 1,800 working mothers in Onitsha Education Zone, Anambra state. The sample consisted of 400 working mothers. Stratified sampling technique was used to draw the sample. Two instruments were used for data collection. These were “Work Stress Questionnaire (WSQ)” developed by Holmgren et al (2018) and Adjustment Patterns Inventory (API) developed by Bell (2006). The instruments were subjected to face validation. The reliability of the instruments were established using Cronbach Alpha method. The result yielded co-efficient values of 0.77 and 0.77 for WSQ and API respectively. Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficient was used to answer research questions 1-3,whereas test of significance for correlation was used to test hypotheses 1-3. The findings revealed that there was a weak negative relationship between work stress and adjustment pattern among working mothers in the urban areas, The findings of the study revealed that there was negative relationship between work stress and adjustment pattern among working mothers who are teachers while there was a negligible negative relationship between work stress and adjustment patterns among experienced working mothers.On the other hand, there was weak negative relationship between work stress and adjustment pattern of inexperienced working mothers. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that the management of secondary schools should create a compulsory leave for working mothers in secondary schools, the state government should endeavor to recruit more staff in order to reduce work load on existing staff.
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