Teaching styles and occupational stress among Chinese university faculty members

Abstract

The primary aim of this research is to investigate the predictive power of occupational stress for teaching style among university faculty members. A sample of 144 faculty members from a large university in the People's Republic of China rated themselves on three ability scales and responded to the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory and to four scales from the Occupational Stress Inventory-Revised (role overload, role insufficiency, psychological strain, and rational/cognitive coping). Satisfactory reliability and validity data were obtained for the Chinese version of the four occupational stress scales. After self-rated abilities were taken into account, occupational stress remained a significant predictor of teaching style. A stronger feeling of role overload and more frequent use of a rational/cognitive coping strategy were conducive to employing both creativity-generating and conservative teaching styles; a stronger feeling of role insufficiency and psychological strain had a negative impact on the use of creative-generating teaching styles. The implications of this research for both university faculty members and university administrators are discussed.