Many headlines report that grade school and high school teachers in Quebec eventually change careers or take sick leave, as they are exhausted or simply unwell. However, a new Université de Montréal study suggests otherwise.
André Savoie, Luc Brunet and Jean-Sébastien Boudrias of the Université de Montréal Department of Psychology traveled the province to evaluate the psychological health of about 600 teachers from more than 30 schools. They used several questionnaires to measure their relationship to themselves, to others and to their work.
They found that 94 percent of those interviewed were in sound psychological health and less than two percent were not. And half of those who are unwell are in 10 percent of the schools. “Obviously these are the schools making headlines,” says Savoie. “This is not a widespread condition even though some teachers do suffer from serious psychological health problems.”
AThe researchers used representative samples to avoid biased results. To do so, they insisted that more than 65 percent of teachers from a given school answer the questionnaires seeing as previous studies reporting high stress levels in teachers had only used a minute sample.
“It’s impossible that 40 percent of people are psychologically unwell,” says Brunet. “If that were true, they would all be dysfunctional and the system would implode. Often, questionnaires on stress reveal the unhappiness of a minority of people who are not necessarily in a state of great distress.”
The study also highlights that a teacher’s relationship to oneself and to work are often indicators of poor psychological health. The issue of alienation is also problematic. These teachers feel disconnected from their work and feel neither malaise nor well-being.
The research enabled the team to begin an intervention strategy, with some schools already reporting progress.
This is an English summary of an article originally published in French by Marie Lambert-Chan.
English-language contact for scientific research at Univesité de Montréal: William Raillant-Clark, International Press Attaché - w.raillant-clark@umontreal.ca .
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