Investigating Into State Anxiety Among Primary And Middle School Teachers In China

State anxiety is now pervasive as a state of emotion among primary and middle school teachers in China,which can be regarded as an important factor to impact mental health and working efficiency of individuals in this area.Studies of physiological,psychological and social perspectives have been contributed to the generation,development,structure,and cognitive process and have brought forth many results,both theoretical and experimental.However,former studies in state anxiety were clinical ones based on psychopathology and few have been focused on developmental studies of state anxiety among normal population,lacking measurement tools of specific purposes. What is more,there has been no systematic investigation into the structure,characteristics and factors of state anxiety among teachers,not to say comprehensive studies on the cognitive process of teachers with high state anxiety.With a synthetic application of such methods as literature reviews,interviews,surveys and experiments,we explored the internal structure,epidemiology,developing features,factors and cognitive process of state anxiety of primary and middle school teachers.The statistics includes item analysis,ANOVA,regression analysis,exploratory factor analysis,and confirmatory factor analysis. Our exploration is composed of theoretical construction and practical discussion of state anxiety of teachers from primary and middle schools,of characteristics and relevant studies in the aforesaid state anxiety,of features of information encoding,judging/explaining,and recognizing among teachers with high state anxiety,and of the cognitive processing efficiency of teachers with high state anxiety.The conclusions are as follows:(1) State anxiety among primary and middle school teachers is a stratificational system of multi-dimensions,composed of such second-scale dimensions as anxiety for satisfaction,anxiety for dominating,and anxiety for conflict,and such first-scale dimensions as low self-acceptability of expense and reward,low self-acceptability of aim and result,self-conflict in profession,conflict between being a teacher and a member of a family.(2) Self-prepared Scale for State Anxiety Among Primary and Middle School Teachers and Life Event Scale for Primary and Middle School Teachers are of good indexes in psychometrics.They are appropriate measurement tools for state anxiety among primary and middle school teachers.(3) State anxiety among primary and middle school teachers shows significant difference in gender,age,years of teaching,school type,working hours per day.High state anxiety can be found in male teachers,teachers who has 13 to 26 years of teaching experience,key school teachers, teachers working over 10 hours per day,teachers in charge of some classes,married teachers, teachers of poor living conditions,and teachers of poor health. (4) Occurrence rate of life events among primary and middle school teachers exhibits significant difference in gender,grade,school type,and class charge.Moreover,male teachers show significant higher rate of occurrence of life events;compared with teachers from primary and general schools,teachers from key schools show highest rate of occurrence of all life events except capability event and working and socializing event.Compared with teachers from primary and senior high schools,teachers from junior high schools show higher occurrence rate of general life events and the specific elements.Except for school events and working consequence events,teachers who are in charge of classes show higher occurrence rates in life events than those who are not.(5) For primary and middle school teachers,life events and levels of state anxiety are significantly correlated with personality inclination,and with social support they gain.Personality inclination is the intervening variable of the influence of life events upon state anxiety,and social support is the regulating variable.(6) Negative tendency happens in the period of cognizing and encoding among teachers with high anxiety arouse and positive tendency happens in the period of recognizing,but no tendency is found in the period of judging and explaining.These features reflect the facilitating function of cognitive process in the course of individual evolution and adaptation to the environment.(7) Characteristics of cognitive load represented by teachers aroused with high state anxiety verify the efficiency/disruption argument on the one hand,and the compensatory/control argument on the other hand.In other words,level of high state anxiety decreases an individual's efficiency of cognitive process,and causes the individual not to be focused on a given task.However,after an individual classifies his/her ability of task completion,he/she will have stronger certainty and ascription,which to some extent reduces the level of anxiety and enhances efficiency of cognitive process.The originality of the present study is represented by the following four aspects:(1) Making up the study of state anxiety among primary and middle school teachers.With investigation into the structure,status quo,relevant factors and features of cognitive process,a structural model of state anxiety among primary and middle school teachers is constructed and the deficiencies in studies related can be overcome to some extent.This helps deepen research in state anxiety among primary and middle school teachers,and state anxiety in general.(2) Expanding the scope of anxiety research with a developmental approach.The subjects of this study are primary and middle school teachers who belong to the normal population.Compared to former studies which were directed towards people with anxiety disorders and which were in lack of developmental approaches,the present study has made a step forward and is valuable for anxiety research and coping with it.(3) Synthesizing different perspectives in methodology.The study applies the macro perspective to propose a theoretical model containing various factors of state anxiety,and the micro perspective to discuss the characteristics of cognitive process;considers the intervening function of social support for state anxiety among teachers,and the medium function of internal personality in this type of state anxiety;adopts experimental observation and statistical analysis,and reasoning and constructing as well.It is a helpful study which synthesizes several perspectives.(4) Designing tools of specific use and special practicality.Scale for State Anxiety Among Primary and Middle School Teachers and Life Event Scale for Primary and Middle School Teachers designed by the author make up the deficiency in measurement tools of state anxiety and stress among primary and middle school teachers in China.