Stressful life experiences of children: The correspondence between professional judgments of teachers-in-training and children's perceptions

Yamamoto and Felsenthal (1982) asked educational professionals to assess 20 life events1 according to how stressful they perceived them to be for and how frequently they were experienced by school age children. The findings revealed that the ratings of children and professionals were significantly correlated overall, however, specialty and experience did not improve the accuracy of the professionals' perceptions (Yamamoto & Felsenthal, 1982). The present study advanced this research by surveying 109 teachers-in-training 1, in order to compare their judgements with the responses of 56 first- and 93 sixth-grade children who were recently surveyed (Anderson, Jimerson, & Whipple, 2005). The following questions were addressed: (1) Do teachers' judgements of the stressfulness of children's experiences correspond with those of the children themselves? (2) Do teachers' perceptions differ according to general developmental status (first grade level versus sixth grade level)? (3) Does the amount of teaching experience have any influence on ratings? (4) Are teachers' estimations of incidence significantly different from children's self-reports of incidence? Teachers' judgments corresponded more closely with the children's ratings at the first grade level than at the sixth grade level. Teachers' perceptions did differ according to general developmental status (first grade level versus sixth grade level) for the majority of life events. There were no significant differences between the ratings of the experienced and inexperienced teachers at the first or the sixth grade level. Finally, a general pattern emerged for both teachers and children in which the majority of events that were ranked as the most stressful experiences were among the least common experiences and the majority of events that were rated as the least stressful experiences were among the most common experiences. Overall, the rankings of life events by children and professionals as well as the children's self-reports of incidence and the professionals' estimations of incidence were closer in the present study than in the Yamamoto and Felsenthal (1982) study. With increased awareness of these research findings, teacher educators and psychologists can address the misperceptions of teachers-in-training.; 1In this dissertation, the term teacher(s) will be used interchangeably with teacher(s)-in-training .