Abstract:

It has been consistently testified that teaching as a profession prompted stress among teachers. It is essential that as early as practice teachers are being prepared to be licensed teachers, they need to be aware about the reality of teaching yet only few researches provide intensive information about the causes of the stressors of practice teachers. Since it is also the interest of this study to inform incoming practice teachers about the challenges that they might as well be encountering in the future, this study would be beneficial in providing them grounds to prepare themselves to combat possible stressors. Through the use of questionnaires and focus group discussion and by utilizing qualitative design, this study revealed workload, financial problem, cooperating teacher, call time, and students’ misbehavior cause stress among practice teachers of the School of Teacher Education of Saint Louis University. They also identified counter measures they used in overcoming their stressors such as using personal coping strategies, behavioral coping strategies, and social coping strategies. It can then be drawn that even if practice teachers experienced a lot of stress, they still find ways to overcome their stressors.

Keywords: Practice teaching, pre-service education, practicum, stress

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