Emotional management and self-efficacy associated with low stress levels in Spanish university teachers

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. Stress is defined as a state of physical and mental exhaustion, derived from a demanding context. Several national reports indicate that six out of ten teachers present medium to high levels of stress, affecting the quality of their professional activity. This perspective is extremely common in Higher Education. The aim of this research was to better understand the relationships between emotional management, stress and self-efficacy, alongside the effect of other academic and professional variables in Higher Education teachers. METHOD. The present study was descriptive, ex post-facto and cross-sectional and was performed with a sample of 798 Higher Education teachers from 15 Spanish universities, using IBM SPSS v.23.0 software for data analysis. RESULTS. Better emotional regulation was observed in males, those with a stable job and those working in the field of Science. Stress was higher amongst non-academic staff, whilst teaching staff perceived themselves to have greater self-efficacy when they reported family responsibilities and other obligations. Along these lines, teaching experience was determined to favour cognitive re-evaluation and self-efficacy, whilst also decreasing stress levels. This was especially the case amongst permanent teaching staff. Further, emotional regulation favoured a decrease in stress and the development of self-efficacy. DISCUSSION. In conclusion, the need is established to conduct actions for the development of emotional regulation techniques within university teaching staff. This will allow one self to manage stressful situations and inoculate anxiety and stress derived from professional activity. Ultimately, it will result in an improvement in teaching activity, favouring the achievement of the proposed teaching objectives and the academic performance of students.