International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.

com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

Teacher’s Mastery Experiences on Coping with Stress at

Work Place among the Public Secondary School Teachers in
Mathare Sub- County, Nairobi, County, Kenya.

Rebecca Chepkorir, Kinoti Kithuri, PhD, Maria Ntarangwe, PhD

Department of Counseling Psychology

The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

ABSTRACT: This study assessed Teachers’ Mastery Experiences on Coping with stress at Work Place among
the Public Secondary School Teachers in Mathare Sub- County.The study adopted a mixed method approach; a
convergent parallel design was employed to enable the researcher investigate the relationship between
teachers’ mastery experiences on working with stress at workplace among the public secondary school teachers
in Mathare Sub-County, Nairobi County, Kenya. A census sampling technique was adopted to selectEighty-six
respondents. Questionnaires were distributed to the respondents to collect quantitative data while interview
guide was used to collect qualitative data. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was
used to run descriptive and inferential statistics on the data. To present the data, frequency distribution tables
were employed. The study's results showsmoderate and positive relationship between mastery experiences and
proactive coping methods (r=.451; p<0.05). Similarly, the correlation between mastery experiences and
reflective coping was moderately positive, (r=.411; p<0.05).There was a positive weak relationship between
mastery experiences and preventive coping methods, (r=.239; p<0.05).The correlation between mastery
experiences and instrumental coping was also a weak positive correlation, (r=.294; p<0.05). Mastery
experiences and emotional support also presented a weak positive relationship (r=.258; p<0.05). This
demonstrated that teachers' mastery experience had a favorable impact on stress management. The study
recommended the entrenchment of coping skills into teachers’ professional development programs to empower
them with techniques to manage stress at workplace.The results of this study are expected to equip teachers in
Mathare Sub-County with different ways of coping with stress at work place, help teachers address their
experience that will be useful to educational community as a whole for it would lead to the reduction of job
dissatisfaction and costly turn over.

I. BACKGROUND

Teachers are the most valued assets of any nation. Teachers play a vital role of imparting knowledge and skills
to the students with the hope that after they successfully complete their studies would contribute towards
building their nations socially and economically. Wilson,Woolfson and Durkin (2020) define mastery
experiences as performance accomplishments that involve the accomplishment of goals by direct individual
action within the behavioral domain. The greatest and most crucial factor in developing persistent self-efficacy
expectations is mastery experiences.

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International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

Wilson, Woolfson, and Durkin (2020) conducted a study in Scotland on school atmosphere and mastery
experience that mainly influenced teachers' opinions about their abilities to teach inclusively. To review
teachers' descriptions of inclusive teaching, self-efficacy and mastery experiences, the study used social
cognitive theory. One hundred and forty-eight (148) primary school teachers from conventional Scottish schools
made up the study's sample. Study participants provided information using questionnaires that evaluated their
experiences with mastery and the learning environment (collective efficacy and school climate perceptions). To
illustrate the link between the variables in the study, descriptive statistics were used. The study's findings
showed that mastery experiences, the school environment, including climate and collective efficacy were
important markers of teachers' self-efficacy. The study asserted that self-efficacy subscales can be supported in
the classroom, including classroom management, instructional strategies and student engagement efficacy.

According to Schuck, Aubusson, Buchanan, Varadharajan and Burke (2018) teachers may have low morale in
the beginning of their professions, question their abilities, which causes anxiety, reality shock and end up in a
survival mode, which involves battling to continue. This study looked at how new expectations for the teaching
profession and teacher growth from the viewpoints of school administrators and newly trained teachers. The
goal of the study was to determine which professional competencies new teachers needed assistance on in the
early stages of their employment. The study entailed analyzing data of one hundred and four (104) Finnish
school leaders together with new one hundred and forty-five (145) teachers using quantitative and qualitative
methods.

The socio-cultural theory of Wertsch (1985), which acknowledges that social interactions and practices are
influenced by people's experiences, served as the theoretical foundation for the study. In this study, teachers had
to navigate their way through an established and complex social system (the school). Early Career Teachers
were surveyed for the purpose of gathering data for the study. The results showed that in order to provide
comprehensive assistance for students' development, new teachers in particular needed support while working
with various student groupings. The study also showed that new teachers needed support in order to handle
conflict in the classroom and work with partners both inside and outside of the school community.

In their study titled "Resolving Feelings of Professional Inadequacy: Student Teachers' Coping with Distressful
Situations," Lassila, Uittoa, and Estola (2018) examined the viewpoints of student teachers and newly licensed
teachers regarding emotionally challenging circumstances they came across both during teacher school and as
newly licensed instructors. The study's objective was to determine how new teachers in Sweden dealt with
emotionally demanding circumstances while undergoing teacher training. Twenty student teachers in total,
including fifteen (15) women and five (5) men, between the ages of 21 and 30, took part in the study.The
findings also demonstrated a strong correlation between relationship conflicts among new teachers and their
ability to balance the demands and practical responsibilities of being both an independent teacher and a part of
the teaching community at the school. The study found that in order to get the kind of help they required from
more experienced colleagues; novice instructors must carefully consider their connections with more seasoned
educators.

Otwate, Nyakwara, and Mwangi (2021) conducted a study in Nambale Sub-county of Busia County to ascertain
the influence of instructors' topic knowledge and teaching experience on the selection of instructional strategies
to enhance students' reading abilities. The research attempted to ascertain the impact of teachers' subject
knowledge and teaching experience during the foundation level at which pupils should learn basic reading
abilities in order to facilitate a smooth transition to succeeding grades. The Participatory Learning Approach
(PLA) theory of Paulo Freire (1972) was employed in the study to determine whether teachers should adopt
particular instructional tactics to improve the literacy skills of their first-graders. According to the theory,
educating children linguistic skills helps them get ready to deal with social and academic issues in society.The
researchers found that a competent teacher needed to have a positive attitude and perceive the various needs of

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ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

the students as they were being taught and that teachers with a certain amount of teaching experience had
similar potentials and abilities to employ a range of strategies to address the various learning needs of students.
According to the study, matching veteran teachers with fresh faces in a classroom and at subject-matter levels
resulted in more engaging learning opportunities for kids.

Imonje and Wandera (2019) conducted research on how teaching experience affected students' performance in
the English subject of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination. The goal of this study was to determine
how students' performance on the English section of the KCPE test from public primary schools in Machakos
Countywas impacted by teacher experience (teaching). According to the study, teaching experience was a sign
of a teacher's expertise with different instructional methodologies through hands-on learning for efficient
contentment delivery in a classroom setting.The study found that candidates' performance in the English subject
of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination improved over time, going between a minimum mean score of
45.8%, which corresponded to a teacher's four years of teaching experience and a maximum mean score of
53.2%, which represented a teacher's fifteen to nineteen years of teaching experience.

II. METHOD
Research Design
The study set to evaluate the influence of teacher’s mastery experiences on coping with stress at work place
among the public secondary school teachers in Mathare Sub- County.A research design is the plan for a study
that represents the optimal research methodology to address the study's research questions. A research design,
according to Creswell (2018) is a framework or strategy for a study that is used as a direction for data collection
and analysis.This study used a mixed methods approach ofconvergent parallel research design.This was used to
allow the researcher to make sure that both qualitative and quantitative data provide different types of
information often detailed views of participants qualitatively and scores on instruments quantitatively and
together they yielded results that should be the same.

Location of the Study

Mathare Sub-county is one of the Sub-counties in Nairobi Metropolitan County. After the County Government
Act of 2012 was passed, it was separated from Starehe Sub-county in 2013. According to Independent Electoral
and Boundaries Commission of Kenya(IEBC), Mathare Sub-County has six wards (Hospital, Mabatini,
Huruma, Ngei, MlangoKubwa, and Kiamaiko) and is 3 km2 in size. The three mixed-gender day secondary
schools and the one girl's boarding secondary school are the four public schools in Mathare-Sub County, all of
which are located in slum areas.The reason for selecting Mathare Sub-County as a study area was that no
research had been done on teachers’ self-efficacy and coping with stress. The area was chosen because it was
conveniently accessible to the researcher.Mathare Sub-county is among one the overpopulated Sub-counties in
Nairobi County. It is also known of slums where the majority of the residents come from.

Target Population

A study population according Shukla andSatishprakash (2020) is a set or group of all the units on which the
findings of the research are to be applied. According to information from the Mathare Sub-County office of the
Director of Education from the year 2021, there were four public secondary schools in the area, with a total of
82 teachers and four principals. 86 teachers made up the study's entire sample. After being split off from Starehe
Sub-county, Mathare Sub-County now makes up Mathare Sub-County that comprise three mixed-gender day
secondary schools and the one girl's boarding secondary school making a total of four public secondary schools
with eighty-six teachers (86). MathareSub-County is one of the seventeen sub-counties in Nairobi County.

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International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

Sample Size and Sampling Procedures

The census method, a statistical enumeration in which every member of the population is examined, was utilized
in this study. Due to the study's limited study population, this methodology was perfect. A census sampling
technique, according to Singh and Masuku (2014), is more desirable for small populations that are between 50
and 200. According to these scholars, a census eliminates sampling error and offers information on every
member of the population, which enables them to obtain the desired level of precision by providing
comprehensive data relevant to a certain study.The sample size was made up of eighty-six teachers.

Research Instruments

To assess teachers’ mastery experience and coping with stress at workplace; Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale was
used to assess the self-efficacy of teachers (Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner 1999). According to how true they
thought each of the ten assertions were, the respondents had to choose one of them from (1) not at all true to (4)
entirely true. The identification of particular work abilities unique to the teaching profession, according to
Schwarzer et al. (1999) was the first step in creating a new instrument to measure teacher self-efficacy. The
following four elements were discovered to be essential: job accomplishment, on-the-job skill development,
social ties with children, parentsand coworkers and stress management. Teachers had distinct expectations for
their students' self-efficacy for each of these four domains. These were all essential for effective instruction.

The Proactive Coping Inventory (PCI), developed by Greenglass,Schwarzer andTaubert(1999) was utilized by
the researcher to identify the coping mechanisms for stress load. Proactive coping, reflective coping, strategic
planning, preventive coping, instrumental support seeking, emotional support seeking and avoidance coping
were the seven subscales that made up the questionnaire. Each of the four categories: Not at all true, barely true,
somewhat true, and completely true—was represented by one of the respondents' responses. Greenglass and
others (1999) developed a 55-item questionnaire for each of the aforementioned subscales that examined the
teacher's opinion of how truthful each of the statements were based on how he or she felt about the
circumstance. Questions from the subscales included avoidance, instrumental support (8 items), emotional
support (5 items), strategic support (4 items), proactive support (14 items), preventive support (10 items),
reflective support (11 items) and avoidance (3 items).

Table 1

The study sought to explore the relationship between Mastery Experiences on Coping with workplace stress
among teachers in Mathare Sub-county Nairobi County Kenya.

Mastery Experiences on Coping with workplace Stress among Teachers

Instrumental
Proactive Reflective Preventive Strategic Support Emotional
Coping Coping Coping Planning Seeking Support System Avoidance
Subscale Subscale Subscale Subscale Subscale Subscale Coping Subscale
.451 .411 .239 .21 .294 .258 -.025
4
.000 .000 .044 .07 .012 .028 .832
2
72 72 72 72 72 72 72

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International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

According to Obilor and Amadi (2018) Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient is a measure of the
strength and direction of relationship that exists between two variables measured on at least an interval scale. A
Pearson’s correlation tries to draw a line of best fit through the data of two variables, and the Pearson’s
correlation coefficient, r, indicates how far away all these data points are from this line of best fit. According
toTurney (2022) correlation coefficients vary from -1 to +1: whereas -1 and +1 indicate perfect negative and
perfect positive correlation coefficients respectively. A correlation coefficient of 0 infers no correlation (zero
relationship), correlation coefficient between 0 and 0.3 (whether negative or positive) are said to be weak,
between 0.3 and 0.5 are moderate and greater than 0.5 are strong.

Table 1.1 shows that there is a moderate and positive relationship between mastery experiences and proactive
coping methods (r=.451; p<0.05). This implies that a teacher with mastery experience who adopts proactive
coping mechanism is able to moderately cope with stress at workplace. Similarly, the correlation between
mastery experiences and reflective coping was moderately positive, (r=.411; p<0.05). This implies that with
more mastery experiences there was more reflective coping which enabled teachers to moderately cope with
stress at workplace.
It is also revealed that there was a positive weak relationship between mastery experiences and preventive
coping methods, (r=.239; p<0.05). This implies that despite mastery experiences teachers employed preventive
coping methods to avert stress at workplace.

The correlation between mastery experiences and instrumental coping was also a weak positive correlation,
(r=.294; p<0.05). Mastery experiences and emotional support also presented a weak positive relationship
(r=.258; p<0.05). This would imply that with more mastery experiences there would be more instrumental and
emotional coping methods. Results of analysis also revealed that there was a weak negative correlation between
mastery experiences and the avoidance coping subscale. Although weak, (r= -0.025, P> 0.05). These findings
have been supported by Wilson, Woolfson, and Durkin (2020) who asserted that Mastery experiences are an
important and the strongest source of creating perseverant self-efficacy expectations that leads to teachers’
accomplishment or achievement of goals. Through these accomplishments, a teacher is able to cope with stress
at work.

Discussions
Similarly, a study from Indonesia by Carney, Brendefur, Thiede, Hughes and Sutton (2016) avers that the best way
to develop greater self-efficacy in teachers is to focus on mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, getting
positive and encouraging feedback.A study in Australia by Toe and Longaretti (2022) on teacher’ mastery
experience in high performing teachers as well as barriers and enablers for new graduates reported that teachers
with a high sense of mastery experience were more resilient to difficulties, experienced greater job satisfaction and
had higher expectations of their students. This study also reported that new graduate teachers had low mastery
experience in their roles but they got increasing it due to mentoring and positive feedback from their senior
teachers.

Wilson, Woolfson, and Durkin (2020) conducted a study in Scotland on school atmosphere and mastery
experience that mainly influenced teachers' opinions about their abilities to teach inclusively.The study's
findings showed that mastery experiences, the school environment, including climate and collective efficacy
were important markers of teachers' self-efficacy. The study asserted that mastery experience and self-efficacy
subscales can be supported in the classroom, including classroom management, instructional strategies and
student engagement efficacy. All these sub-scales were positively correlated with opinions of the principal
teacher's leadership, resource influence, academic emphasis and interacting with teachers' beliefs.

When workplace demands clash with a worker's capacity, resources, or needs, stress at work is the physical and
emotional reaction that results. Significant research into work-related stress has been an on-going activity in many

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International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

countries of the world (Badu, 2020). Dempsey and Burke (2021) undertook a research study in Ireland to explore
the Irish Teachers' experiences of stress and how different teachers dealt with stress. The study found that although
all of the teachers had some degree of stress, there were differences in the levels of stress among them based on
experience due to things like relationships, a lack of control, authority and identity.

A study in Ethiopia by Kabito and Wami (2020) on how public secondary school teachers in Gondar city rated their
level of job-related stress reported that teachers experienced a high level of occupational stress that arose from
interpersonal stressors, administrative stressors and student-parent stressors. The study asserted that to cope with
occupational stress more than half of the teachers used religion as a coping mechanism. This study recommended
educational bureaus, health professionals and other educational practitioners should collaborate with the schools to
put the necessary measures into place in order to lower the level of occupational stress among teachers and help
them to use the best coping mechanisms.

Steenekamp, van der Merwe and Mehmedova (2018) conducted a study in South Africa in order to better
understand the mastery experience of student teachers who had the chance to experience vicarious learning
while on a field trip. The study's objective was to gain a better understanding of how student teachers developed
their professional identity. Using Vygotsky's (1986) social-constructivist theory framework, this qualitative
research study focused on how mastery experience of teachers in learning changed student instructors'
professional identities. According to the theoretical framework, learning involved making connections to and
adoptions from the sociocultural background.

Imonje and Wandera (2019) conducted research on how teaching experience affected students' performance in
the English subject of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination. The goal of this study was to determine
how students' performance on the English section of the KCPE test from public primary schools in Machakos
Countywas impacted by teacher experience (teaching).According to the study, teaching experience was a sign of
a teacher's expertise with different instructional methodologies through hands-on learning for efficient
contentment delivery in a classroom setting.

Otwate, Nyakwara, and Mwangi (2021) conducted a study in Nambale Sub-county of Busia County to ascertain
the influence of instructors' topic knowledge and teaching experience on the selection of instructional strategies
to enhance students' reading abilities. The study found that a competent teacher needed to have a positive
attitude and perceive the various needs of the students as they were being taught and that teachers with a certain
amount of teaching experience had similar potentials and abilities to employ a range of strategies to address the
various learning needs of students. At the same time matching veteran teachers with fresh faces in a classroom
and at subject-matter levels resulted in more engaging learning opportunities for kids.

IV CONCLUSION

On mastery experiences, respondents generally believed that they had mastered enough experience to be able to
steer well in all responsibilities in which they had been entrusted.The study realized that their social networks
will important for practical help, such as advice and general knowledge. On the other hand, people's counsel to
assist them solve their own difficulties, research participants agreed that this was absolutely true. Additionally,
they said that the knowledge they gained from others had frequently assisted them in managing their stress and
that they could typically recognize people who could assist them in coming up with their own answers to
difficulties to achieve on their mastery experiences.

The study recommends for professional development of teachers which should include stress coping
mechanisms. By this teachers' wellness will be well catered for; and this will provide stress management
techniques as part of their ongoing professional development.

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International Journal of Arts and Social Science www.ijassjournal.com
ISSN: 2581-7922
Volume 6 Issue 2, February 2023.

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