Sources of work stress among education assistants in Algeria

A field study in the middle and secondary schools of the wilaya of Medea

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the sources of work stress among middle and
secondary schools’ education assistants, as well as the statistical differences in stress levels,
according to gender and work system. A questionnaire composed of (50) items divided over
(8) work stress dimensions, applied to a sample of (172) assistants, who were selected in a
non-random sampling (quota sampling) among (34) middle and (23) secondary schools in the
wilaya of Medea. The results show that educational assistants suffer from a high level of
perceived stress whose sources are lack of motivation, lack of career development
opportunities, task stress, lack of control poor feedback, workload, lack of supervisor support,
role conflicts and ambiguities. The results also demonstrated that there are no statistically
significant differences in the levels of perceived stress among education assistants due to
gender except for task stress and lack of control in favour of females. There are also no
statistically significant differences according to the school's work system except for the weak
feedback in favour of educational feedback in favour of educational assistants working in the
internas.