Discovering Causes of Stress and their Remedies Adopted by Pre-Service Teachers During Teaching Practicum

Abstract

The main purpose of this research paper is to investigate the challenges and difficulties faced by pre-service teachers during their teaching practicum. Teaching is always a multi-faceted phenomenon and directly depends on the mental and physical peace of teachers. There is always a dire need to facilitate all the pre-service teachers from all aspects to ensure the achievement of desired aims. The objective of the research study was to investigate the causes of stress and to investigate stress remedies adopted by pre-service teachers during teaching practicum. The population of the study were five public sector universities.Three universities were selected as a sample. First was the University of Education Multan campus. Second one was (BZU), The Baha-Uddin -Zakariya university Multan, (BZU), and the last one was Women university of Multan. In the second phase, 30 pre-service teachers both male and female, were selected from these universities. The instrument used for data collection from the target population was a semi structured interview and classroom observation. The result of research showed that pre-service teachers faced extreme levels of stress. The major causes of stress among pre-service teachers are busy schedules, classroom management, academic workload, financial problems, Indiscipline among students, fear of less grades increases their stress level. Various managing remedies are used by stressed out teachers in order to recover their own wellbeing and better learning environment for their students, team work, collaborative environment among all faculty members, good response from supervisor, school staff and class students can reduce the stress level of pre-service teachers. The research study recommended that there is a great need for university and school administration to provide special guidance and support to their students and to conduct stress management programs to help establish their managing skills. These programs could be designed based on the students’ needs and professional objectives.