Abstract

• The main purpose of the study was to investigate the occupational stress and academic optimism of secondary school teachers in Yangon Region. In this study, descriptive survey method and quantitative research design was used. Simple random sampling technique was used in this study. A total of 960 secondary school teachers were selected from Yangon Region in Myanmar. The Influence of Teachers’ Occupational Stress Questionnaire (ITOSQ) developed by Mailumo (2018) and the School Academic Optimism Scale (SAOS) developed by (Hoy, Tarter, & Hoy, 2006) were used in this study. According to occupational stress, the results of means, standard deviations and independent samples t-test showed that SAT were higher than JAT in occupational stress; teachers experienced <20 years were higher than teachers experienced > 20 years in occupational stress; the teachers who described being inadequacy were higher than the teachers who described being adequacy in stress due to excessive workload, stress due to instructional materials, stress due to delay and non-payment of salaries, stress due to students’ indiscipline and total occupational stress and there was not significantly different by class size in occupational stress. By one-way ANOVA, there were statistically significant differences in all dimensions of occupational stress by age. According to academic optimism, the results of means, standard deviations and independent samples t-test showed that JAT were higher than SAT in academic optimism, teachers experienced >20 years were higher than teachers experienced < 20 years in academic optimism, teachers who described being adequacy were higher than teachers who described being inadequacy in academic optimism, teachers teaching large class size were higher than teachers teaching small class size in each subscale of academic optimism except faculty trust in students and parents. By one-way ANOVA, there were statistically significant differences in collective teacher efficacy and academic emphasis by age. It was also found that higher level of occupational stress was significantly correlated with lower level of collective teacher efficacy.