Stress, Burnout and Self-Efficacy in Guidance Officers

Abstract

Over the last decade, Australian Guidance Officers have been facing well documented challenges to their roles, training and their profession. This study surveyed 146 Guidance Officers and found them to report abnormally high stress levels but average burnout and self-efficacy scores. Previous research suggests that the most difficult aspect of the Guidance Officer's role, and the job for which they often feel least prepared, is dealing with the support needs of students with mental illness, emotional disturbance, behavioural and learning difficulties. Responses from Guidance Officers who deal with these students relatively often revealed significantly higher self-efficacy scores than the remainder of the group, higher emotional exhaustion (as anticipated) and reassuringly low depersonalisation scores. The good and bad news in these results are discussed and implications drawn for the profession.

Australian school psychologists’ and counsellors’ experience of stress

“…Hypothesis 2: SPC stress would be experienced at greater levels than the SPCs in Bramston and Robertson's (2001) study two decades ago.…”

“…Since 1994, there has been only one other study that has specifically measured the stress of practising Australian SPCs (Bramston & Robertson, 2001). Participants were 147 Queensland SPCs (i.e.…”

“…The purpose of the study was to consider if there were wellbeing implications for SPCs who had reported they felt ill-equipped to support the many more students with mental health issues, emotional and behavioural disturbances and learning difficulties they were seeing (Bramston & Rice, 2000). The PSS-10 (Cohen et al, 1983) was selected by Bramston and Robertson (2001) as a psychometrically valid tool to measure the degree to which SPC’s appraised their stress over a 1-month period. Participants registered ‘high’ levels of stress (i.e.…”

“…Participants registered ‘high’ levels of stress (i.e. one standard deviation above the mean for the scale) and, in comparison to the general population, SPCs were ‘considerably more stressed’ (Bramston & Robertson, 2001, p. 148). Like Dickenson (1994), Bramston and Robertson (2001) found that SPCs in the role the longest had the highest stress, followed by those newest to the profession.…”

“…one standard deviation above the mean for the scale) and, in comparison to the general population, SPCs were ‘considerably more stressed’ (Bramston & Robertson, 2001, p. 148). Like Dickenson (1994), Bramston and Robertson (2001) found that SPCs in the role the longest had the highest stress, followed by those newest to the profession. However, they did not find a significant relationship between stress and whether respondents were working in primary, secondary or across P-12 settings or differences in qualifications.…”