Personality and Coping Strategies Associated with Job Stress among Zimbabwean Teachers’ College Lecturers

Abstract

The study sought to determine the relationship between personality as mapped by the Big Five traits and coping strategies among teachers’ college lecturers in Zimbabwe. A non-experimental quantitative research design was used. 211 lecturers from three teachers’ colleges were surveyed using convenience sampling. A fifty-item IPIP scale was used to map the personality traits of lecturers, while lecturer coping strategies were determined using a sixty-item Coping Orientations to Problems Experienced – Dispositional Version measure. Quantitative data were analysed using multiple linear regression and correlation analysis. Inferential statistics were presented in the form of tables. Findings of this study reveal that the predictive variables, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience explained a significant per cent of the variation in coping. Conscientiousness explained a significant variation in three coping strategies namely, planning, restraint coping and the use of instrumental social support. Neuroticism had a negative correlation with four potentially maladaptive emotion-focused coping strategies; denial, substance use, venting emotions, and behavioural disengagement. Openness to experience had a weak positive correlation with three emotion-focused coping strategies; positive reinterpretation and growth, religious coping, and humor.