In an age of accountability: Do teachers experience moral distress

This study examined the issue of moral distress among K--12 public schoolteachers. The impact of several external stressors on the distress levels of teachers was explored. These external stressors were created in part by changes undergone in public school teaching in the United States during the past thirty-five years. These changes included the reduction in educational budgets and an increase in legislative mandates. This dissertation summarizes the research of 115 public school teachers in the State of Iowa. There were many mediating factors for the levels of distress. Relationships with staff and students appeared to be the greatest sources of eustress. The greatest source of moral distress was quantitative workload factors such as legislative mandates, extra duties and expectations, and lack of time to accomplish workloads. In comparison with individuals in business, teachers were found to give a higher rank to caring as an important workplace value. In fact, the participants identified caring as the most important value as measured by the Concern for Others subscale of the Comparative Emphasis Scale (CES) developed by Ravlin and Meglino. A one-way ANOVA found there was a significant CES Concern for Others difference in means between the subject-centered and whole-child centered teaching approaches. Teachers who employed the whole-child centered approaches had higher Concern for Others means. The Maslach Burnout Inventory---Educators' Survey (M BI-ES) developed by Maslach, Jackson, and Schwab was used to measure teacher distress and burnout levels. T-tests were used to compare MBI burnout levels between teachers in this study and those of other studies. Specifically, the teachers in this study experienced less distress in personal accomplishment (PA) and depersonalization (Dp). One-way ANOVA analysis found that teachers who adopted a subject-centered approach to teaching experienced more distress in personal accomplishment (PA) than those who used a complex-centered or whole-child centered approach to teaching. Elementary school teachers experienced less lack of depersonalization than teachers at the secondary level.