A Study On The Current Situation,Influencing Factors And Countermeasures Of Professional Overwork Among Primary School Teachers

As China’s education reform moves into the fast lane of high-quality development,higher demands are placed on schools and teachers at the basic education level.Primary school teachers should not only play the role of "educator",but also have the ability of lifelong learning,innovation and research skills;not only teach with high quality,but also do a good job in classroom management,administrative affairs and home-school communication;not only abide by professional ethics,but also dig deeper into teaching and research,carry out research projects,create special activities and implement comprehensive education.With all the high standards and ’all-round’ role expectations,it is common for primary school teachers to be overloaded with workload and professional roles,increasing their risk of ’professional overwork’.It is therefore important to further ’untie’ primary school teachers and return them to the essence of ’nurturing’ in order to improve the quality of basic education.Based on a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the problem of "occupational overwork",this study draws on the authoritative scale "Self-Diagnosis of Worker Fatigue Accumulation Questionnaire" and the Job Demand-Resource Model(JD-R model)to develop a questionnaire on the current work situation of primary school teachers based on their professional characteristics,personal attributes and real-life situations.A questionnaire survey was conducted among 3751 primary school teachers in Henan Province and a field study was conducted in primary school N to understand the current situation and factors influencing the "professional overwork" of primary school teachers as a whole.In this study,the extent of "occupational overwork" among primary school teachers was assessed in terms of their self-perception of work fatigue and individual work stress,and differences in the extent of "occupational overwork" among different groups of primary school teachers were identified.The study found that nearly half of primary school teachers had a level of "self-perception of fatigue" of Level 3.More than 60 per cent of primary school teachers had a ’work stress’ level of three or more.More than 70% of primary school teachers suffer from varying degrees of "occupational overwork",with the largest number of primary school teachers in the "moderate overwork" category.In terms of the basic profile of the sample,there were significant differences in the degree of ’professional overwork’ among primary school teachers in terms of gender,education and income;there were no significant differences in terms of teachers’ age and marital status.In terms of the characteristics of teachers’ work,there were significant differences in the degree of ’professional overwork’among primary school teachers in terms of type of school,establishment,subject taught,job title and position held,but not in terms of years of teaching experience.This study is an orderly logistic regression analysis of the factors influencing primary school teachers’ "professional overwork",based on a model of overwork formation mechanism constructed by scholar Sujuan Wang based on JD-R theory,starting from the current work situation and work feelings.The analysis of the data revealed that,in terms of task factors,working hours and work tasks positively influenced the degree of professional overwork among primary school teachers;in terms of cultural factors,values and technical support significantly influenced the degree of professional overwork among primary school teachers;in terms of individual factors,individual characteristics,cognitive patterns and self-actualisation influenced the self-perception of fatigue among primary school teachers;in terms of organisational factors,management factors and family factors indirectly aggravated work stress.This study is an in-depth discussion of the differences in the extent of’professional overwork’ among primary school teachers and the factors that influence it,taking into account fieldwork and interview data.Based on the results of the analysis,this study concluded that to alleviate the problem of professional overwork among primary school teachers,it is necessary to "shape the system externally and strengthen the quality internally",as well as to coordinate and co-operate with multiple actors,such as schools,families,society and teacher groups.Firstly reasonable distribution of tasks,optimisation of work content and highlighting the nature of teacher education.Secondly,to build cultural support,enhance cultural inclusion and optimise technical support for teachers.Thirdly,to guide self-actualization,strengthen teachers’ professionalism and help them return to subjectivity.Forthly,we must optimise organisational management,deepen democratic management and improve educational governance.