Stress coping strategies of late entrants

Stress is an inseparable part of teacher development (Fimian and Blanton, 1986; Kelly and Berthelsen, 1995). The present study tries to look at late entrants' stress experiences when undertaking teacher training programme in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The research focuses on the strategies adopted by late entrants to cope with stress during teaching practice. The subjects of the study were formerly professionals in industries but were attracted to enroll in teaching training course. It is a small scale empirical study using stress log (Gmelch, 1993), recordings of group sharing meetings and interviews to investigate into the ways student teachers deal with stress. Qualitative research procedures were employed for data analysis. Various strategies were adopted by the student teachers. It is found that these subjects used both generic and idiosyncratic strategies to cope with stress. They also showed some interesting perception on handling difficult situations in the classroom. Useful implications are found for assisting student teachers in coping with stress.