The main effects of gender and faculty rank on occupational stressors, technology stressors, and coping strategies of journalism and mass communication educators in the U.S.

摘要

Assistant professors who teach journalism and mass communication tend to be more stressed than either associate professors or full professors, and female faculty members are more stressed than male faculty. Both female and male assistant professors ranked the following three items as causing them the highest stress: having inadequate time to devote to research; not having clear criteria for evaluation of research, publication, or creative activities; and teaching inadequately prepared students. Journalism and mass communication faculty generally use positive coping strategies such as prioritizing work or planning ahead. Additionally, across the board, the levels of stress reported for preparing to teach new classes that incorporate technology, and inadequate support staff that help with technology-related problem or tasks, ranked highest for female faculty. The top two rated techniques to cope with new or changing technology were making time for learning the technology, or seeking some form of help.;The percentage of male and female faculty in the study showed one of most significant aspects of change. Nearly 53% of the respondents were male while 47% were female. These numbers appear to illustrate that the percentages in faculty gender are becoming more equal than what has previously been reported. Two studies in the past five years reported approximately 60% of faculty were male, both among faculty nationwide and specifically among journalism and mass communication faculty.