Coping Skills and Stress Management Strategies as Relative Predictors of Job Effectiveness among Business Education Lecturers in Colleges of Education, South West Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the association between coping skills and stress management techniques as relative determinants of job performance among business education instructors at South West Nigerian Colleges of Education. The study used a descriptive survey research design and was based on the transactional model of stress and coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). A comprehensive enumeration sample technique produced 152 properly filled and useable questionnaires from the population, which consisted of all 159 business education instructors from eight public colleges of education in the six states of the South West geopolitical zone. The Stress Management Strategies and Coping Skills as Determinants of Job Effectiveness Questionnaire (SMSCSDJEQ), a test-retest procedure that yielded a stability coefficient of 0.77 and Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging from 0.77 to 0.83, was used to gather data. The study topic was addressed by analysing the data using frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations. The null hypothesis was tested at the 0.05 level of significance using multiple regression analysis with ANOVA and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The results showed that professors had an overall acceptable level of coping abilities (grand mean = 2.75), with avoidance coping (mean = 2.57) being assessed as less acceptable than problem-solving coping (mean = 2.93). Nevertheless, neither coping skills (β =.085, p =.299) nor stress management techniques (β = -.089, p =.278) contributed statistically significantly to job performance. The study recommended that colleges strengthen problem-solving coping thru focused staff development programs, concluding that factors other than stress management and coping abilities alone affect work effectiveness among business education instructors.