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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between high school teachers’ (grades 9 – 12) total wellness and stress using a Pearson correlation analysis. Teacher total wellness includes the five factors of wellness (e.g. creative self, coping self, social self, essential self, and physical self.) The instruments used for this study were the Five Factor Wellness Inventory and the Teacher Stress Inventory. A pilot study was conducted prior to the actual data collection process to determine Cronbach alpha scores for the instruments. The results of the Cronbach alpha indicated good to excellent reliability for the instruments with scores ranging from .82 to .94. A total of 640 surveys were distributed to teachers in a Georgia RESA with 212 respondents yielding a 33% response rate. Summary statistics were calculated for creative self, coping self, social self, essential self, physical self, Five Factor Wellness Total, and Stress Total. The overall wellness score for respondents was 80.05 and the overall stress score was 2.39. The results of the correlation analyses revealed that a significant negative relationship existed between four of the five wellness subscale variables (e.g. creative self, coping self, essential self, and physical self) and stress. Social self wellness did not reveal any significant correlations with stress. The study indicated that as teacher wellness factors increased, teacher stress decreased. Teacher education programs and professional development should focus on wellness and stress intervention strategies.