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RICHARD NDUBUISI CLEMENT UGWUANYI
PG/Ph.D/06/41262
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AS PREDICTORS OF JOB-RELATED
STRESS AMONG LIBRARIANS IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN
SOUTH -EAST AND SOUTH –SOUTH, NIGERIA
Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Library and Information
Science
Nwamarah Uche
Digitally Signed by: Content manager’s Name
DN : CN = Weabmaster’s name
O= University of Nigeria, Nsukka
OU = Innovation Centre
ii
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AS PREDICTORS OF JOB-RELATED
STRESS AMONG LIBRARIANS IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN
SOUTH -EAST AND SOUTH –SOUTH, NIGERIA
RICHARD NDUBUISI CLEMENT UGWUANYI
PG/Ph.D/06/41262
DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
NOVEMEMBER, 2013
i
TITLE PAGE
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES AS PREDICTORS OF JOB-RELATED STRESS
AMONG LIBRARIANS IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTH- EAST AND
SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA
RICHARD NDUBUISI CLEMENT UGWUANYI
PG/Ph.D/06/41262
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE AWARD OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) IN LIBRARY AND
INFORMATION SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
SUPERVISOR: DR. (MRS) N.E.E ACHEBE
ii
APPROVAL PAGE
This work by Ugwuanyi, Richard Ndubuisi C. (PG/Ph. D/06/41262) has been approved
for the Department of Library and Information Science
--------------------------------- ------------------------
Dr. (Mrs) N.E.E Achebe External Examiner
(Supervisor)
------------------------------- -----------------------------
Internal Examiner Prof V.W. Dike
(Head of Department)
------------------------------------
Prof. I.C.S Ifelunni
Dean of Faculty of Education
iii
CERTIFICATION PAGE
UGWUANYI, RICHARD NDUBUISI CLEMENT a postgraduate student in
the Department of Library and Information Science with Registration Number PG/Ph.
D/06/41262 has satisfactorily completed research requirements for the award of the
degree of Doctor of philosophy (Ph.D) in Library and Information Science. The work
embodied in this thesis is original and has not been submitted in part or in full for
another degree of this or any other University.
-------------------------------- ------------------------------
Ugwuanyi, R.N.C. Dr. (Mrs) N.E.E. Achebe
(Student) (Supervisor)
iv
DEDICATION
To the loving memory of my late mother, Madam Mary Eleje Ugwuanyi (Nee
Asogwa), my lovely family, and members of the Jesus Friends Community (CCRN)
Obukpa Parish.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without God Almighty on the side of the researcher, this work could not have
seen the light of the day. His abundant grace guided and sustained him throughout the
critical period of the production. To Him be all the praise and glory in Jesus name.
Amen.
The researcher wishes to acknowledge his supervisor, Dr. (Mrs.) N.E. Achebe
for her supervision par excellence. Her intellectual vibrancy, erudition and openness
weaved together to enable the researcher sail through the turbulent period of this work.
The researcher will always recall with happiness her humanness, and swift attention to
any work presented to her.
The researcher salutes Professors Uche Eze and Okwor, F.A, and Dr. Ozioko,
R.E who validated the instrument. He also acknowledges the assistance of Prof. Uche
Eze and Dr. Ugwu, C.I. in the analysis of this work.
The researcher appreciates in no small measure the contributions of his first
supervisor, Prof. M.I. Afolabi, who led him through the proposal stage. Prof I.C.S.
Ifelunni, Drs. Nwagu, E.N.K and Ugwu, L. I. are fondly remembered for their scholarly
contributions to this work. The researcher acknowledges with deep respect Drs.
Omekwu, C. O, Ezeani, C.N, and Ezema, J.I. for constantly keeping him academically
focused. He also salutes his friends and professional colleagues at Nnamdi Azikiwe
Library for their invaluable counseling and identification. The researcher is
particularly indebted to his family, especially his wife, Chief (Mrs.) Ugwuanyi,
Anthonia C. whose goodwill and academic assistance leveraged the completion of this
vi
study. May God, the Father of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our common Heritage, bless
the family.
Finally, the researcher salutes the resilience of his data entry operator, Miss
Eze, Ngozika, who withstood his push and pull, and had this work completed as and at
when due.
Richard N.C. Ugwuanyi
vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page - - - - - - - - i
Approval Page - - - - - - - - ii
Certification Page - - - - - - - - iii
Dedication - - - - - - - - - iv
Acknowledgments - - - - - - - - v
Table of Contents - - - - - - - - vii
List of Tables - - - - - - - - - x
Abstract - - - - - - - - - xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study - - - - - - - 1
Statement of the Problem - - - - - - - 11
Purpose of the Study - - - - - - - - 12
Research Questions - - - - - - - 13
Hypotheses - - - - - - - - 14
Significance of the Study - - - - - - - 14
Scope of the Study- - - - - - - - - 17
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Conceptual Framework
Concept of Personal Attributes - - - - - 18
Concept of Stress - - - - - - - 24
Concept of Role Based Stress - - - - - 32
Theoretical Framework
Person- Environment Fit Theory of French - - - - 43
viii
Cognitive Model of Lazarus and Folkman - - - - 45
Review of Empirical Studies
Studies on Personal Attributes and Role Based Stress - - 46
Studies on Stress Response Management - - - - 60
Summary of Literature Review - - - - - - 65
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHOD
Design of the Study - - - - - - - - 68
Area of the Study - - - - - - - - 69
Population of the Study - - - - - - - 69
Sample and Sampling Technique - - - - - - 69
Instrument for Data Collection - - - - - - 70
Validation of the Instrument - - - - - - - 70
Reliability of the Instrument - - - - - - - 71
Method of Data Collection - - - - - - - 71
Method of Data Analysis - - - - - - - 72
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS - - - - - - 74
Summary of Major Findings - - - - - - - 84
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION,
IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS - - - 86
Discussion of Findings - - - - - - - 86
Implications of the Study - - - - - - - 91
Recommendations - - - - - - - - 94
Limitations of the Study - - - - - - - 95
ix
Suggestions for Further Research - - - - - - 95
Summary of the Study - - - - - - - 96
REFERENCES - - - - - - - - 99
APPENDICES - - - - - - - - 111
Appendix I: University Libraries in South - East and South - South with the
Number of Librarians - - -- - - - 111
Appendix II: Mean and Standard Deviation of Responses of Librarians on
Item by Item Analysis of Job Stress - - - 112
Appendix III: Item by Item Analysis of the Relationship Between Age and
Job Stress - - - - - - - 114
Appendix IV: Item by Item Analysis of the Relationship Between
Educational Qualifications and Job-Related Stress - 116
Appendix V: Item by Item Analysis of the Relationship Between Genders
and Job-related Stress - - - - - 118
Appendix VI: Item by Item Analysis of the Relationship Between Marital
Status and Job-Related Stress - - - - 120
Appendix VII: Item by Item Analysis of the Relationship Between Works
Experience and Job-Related Stress - - - 122
Appendix VIII: Letter to the Respondents - - - - 124
Appendix IX: Job-Related Stress Inventory - - - - 125
x
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Mean Responses on the Areas of Job Stress of Librarians in University Libraries in Nigeria - 74
2. Mean Scores of Librarians on Job Related Stress Inventory (JSI) in Relation to Age -- 75
3. Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Age and Job Related Stress -- -- 76
4. Mean Scores of Librarians on the JSI in Relation to Educational Qualification s-- -- 77
5. Regression Analysis on the Relation Between Educational Quantification and Job related stress 78
6. Mean Scores of Librarians on JSI in Relation to Gender -- -- -- -- 78
7. Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Gender and Job Stress -- 79
8. Mean Scores of Librarians on JS1 in Relation to Marital Status -- -- -- 80
9. Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Marital Status and Job Stress -- 81
10. Mean Scores of Librarians on JSI in Relation to Years of Work Experience -- 82
11. Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Years of Work Experience and Job Stress -- 83
12. Unstandardized and Standardized Coefficients on the Predictive Values
of Age, Education, Gender, Marital Status and Work Experience -- -- 84
xi
ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to determine whether some personal attributes of librarians
like age, educational qualifications, gender, marital status and years of work experience
were capable of predicting job-related stress among librarians working in the university
libraries in South- East and South- South Geo-political zones in Nigeria. The two zones
are made up of eleven states. To guide the study, seven research questions were
formulated while six null hypotheses were tested. The design used for the study was
descriptive correlation survey. The population of the study consisted of 354 librarians
drawn from 28 university libraries in the zones. The entire population was used for the
study, while the instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire titled “Job-
related Stress Inventory” (JS1). For the analysis of the data collected, mean scores were
used for the seven research questions while standard deviation was used to measure the
variations in the distributions of the scores. In order to determine the relationship
between the criterion (job related stress) and predictor variables (personal attributes),
regression analysis using correlation coefficient was made use of. All the hypotheses
were tested at 0.05 levels of significance. The results of the study showed that the
librarians experienced job related stress in the areas of role conflict and role overload,
with the role overload being the greater area with a mean of 2.59. Also shown was the
fact that age, educational qualifications and work experience were statistically
significant predictors of job stress with B = -0.213, B = -0.131, B = -0.265,
respectively. The other two predictor attributes showed that they were not significant
predictors with the results of B = 0.102 for gender and B = 0.030 for marital status.
Based on the results generated, the implications of the study for university libraries,
librarians and the nation in general were highlighted with the appropriate
recommendations made. The recommendations included the restructuring of librarians
work role so as to lessen role conflict and role overload experience, the establishment
of employment assistance programme (EAP) for all university libraries, integration of
stress management studies into the Library Science curriculum, and the encouragement
of librarians to pursue higher academic laurels.
1
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
University library managers are always concerned about the job performance
of their librarians, knowing very well that this can make or mar the attainment of their
organizational objectives. In the present era of information economy and knowledge
management, university library users are highly conscious of time and least tolerant
with any delay in information retrieval and delivery. Consequently, University
librarians are seriously battling to make their library services to their clientele very
robust and effective by trying to extract optimal services from their librarians. Yet,
most of the time, they fall short of achieving their objectives. It appears librarians are
often hard hit by psycho-emotional trauma called stress.
A librarian, according to Uzoigwe and Onwubiko (2004), is that personnel
trained in library and information science. The Librarians Registration Council of
Nigeria (LRCN) Decree 12 (1995:18) defined a librarian as “one who possesses the
art and science of selecting, acquiring, organizing, describing, classifying,
administering, preserving, conserving and utilizing books, journals, non-book
materials, audiovisual, prints and non-print materials, and the dissemination of
information and knowledge.” For the purpose of this study, a librarian is one who has
received from a university an academic and professional training designed to solidly
build him with the skills and knowledge of organizing and administering a library. He
must be a holder of, at least, Bachelor’s degree in library and information science, or
be so designated by the library being studied.
Librarians do a lot of work in a library for its robust growth and functionality.
They are responsible for budget planning, preparation of annual reports, and keeping
2
of vital and up-to-date statistics for effective running of the library. They undertake
action research and publications in different areas of library and information science.
Librarians assist in personnel administration and staff development through conflict
resolutions, answering questions, and giving guidance on the job to their subordinates.
Taking charge of bibliographic checking, cataloguing of library materials in the areas
appropriate to their academic background, and kardex and rotadex maintenance are
also among librarians’ duties. Among other responsibilities, librarians are greatly
concerned with readers’ advisory services. These include providing information,
answering reference questions, conducting courses in library use and literature search
techniques, and the location of library materials (Bryson, 1990; Ifidon and Ifidon,
2007).
Librarians also get involved in many other roles in addition to the specific
functions assigned to them. For instance, they attend professional and management
meetings, conferences, seminars and workshops, and at the same time take up any
other assignment as might be directed by the boss. Though a librarian has his
professional roles explicitly defined within the library set-up, the confines within
which he can operate could be curtailed or extended by his boss.
The pressures on librarians working in university libraries appear to be greatly
exacerbated by the phenomenal information explosion and profuse scholarly
publications, which must be swiftly handled. This information explosion has led to the
stimulation of the aggressive use of books and other materials by the academic
community for teaching and learning (Edem and Lawal, 1996). The awareness and the
strong desire by the users to retrieve materials accurately and within the shortest
period of time, push librarians to a greater height of tension, especially with the dearth
of experienced librarians (Ifidon & Ifidon, 2007). Consequently, Ugwuanyi and
3
Igbokwe (2006) substantiated this lack of experienced staff in academic libraries
when they observed that lack of sufficiently experienced and mature librarians to
carry out library work and teach at high level is a problem. Okewuse (1998) spoke
against shortage of high-level manpower in libraries. According to her, this paucity
does not only jeopardize library professional services but shrinks teaching and
learning in universities as well as cripple national development. The implication of
this obvious shortage of librarians in our university libraries is that librarians may be
over loaded with responsibilities. The heavy workload or pressure may set job-related
stress, which the few librarians have to grapple with at the expense of their mental and
physical wellness (Ongori, 2008, and Osif, 2008).
Ideally, librarians are to work in a conducive environment where they would
remain emotionally stable, put out their thoughts constructively and in a sequence.
Under this condition, they would be able to solve their clientele’s problems and
communicate very effectively with their colleagues. Many times librarians may
become imbued with a feeling of despair, fear, anger, embarrassment and disillusion.
Following such feelings, their thoughts may become dominated by worries about the
consequences of their actions, uncooperative attitudes of students, and by negative
self-evaluations. These, and other prevailing circumstances usually found in
librarians’ personal makeup’s, homes and workplaces, wittingly and, or unwittingly
render many of them very vulnerable to job-related stress. Outside the work overload
which appears to be common place in our university libraries, the unprecedented rise
in students’ population, and inadequate resources with which to serve patrons, a
librarian becomes equally faced with other dimensions of job-related stress such as
role conflict and role ambiguity (Topper, 2007; Scheinder,1991; Ajala,2011).
4
Library and information science has radically changed. It has embraced
electronic and computer information services (Ugwuanyi, 2007). As a result, libraries
and librarians are redefining their expected roles and professional responsibility so as
to live up to the changes and stem up the challenges being imposed. Every aspect of
library and information science, be it preservation, archiving, issues of information
access, intellectual property and fair use, etc. appears to be receiving and demanding
further for a swift technological and up-to-date attention. Librarians, who lacked the
relevant adjustment mechanisms either because of training, age, or marital status etc,
feel distressed (Harrison, 2007 and Bunge, 1987).
Since librarians spend not less than one third of their life in their workplaces
helping and interacting with people who have different understanding and
temperaments, it then stands to reason that on-the-job stress is a significant factor,
which library managers have to grapple with. Librarians in their workplaces struggle
incessantly to maintain the standard achievement or performance expected by their
employers and clientele. They make efforts to empathize and fraternize with their
clientele and attend to their queries with utmost precision. While trying to perform
their role expectations, they very often come across people and situations that are
stressful (Nawe, 1995 and Hecker, 2007).
Rapid and constant changes taking place in libraries due to the emergence of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are capable of bringing about
work-induced stress. Librarians who have no knowledge of the utilization of these
technologies and who are not ready to adapt, or lack requisite talents are bound to face
techno-stress (Clark and Klein, 1996; Pantry, 2008). This is because when challenged
by the learning and utilization needed, they lack the capabilities and resources
5
required to stem it up and consequently become distressed. This is captured by
McGrath (1976:1352) that:
There is a potential for stress when an environmental
situations is perceived as presenting a demand which
threatens to exceed the person’s capabilities and
resources for meeting it, under conditions where he
expects a substantial differential in the rewards and
costs from meeting the demand versus not meeting it.
Apart from stress arising from environmental demands, personal attributes
affect one’s work disposition, perception and interpretations. The need to determine
whether personal attributes could predict job-related stress among librarians makes
this work imperative. Personal attributes have to do with certain qualities or
characteristics ascribed to a person or a thing. Such qualities include level of
reliability, honesty, blackness, gender, height, age, experience, etc. These qualities do
not exist on their own without being part of something else which is tangible. For
instance, one cannot talk of the above listed attributes in the absence of substantial
and tangible being such as man, tree, etc. Accordingly, Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary of the English language (1993) describes attributes as
qualities, characters or characteristics, ascribed usually commonly, or as any quality
or characteristic that may be predicated on something.
In this study, the term librarian’s attributes refer to such qualities or
characteristics that are ascribed to him or her. These are the librarian’s age, gender,
work experience, marital status and educational qualification.
Age as an attribute has to do with the length of time during which a librarian has
lived or stayed on earth. It relates to the number of years he has spent since birth.
Studying this attribute is important since it has been assumed that the older one
becomes the less active on one’s job and the greater the stress level. Marital status
pertains to marriage. It states whether a person is married or single. Conflicting
6
beliefs on which status- married or single, experiences more job related stress makes
the study of this attribute imperative. Educational qualification simply means an
educational accomplishment, quality, etc, which enables one to fit into a particular
office, function or the like. With high educational attainment, one is predisposed to
have good control and command over his work. It also enhances a person’s approach
to issues.
Years of work experience has to do with the number of years which one has
spent acquiring knowledge and wisdom or encountering positive and negative events
on ones job. It is knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed,
encountered and undergone (Webster’s Dictionary, 1993). Job experience is capable
of enhancing or hindering one’s disposition to one’s work environment.
Gender is the quality of a person being male or female. This quality is likely to
affect what one can do or cannot do since it is usually assumed that males do a harder
and more tasking job, and absorb stress more than the females.
These attributes have been chosen for this study because they are very critical
in determining how individuals view issues, discuss, interpret and respond to them.
They also help a lot in influencing human behaviours and their mental and cognitive
processes. They are capable of enhancing or hindering one’s commitment and
efficiency in one’s work place. They affect one’s work disposition, perception and
interpretations. According to Nurmi, Salamela-Aro,Keskivaara, and Naatanem (2008),
personal attributes are responsible for the ongoing regulation of behaviours, form
criteria for evaluation of behavioural outcomes, activate emotion and motivate the
construction of variety of strategies to deal with many situational demands.
Yet, apart from age, the only standard and recognized mode of admission into
different areas of study in Nigerian universities is purely based on academic
7
performance. Personal attributes or characteristics like level of reliability, verbal
aptitude, gender, marital status, etc. are never taken into account. Even in the vital
human service professions like library and information science where human beings
are the stock-in-trade, personal attributes are never taken into consideration. The
students at the outset of their occupational decisions scarcely have fair knowledge of
their intended professions’ characteristics and organizational demands. Hence, Tyler
(2006) quoted Stefflre as positing that occupational decisions are made largely on
faith and that one cannot possibly know all about oneself when one moves into an
occupation, nor can one know all about a particular occupational role until one
experiences it. As a result, many students may go into a profession without proper
vocational guidance and counseling and without matching their personal attributes
with the job demands. Many of them later discover they lack the requisite attitudes
and aptitudes for the demands of the job.
Commenting on workers’ inability to match their personal attributes with the
demands of their professions, Ipaye (1982) observed that students usually select their
occupations mainly because of the positions and prestige attached to the jobs and not
as a result of conscious assessment of the individuals’ interests, abilities, and the
relationship of these to the preferred occupation. In his own critical discourse on
admissions into universities without some regards to personal attributes and job
requirements, Ifelunni (1992) concluded that most of the people who apply to read at
universities are only interested in getting degrees as “an escape route” while they
appear to demonstrate blatant lack of knowledge and demands of their intended
professions. Bemoaning the poor career information, Fritz and Sonnentag (2006)
reporting Hayes stated that when choosing their occupation, young people possess
inadequate information about their intended job and personal characteristics, which
8
may correspond with the way of life they aspire to, and the kinds of role they may like
to play.
Sequel to the hazy knowledge of the demands of the profession such workers
might in the process of carrying out their duties find that their personal characteristics
are at extreme variance with job requirement. The staggering effects of ignorance of
job demands and requisite aptitudes led Izundu (1990) to recommend the need to
identify difficulties associated with certain occupations. This acts as a check against
maladjustment found among the nation’s workers who on taking up professions
realize that they require certain personal characteristics and behavioural inputs, which
they cannot cope with.
As a result, such workers find it hard to adapt. They get distressed and begin
to exhibit signs of poor commitment to their job, loss of self-esteem, depression and
absence from work, work turnover, substance abuse, and workplace accidents. Others
are lack of concentration and forgetfulness. Following these obvious signs of stress,
their quality and quantity of decision-making and work performance begin to fall
below the expected standard. Stress takes greater toll as it begins to impact negatively
on the workers.
Stress is simply a behavioural, physical or a psychological response to
stressors. Kreitner, Kinicki and Buelens (2002) quoted Ivancevich and Matteson as
defining stress as “an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and/or
psychological processes, which are a consequence of any external action, situation or
event that places special physical and/or psychological demands upon a person.”
According to Erkutlu and Chafra (2006) stress is a behavioural, physical or
psychological response to stressors or demands imposed on individuals. A person is,
therefore, said to be under stress when an event over tasks his potential to the extent
9
that his state of health or psychological well-being is affected; when his internal and
external dispositions combine to alter his normal functioning.
In the context of this work, job stress is taken to be a situation where a
librarian working in university library is placed under pressure or hardship arising
from the performance of his role especially when he/she lacks the resources to
withstand the pressure. It also imposes a great constraint on an individual’s ability to
perform or function at his best in his role. However, the pressure or force being placed
on an individual should be an enduring one for it to be able to exert its negative
influence on the health and efficiency of the librarian in the work place. Work stress,
as conceptualized in this study, involves also disturbances in the relationship between
a librarian and his work environment, and the consequences this may have for his
physical and psychological functioning. It is the negative feelings and beliefs that
occur whenever people feel they cannot cope with demands from their environment.
Sometimes, however, the environment poses problems for a librarian for which his
standard repertoire of responses is inadequate and for which the consequences of not
adapting are serious.
According to Ongori and Agolla (2008), an individual’s role in an
organization is one of the causes of job stress. This role based stress evolves in four
dimensional areas of role conflict, role ambiguity, role underload and role overload.
Role conflict arises when the behaviours expected of an individual are
inconsistent with the demands of the job. When such occurs, the individual
experiences stress, becomes dissatisfied and performs less satisfactorily. For instance,
when a librarian wants to act in ways, which contradict his boss and role expectations,
he gets entangled in role conflict. According to Ngoka (2000), role conflict is as a
result of a worker being torn by two or more conflicting job demands.
10
When an individual’s role in an organizational set-up is not well defined so
that he does not really know what to do or who to take orders from, role ambiguity
emerges. Under such situation, if an employee does not know what the authority will
decide on a particular issue or what he is expected to accomplish and how he will be
judged, he will he slow to make decisions and will have to rely on trial and error in
meeting the expectations of his superiors. According to Ifelunni (1992), such
employee will not only feel dissatisfied with his role but experiences strains and
stress.
Role underload results when a worker experiences an under challenging work
load. In this case, too few demands are made upon him. To Bunge (1987) the
resources within the workers disposal far exceed the demands of the job.
Role overload occurs when the demand of the job far exceeds the resources of
the worker. It is an opposite of role underload and results when job demands are so
great that the worker feels inability to cope. Under such situation, he develops stress
and performs poorly.
Job-related stress arises as a result of the individual’s perception and
interpretation of an event, in relation to the resources at his disposal to face the event.
A librarian under job stress would show signs of job dissatisfaction, low motivation to
work and intention to quit the job. He would have a feeling of loss of thinking,
attitudes of detachment and defensiveness. Considering the prevalence of job-related
stress in many offices and its devastating effects on organizations and individuals, it
becomes very imperative to ascertain if job stress could be predicted among librarians
using age, gender, educational qualifications, job experience and marital status and
also to detect the greatest area of role-based stress for them.
11
In the process of carrying out their roles, librarians may have conflicting job
demands, unclear job expectations, and work overload, uncooperative attitudes of
clientele and co-workers, and new technological development to contend with. Others
are the repetitive nature of library work, fear of layoffs, poor reward systems, lack of
resources to perform their job, etc. The cumulative effect of these leads to greater
presence and levels of stress in libraries.
Statement of the Problem
An emotional stable university library environment does not only ensure high
level services of librarians, effective communication among them and their
managements, but also produce work environment full of vibrancy, congeniality and
healthy librarians. A stress -free environment enables librarians to serve their clientele
with great sobriety and sense of decency.
Stress produces a wide range of debilitating and undesirable consequences on
individual librarians. Such include high blood pressure, insomnia, headaches, loss of
self-confidence, poor concentration and aggressiveness, job dissatisfaction, decreased
quality and quantity of work. A university librarian under stress rarely thinks
constructively, and therefore, finds it difficult to write or publish articles or even carry
out library instructions to users. For libraries, the effect of stress is very enormous. It
stifles libraries of high cooperation and workers’ commitment. It increases accidents
and mistake rates, sick leave, increased health care, high replacement costs in
connection with labour turnover and loss of clientele.
Evidence from the literature coupled with professional experience shows that
there exist among Nigerian librarians clear symptoms of stress such as staff turnover,
lack of vocational commitment, irritability, inability to make sound decision, lateness
to work and split personality. Personal attributes are likely to influence librarians’
12
disposition to work stress, which is very injurious to their health and expensive to
libraries.
In realization of these obvious negative implications of stress on workers and
organizations, some researchers have investigated the relationship between personal
attributes and job-related stress among guidance counselors, teachers, nurses, doctors
and social workers. The evidence of stress on librarians notwithstanding, no research
to the researcher’s knowledge has been carried out to predict job-related stress from
personal attributes among librarians in Nigerian university libraries. Without having
reliable researches on the influences of these librarians’ attributes on their job related
stress, library administrators are likely to be making costly mistakes while employing
librarians and while restructuring their job design. To this end the problem of this
study posed as a question is, could personal attributes such as age, educational
qualification, gender, marital status and work experience act as predictors of job-
related stress among librarians in Nigerian university libraries?
Purpose of the Study
The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether personal attributes
of librarians in university libraries could predict their job-related stress. More
specifically, the study investigated the followings:
1. Areas of job-related stress among librarians working in university libraries in
South East and South- South Nigeria.
2. Whether age could be a predictor of job-related stress among librarians in
these university libraries.
3. If educational qualification could predict occupational stress among librarians
in these university libraries.
13
4. Whether the gender of librarians working in these university libraries would
predict their job-related stress.
5. If the marital status of librarians in these university libraries could predict their
job-related stress.
6. Whether work experience was a predictor of occupational stress among
librarians in these university libraries.
7. If predictive values of age, educational qualification, gender, marital status
and years of work experience could predict job stress among librarians in these
libraries.
Research Questions
The following research questions were formulated to guide the study.
1. What are the areas of job-related stress of librarians in university libraries in
South East and South- South Nigeria.
2. What is the influence of age on the job-related stress of librarians working in
these university libraries?
3. What is the influence of educational qualification on job-related stress of
librarians in these university libraries?
4. What is the influence of gender on the job-related stress of librarians working
in these university libraries?
5. What is the influence of marital status on job-related stress of librarians
working in these university libraries?
6. What is the influence of work experience on the job-related stress of librarians
in these university libraries?
14
7. What are the predictive values of age, educational qualification, gender,
marital status and work experience on job-related stress of librarians in these
University libraries
Research Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
Ho1 Age does not significantly predict job-related stress of librarians in
university libraries in South East and South- South Nigeria.
Ho2 Educational qualification is not a significant predictor of job-related
stress of librarians in these university libraries.
Ho3 Gender is not a significant predictor of job stress of librarians in these
university libraries.
Ho4 Marital status does not significantly predict occupational stress of
librarians in these university libraries.
Ho5 Work experience is not a significant predictor of job-related-stress of
librarians in these university libraries.
Ho6 Age, educational qualification, gender, marital status and work
experience do not significantly predict job- related stress of librarians
in these University libraries.
Significance of the Study
The theoretical and practical results of this study will be of significance not
only to the librarians in-training but also to other people like researchers, curriculum
designers, our society generally and the governing councils of universities. It will also
be of significance to the librarians already in the field as well as filling up a yawning
gap in library and information science.
15
The theoretical significance of this study lies in the fact that both the librarians
and libraries will benefit from the application of the Person-Environment (P.E) stress
model. A librarian will benefit, as he will appreciate how stress develops in an
individual. The more congruent the characteristic of a librarian with the environment
in which he works, the more favourable the work related outcomes. He therefore tries
to avoid incongruence between his characteristics and his job environment since this
is likely to cause stress.
Libraries will also benefit theoretically by having stress-free workers. They
can achieve this through the provision of enough and requisite environmental
stimulation that would equal their workers’ need for gratification. This is because
when the need for a challenging job is not met by an organization, P-E fit stress
theorists would refer to this as underload and stressful.
The study will yield and act as a source of empirical data. As a source of
empirical data, it will add to the pool of available literature in the field of library and
information science which future researchers will lay hands on as a basis for further
research, especially in the area of occupational stress management among librarians.
Many studies being done in library and information science focus more on
improving the librarians’ services to their patrons so that they (clientele) would feel
satisfied. In fact, a lot of emphasis was being placed on value added services (VAS) to
library clientele, and less on the librarians themselves. Examples are researches on
interlibrary lending, current awareness services, etc. No serious attention is being paid
or focused on the wellness of the librarians who are to give out these needed
quantitative as well as qualitative services. This work has been undertaken to help fill
the existing gap by considering the need to make librarians emotionally and mentally
balanced before giving out effective services.
16
The present study in exploring the extent to which educational qualification
and marital status relate to the levels of librarians’ job-related stress will be an eye-
opener to library curriculum designers. It will help them to consider redesigning the
school curriculum in such a way that they should produce librarians who will be less
amenable to stress while carrying out their professional duties.
This study is very significant to our entire society since exploring stress
among university librarians can act as a check against maladjustment and low
productivity observed among the nation’s workforce. These are occasioned by the fact
that they choose jobs without adequate knowledge of the behavioural inputs required
by the organizational demands of libraries. They run short of the resources needed and
become distressed. This available information on stress usually experienced in library
and information science work becomes very vital in preparing the minds of the
would- be librarians on the task ahead.
Exploring the relationship between some demographic attributes and stress as
well will grant the university library managements a good insight into the proper
restructuring of work assignments so as to minimize stress among their employees.
This could be done to reflect the age and the gender of workers.
The result of this study can help the university governing councils to make a
case for better funding of their libraries to their Ministries of Education and the
National Universities Commission (NUC). Better funding of libraries will enable the
university library management to pay adequate attention to the health needs and a
holistic wellness of the librarians.
Awareness of the areas of high levels of stress will be able to depict the
relationship between personal attributes and stress. With this, the library management
will be able to distribute workload in accordance with the librarians’ demographic
17
variables so as to reduce high-level stress. When this happens, university libraries will
be saved of low performance arising from workers’ rampant hospital visits, feeling of
resentment, depression, job dissatisfaction and withdrawnness.
The results will enable University Library Managements to attach great
importance to individual’s attributes and work characteristics when recruiting,
developing and motivating them. This is because attributes provide a good starting
point for understanding and predicting how people will respond under different types
of stress. In decision-making, the findings may help to implement effective prevention
programmes against occupational stress, considering how different categories of
employees perceive stress at work.
Scope of the Study
The study explored whether personal attributes like gender, age, work
experience, marital status and educational qualifications were capable of predicting
job-stress among librarians. It also determined the areas of job-related stress among
librarians in university libraries.
The role-based areas of job stress, which consist of role conflict, role
ambiguity, role overload and role underload, were investigated while only the
librarians in university libraries in South East and South- South Nigeria were used for
the study.
18
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
This chapter deals with the in-depth reviewing of all the available and related
literature within the reach of the researcher. The review work for this study was,
therefore, organized under the following headings.
Conceptual framework
Concept of personal attributes
Concept of stress
Concept of role-based stress
Theoretical framework
Person-environment (P-E) theory of French and Caplan
Cognitive theory of stress of Lazarus and Folkman
Review of empirical studies
Studies on personal attributes and role-based stress
Studies on stress response management
Summary of literature review
Conceptual Framework
Concept of Personal Attzributes
Personal attributes refer to the characteristics and qualities of a particular
person. These qualities are seen to be typical or natural part of an individual under
consideration. Hence, when we talk of librarians’ personal attributes, we are looking
at the qualities of librarians’ personal make-ups, characteristics, or demographic
variables as they apply to individual librarians. From this, workers’ personal attributes
are those characteristics that are part of his personal make up. These include his level
of honesty, kindness, patience, age, intelligence, height, education, verbal aptitude,
19
work experience, gender, marital status, etc. Since an individual has many attributes,
only five out of them have, for convenience, been considered necessary for this work.
These are age, educational qualification, experience, gender and marital status.
The age of an individual has to do with the length of time he has lived. It is
usually assumed that the older an individual is the less his performance level in any
job, and more his stress level. Age, according to the Third Webster Dictionary (1993),
is the length of time during which a being or thing has existed; length of life or
existence to the time spoken of or referred to. Ugwu (1996) quoted Indik et al as
having studied “demographic correlates as psychological strain”, and found among
others that job related strain is higher among men than women in virtually all ages
and that stress and strain symptoms rise with age, especially over the age range of 18
years to the early 30s. In trying to study job stress among university librarians, the
need to study their age levels becomes important. This is to ascertain the plausible
relationship between age and stress.
Experience as a process of gaining knowledge or skill over a period of time
through seeing or doing things is another attribute that has to be studied and its
relationship with work stress examined. The Third Webster Dictionary (1993) defines
experience to mean the process or fact of personally observing, encountering or
understanding something. Experience or tenure is another attribute that may positively
or negatively influence a worker’s (librarian) perception and response to stressors in
his workplace. In this instance, it is more likely that a newly employed librarian
would experience greater stress level than an older hand. This is because an older
worker had to some extent adjusted to the work environment, built up social support
system, have higher decision latitude and known some forms of stress management
techniques. All these are yet to be known by a beginning librarian (Affleck 1996).
20
Defining years of experience to mean the period through which one has spent
observing things in his workplaces, Ifelunni (1992) stated that the beginning
counselor like the beginning teacher needs time to adjust to the realities of his job to
be able to lessen his role conflict phenomenon. In their contributions on the influence
of experience or tenure on role stress, Feitler and Tokar (1982) wrote that the
beginning teachers would be more stressful since they needed to adjust to a new job
environment, establish new relationships with supervisors, colleagues, pupils and
parents, and develop curriculum and teaching materials. An individual having
worked for a long period in an organization is likely to have known more about the
job requirements, ways of getting over job issues, thereby reducing stress factors and
enhancing performance. This assertion appears to support the general notion, though
not empirical, that the more a person stays on the job (that is, more experience) the
more the understanding of the work environment, and the less tension and difficulties
he encounters on the job. Years of work experience has to do with the period through
which a librarian has been exposed to events or activities on his job that increases his
knowledge. It is years spent on a job acquiring skills and knowledge through the
senses.
Another attribute vital for this study is the educational qualification of a
librarian. This attribute depicts an official proof that one has completed a course,
passed an examination etc, and therefore, becomes eligible for a particular position or
office. According to the Third Webster Dictionary (1993), it is an educational
condition or circumstance required by law or custom for getting, having or exercising
a right, holding an office or the like. It is widely believed that education illuminates
the mind and helps keep one abreast with what he does. Based on this, one can
assume that the more one gets educated, the more one is prepared for his profession
21
and the less he encounters difficulties and stress. Kerkcaldy, Brown, and Cooper
(1998) wrote that educational qualification was related to job satisfaction and that
overall job satisfaction especially satisfaction with personal relationships at work as
well as satisfaction with the organizational structure was lowest for the most highly
educated personnel (recipients of a higher degree). They defined educational
qualification as accomplishment which fits a person for a job. With this study, the
import and the relationship between education and stress could be ascertained.
Marital status is simply the state of being single or married. The study of this
characteristic is of paramount importance since conflicting evidence exists on its
ability to initiate stress. Some state that work interference with family duties, such as
taking care of a sick child, often interferes with work and leads to work and family
stress (Gutek, Searle & Oklepa, 1991). Others state that having a family is a source of
social support, which greatly moderates stress (Martocchio & O’Leary, 1989). It is
however still not very clear whether the family roles of a woman exacerbate or act as
a buffer against workplace conflict. In their own studies, Maslach and Jackson (2004)
and Wolley (2000) observed that married women experience less workplace stress
than single women. Lending credence to the above, Baruch, Bierner, and Barnett
(1985) observed that women consider workplace role as highly structured in relation
to family roles, which are highly unstructured and diffuse. As such a woman in
employment is satisfied with her workplace role and very tolerant of conflicts in role
expectations. From close observations, it becomes pertinent to infer that the family
roles of women as well as their sex roles are likely to reduce or increase their role
conflict experience. This depicts that marital studies have not been able to establish
whether marital status is a moderator and, or a predictor of job-related stress. The
limited writings to date suggest that in work-related situations, there are more
22
similarities between the married and the unmarried when faced with job stress.
However, when one looks at overall stress, the married appear to score slightly higher
in perceived stress levels. These likely higher stress levels could be the result of
heightened family or lifestyle stress. Chang and Lu (2007) take marital status to depict
being married or unmarried. Marital status is the fact of being married, unmarried or
formally married.
Another attribute for this study is gender, which of course, is the condition of
being male or female. Since females may be regarded as the weaker sex, it has very
often been said that men do a harder and more tasking work than females. The
correctness of this assertion is yet to be ascertained. Gender, according to the Third
Webster Dictionary (1993), has to do with being male or female. However, whether
being a male or a female predisposes one to stress and acts as its predictor in the work
place has not been fully agreed upon. Hence, the essence of incorporating this
attribute in this study.
The likely differences that might be observed between males and females in
role conflict experience may not just be because of sex stereotyping alone but because
of women’s responsibilities outside work. Hence, Pearlin (1988) has noted that the
stress women experience in their work place is often due to severe demands in their
employment inside the house. Baruch, Biener and Barnett (1985), and Otto and
Schmidt (2007) discussed about gender and noted that the role conflict usually found
among women is due to their involvement in multiple roles of wife, mother and
homemaker. In his own discourse, Kessler (1985) stated that men are less vulnerable
to negative consequences of stress arising from family roles.
However, Martocchio and O’ Leary (1989) disagreed with the above writers.
In their own writings, they asserted that women appear to be similar to men in terms
23
of job related stress. That is to say that women and men experience stress at work
equally. Obviously, women and men have always had multiple roles, and many
writers have equally given support to some assertion that women experience more
job-related strain than men (McGehee, 1987, and Zunker, 1998). They found that
women experience more conflicts among roles and overload than men do. However,
an important gender difference occurs in family responsibilities. These result from the
fact that even when both spouses work, wives perform a disproportionate share of
childcare and household tasks (Scari, Lande, & McCafney, 1999). The nature and
quality of a woman’s experiences within a role are also important considerations in
understanding stress and health. For instance, roles with time constraints, irregular
schedules, and little autonomy may jeopardize health, and result in job stress
(Hanonen & Santrock, 1996; Kupersmith, 2005).
Defining gender as the sex of the object for which the word stands, Baruch,
Bienett and Barnett (1987), Rodin and Ickovics (1990) and Drucker (1992) disagreed
with Arden (2002) and Zunker (1998) that women experience more role based stress
than men. In their studies, they inferred that the more roles women juggle with the
healthier they seem to be. They further reported that women who take on multiple
roles benefit from new sources of self-esteem, control and social support, which in
turn may improve both their mental and physical health. Sex is, of course, one of the
attributes that has received attention from researchers. Ifelunni (1992) cited Getzel
and Guba whose study found out that male teachers are associated with significantly
higher conflict scores than females. They commented that this was to be expected
since teaching is often thought of as women’s profession and that women could be
more tolerant of the inconsistencies since it is not likely they could do better in other
areas. In his assessment of the gender role in role conflict experience, Schwab (1981)
24
observed that a person’s vulnerability to conflict experience can be exacerbated by the
sex-stereotyping of his/ her occupation. Under this condition, could the gender of
librarians predict their job related stress or make male librarians feel more stressed
than their female counterparts or vice-versa? Gender is conceptualized today as the
sex of a person and has become an important factor when hiring employees.
The study of a librarian’s personal attributes, such as gender, marital status,
educational qualification, work experiences and age, is very substantial. This is
because in education as well as other types of life endeavors, one’s personal attributes
have been known to have some relations with, enhance, or retard one’s suitability
and/or performance at work (Chauhan, 1981). In the same vein, Bryson (1990) stated
that certain personal characteristics predispose some librarians to experience more or
less stress than others. Based on this, could one then predict precisely individual
librarian’s vulnerability to stress using his age, educational qualification, work
experience, gender, and marital status? This forms the crux and the obvious worry of
this study.
Concept of Stress
This section has to do with the highlights of how different writers, researchers
and authorities in the field of stress and organizational behaviour management have
viewed and defined stress. Initially, the word ‘Stress’ was loosely borrowed from
physics. Humans, it was thought, are in some ways similar to physical objects, such as
metals that resist moderate outside forces but lose their resiliency at a point of great
pressure. However, unlike metals, human beings can think, reason, and experience a
myriad of social and environmental circumstances that make defining stress more
complex in psychology than in physics (Hobfoll, 1989).
25
Being a psychological concept, stress has been given many and different
definitions as a result of differences in the conceptualization by the biological,
medical and behavioural sciences. This is why Ugwu (1996) quoted Shiron as
concluding after an extensive review of literature on stress that it is characterized by
significant conceptual diversity. And, that it lacks precision in its definitions. This is
due to the ways many have described stress. Some look at it broadly and others
narrowly. There is no general consensus on the conceptual definitions of the term
stress. According to Overland (2000), the term stress is a problematic one, not least
because of its common use but because it is hard to tie it down to a strict definition
due to its subjective nature. It might also be confusing because it is used quite loosely
in conversations. Nwadiani and Ofoegbu (2004) stated that stress has become a
popular concept for explaining a wide range of behaviours that appear to defy
explanation. Hence, in Nigeria it has become fashionable to attribute all erratic or
inexplicable behaviours of people to their being under stress. In recognition of the
diversity and imprecision in the conceptualization of stress, Ivanceivich and
Matterson (1980) have labeled it as the most imprecise term in the scientific
dictionary. This definitional posture of stress, its lack of one acceptable definition will
not in any way hinder the quest to carry out research in the field or deter us from
examining some definitions as given by authorities in the field.
According to Vermunt and Steensma (2005) and Topper (2007), stress is the
perception of a discrepancy between environmental demands (stressors) and
individual capacities to fulfill these demands. Our environment is full of pressures,
demands, and changes and it is our reactions to them that initiate stress. To McCarty
et al (2007) and Edwards (2008) stress has to do with the presence of a perceived
imbalance between situational demands, pressures, and one’s capability to respond to
26
those demands in a particular situation where the perceived consequences are
important. In an attempt to explain stress, Beehr and Newman (1978) stated that job
stress is a condition wherein job related factors interact with the worker to change
(disrupt or enhance) his or her psychological condition. Following this definition, it
becomes pertinent to state that not all stress is harmful since mild stress enhances
mastery of new skills and behaviour patterns. However when stress gets chronic, the
victim gets cognitively, emotionally, and physiologically disrupted and
malfunctioning. Yet, for people to survive in this planet stress is indispensable.
Hence, Hinkle (1973) and Wiley (2000) stated that it is impossible to live without
experiencing some degree of stress at some point in one’s lifetime.
Some stress is good and necessary for us to be able to face daily changes,
pressures, and demands that challenge us. This type of stress is called positive or
pleasant stress. It is also called eustress. According to Bland (1999), pleasant stress
causes less harm to individuals. However, pleasant stress can build up to turn into
physical or emotional upset. Pleasant stress strengthens a person if it is received in
moderate doses, and demonstrates one’s ability to cope successfully with challenges.
This type of stress is constructive and helps an employee to thrive under work
pressures and strains (Ngoka, 2000). Ali in Ngoka (2000) stated that:
Without such stress, some people will not be motivated
to achieve; they would lack the necessary internal self-
regulatory mechanism to success. Eustress act as
stimulant gearing us to achieve certain goals and
objectives (P.IV).
From the above discourse, it becomes necessary to state that we need stress in
order to exist and function effectively in the school, work environment, and even at
home. Eustress motivates an individual to be steady with the attainment of his set
goals. Here, an individual’s perception and interpretation of an event is what
27
determines what the stress is (Ongori and Agolla, 2008). For instance, a librarian who
loves to present a seminar paper may look at his audience and begin to experience
strains and pressures. However, because of his interest in presenting papers he will
experience the strains positively, as challenging and motivating instead of being
negative, distressful and sickly.
The other type of stress is called negative or unpleasant stress. It is also known
as distress. The stressors that produce unpleasant stress among individuals exert on
them physical and psychological turmoil that tend to give signs of distress
(Oboegbulam, 1995). Negative stress results from poor management and control of
strains and distress. Negative stress debilitates and numbs the management potentials
of the stressed individuals. This type of stress is deleterious to normal human
functioning since it pushes him or her to suffer from many psychological and health
hazards. Whenever and wherever one speaks of stress, it is this unpleasant type that
quickly comes to mind. Hence Wilkinson (2005) stated that stress is anything that
makes one tense, angry, frustrated or unhappy. And Pithers and Soden (1998) while
discussing teacher’s stress quoted Kyriacou as describing teachers stress as negative
feeling or unpleasant emotional state resulting from work as teacher which when it
gets high enough can have severe physical and psychological consequences for
teachers. Such consequences include fatigue, tension, anxiety, depression, poor
teaching performance and judgment as well as low job satisfaction. Psychology as
well as medicine and other behavioural sciences have accepted the concept of stress
as an unpleasant fact of life since it implies a stretching of physical and psychological
resources to meet demands imposed on an organism (Tehrani, 2002).
Exploring a working definition of stress, Szilagyi and Wallace (1990) stated
that it is an internal experience that creates a psychological or physiological
28
imbalance within an individual and results from factors in the external environment,
the organization or the person. Viewing this critically, one identifies that this
definition has three components, which many refer to in their efforts to define stress.
These are the stimulus part, which has to do with those factors from the environment,
which tend to trigger off stress. Other components are the response and the
interactional based. Response has to do with one’s reaction to a change in one’s
environment, which could be psychological, physiological or behavioural.
Interactional approach combines both stimulus (source of stress or stressor) and the
response (outcome or manifestation of stress) (Vakola & Nikoluou, 2005). When a
change in one’s environment is poorly handled, one’s responses results in a state of
stress that can be disruptive to health and unpleasant to experience. Topper (2007)
stated that stress erupts when the events of life, whether physical or psychological are
greater than the ability to cope. As stress affects all the organs and functions of the
body, its effects tend to concentrate on the heart, which becomes obliged to work
harder on the immune system. This system when weakened becomes less resistant to
infections.
In their own conceptualization of stress, Cecil and Forman (1990) stated that it
is a process involving an interaction between the individual and the environment,
which includes a stimulus or stressor, intervening variables and a response. Following
this definition, one can refer to stress as a condition, which arises when a relationship
fails to produce a desired reward. Stress means an emotional difference between what
one would like to be (ideal) and what one really is (reality). It is a process in which
environmental events or forces called stressors threaten an organism’s existence and
well-being, and the organism’s response to this threat.
29
Stress as a concept has been defined by Ejiogu and Aderonuma (1999) as the
unhealthy reactions of the individual to a variety of factors affecting him at any
particular time. Continuing, they stated that stress has to do with a very wide spectrum
of problems, which are different from other problem areas, because it deals with
problems that affect all the physiological, social, and nervous system. Stress is a
condition of strain that has a direct bearing on emotions, thought process and physical
condition of a person. Quoting Selye, Kumar (2006) defined stress as the force,
pressure, or strain exerted upon a material object or person, which resist these forces
and attempt to maintain its original state.
Montgomery and Cooke (2005) and Hudson (1999) defined stress as a
(perceived) substantial imbalance between demand and response capacity, under
conditions where failure to meet demand has important (perceived) consequences. In
other words, stress is closely related to an individual’s perceived fear of failure and
inability to cope with attitudes and behaviours that imply existing self-evaluation
and/or the organization’s evaluation of the individual with the resultant labeling of his
performance. Gowler and Legge (1975) made a similar point when they stated thus:
Ultimately, it would appear that a situation becomes
stressful when an individual feels unable to deal with
the demands it makes upon him, while at the same time
he also feels that he must. Hence, an individual is likely
to be made anxious by his inability to achieve, whether
it is in terms of his own or others definition of
achievement (p41).
Job stress has been defined as the harmful physical and emotional response
that occurs when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources,
or needs of the worker (WFMH, 2004; Harrison, 2007). It is an interaction between an
individual and his work environment. Reported sources of occupational stress include
poor working conditions, workload, or overload, role conflict and ambiguity,
30
unsatisfactory career development and erratic work hours (Borg Riding & Falzon,
1991; Smith & Bourrke, 1992; Cooper & Kelly, 1993; Hodge, 1992). Others include
stressors arising from none-work personal domain, such as family, financial and
personality type (Ornelas and Kleiner, 2003).
For organizations, the adverse effects of stress may act as an impediment to
performance and to change process. The effects may be seen in poor job performance,
high levels of absenteeism, discontentment among the workforce, high turnover of
labour with the loss of good employees, and a large increase in recruitment and
retraining costs (McHugh & Brennan, 1992; Pantry, 1996). Organizational problems
such as sick pay, absenteeism, labour turnover and lower job satisfaction are related
directly or indirectly to job stress (Arroba & James, 1990). As such they may be
regarded as costs, which ultimately have an effect on overall organizational efficiency
and effectiveness (McHugh & Brennan, 1994). Sequel to this, James (1999) stated
that there is great need to understand stress as an organizational phenomenon so that it
can be tackled at the organizational level and not strictly only from the individual
perspective.
It is, however, unrealistic to live in today’s world and expect to be totally free
from stress (GNLD, 2005). Yet, some individuals are able to withstand the arousal
and stay healthy and optimistic, while others yield to stress, grow ill and despair a lot.
This is because stress has to do with one’s subjective perception of events as well as
objective threats. No wonder Kreitner et al (2002) observed that stress is like a spice,
in the right proportion, it enhances the flavour, too little of it produces blind, dull
meat, and too much of it may choke the person. It follows, therefore, that every
individual has appropriate level of stress and his adjustment depends on finding it.
31
When stressors are perceived as predictable and manageable, they appear to be less
threatening.
In the end, one may state that stress arises when one’s physical well-being and
safety are threatened by environmental contingencies. Stress is any situation that
keeps one worrying or emotionally disturbed. It is a psychological and physiological
response that results following one’s prolonged exposure to some factors, events, or
agents that impose on one the demand for change or adjustment. Wherever a threat or
physical danger exists and is perceived, and a high degree of emotional tension is
involved, stress is there. Stress, therefore, results when one’s motives are not always
satisfied easily because there are hurdles to be crossed, choices to be made and delays
to be tolerated (Eluwa, 2002).
Caputo (1991) in her work identifies many library work-related stressors that
are highly correlated with job stress. Such stressors include budget cuts, the quick
response time to reference questions, censorship issues, heavy workload, the overload
of clerical duties, poor management and supervision, technology-related problems,
low pay, a shift in priorities, obnoxious library problems, few opportunity for
advancement, etc. Lending credence to the above, Siess (2002) reported that overwork
is the primary cause of stress, for as the budgets shrink, and expectations rise,
librarians find themselves doing more with less. They accept more and more work
without having or hiring more staff or reassigning their duties.
Some People who suffer from stress have been found to have unrealistic set of
values and beliefs regarding what they think they can accomplish, what they think the
society owes them and what they think the job can do for them (Klarreich, 1987). This
means that people who expect a lot from themselves and the organizations in which
they work tend to create more internal stress. In the same way, it is fuelled by having
32
too much work to do, by role conflict, role ambiguity, and by the type of interpersonal
interactions encountered at work. Moreover, frequent and intense face-to-face
interactions that are emotionally charged are associated with high levels of emotional
exhaustion as usually found in service professions.
Rainey (1995) in his discourse defines stress as an interaction between an
individual and his environment. He wrote that stress was negatively related to job
satisfaction, organizational commitment, positive emotion and performance while
being correlated with burnout and turnover (Grandey & Cropanzano, 1999; Edwards
& Rothbard, 1999).
Writing on stress and burnout in libraries and information centres in Northern
Iran, Siamian et al (2006) showed the librarians suffered from stress because of
improper working conditions at the organization, improper leadership style and
marital status. Others include information explosion, reduction of finance, lack of
professional staff, immediate change at executive posts and development of
information technology (I C T). He conceptualizes stress as an emotional, mental or
physical strains caused by anxiety or overwork. With these conceptualizations of
stress, one now wonders if it is possible to predict librarians’ job stress using their
personal attributes.
Concept of Role-Based Stress
Many researchers including Leiding (2010), Ugwu (1996) and McGrath
(1976) have observed that an individual’s role performance within an organization is a
possible source of job-related stress. They have equally suggested a number of role-
related conditions that can, and often do, contribute to a worker’s distress and illness.
These are role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload and role under load.
33
According to Sales (1969), the term ‘role’ within the organizational circle has
been taken to be a set of expectations applied to the incumbency of a particular
position by the incumbent and by role senders within and beyond organizations’
boundaries. To Maier and Verser (1982), it is a set of behaviours that are required of a
person by virtue of his position in an organization. These behaviours interact with the
role behaviours of others to produce predictable outcomes in the organization. Roles
help to define tasks and the ways in which different employees must work to achieve
organizational objectives. For the purpose of this study, role in an organization may
be defined as the expected, perceived, and the enacted pattern of behaviour attributed
to a particular job. It is a cluster of expectations associated with a given office or
social position. It simply has to do with certain behaviours expected of a person in a
position of authority. In the process of playing their roles, individuals are usually
confronted with situations in which they may be required to play a role which
conflicts with their value systems or to play two or more roles which conflict with
each other. For instance, in a study of work-family conflict in working mothers,
Erkutlu and Chafra (2006) found that stress occurred when the demands of one role
are interrupted, or conflicted with behaviour pertinent to another.
Role conflict results when multiple demands and directions from one or more
individuals create uncertainty in the workers mind concerning what should be done,
when or for whom. It occurs when people are given contradictory instructions, asked
to violate their ethical values, or the law, when they feel they must exceed their
authority in order to carry out tasks, or when they feel responsible for events that can
not be controlled (Kreitner et al 2002). According to Rizzo, House and Lirtzman
(1970), role conflict results from the violation of the two principles of unity of
command and chain of command. Following these principles, a worker is expected to
34
receive directions and expectations over time and from one source. This is far from
being true. In most cases, an employee has multiple roles and therefore can receive
multiple directions and expectations (Buchman and Kaczynski, 2004; Szilagyi and
Wallace, 1990). Two types of role conflict exist. One is the intra role while the other
is the inter roles conflict. A worker experiences intra role conflict when many
directives are simultaneously sent to him who is occupying one role. Inter role
conflict occurs when a worker tries to satisfy all the directives at the same time and/or
when a worker faces many simultaneous roles that present conflicting expectations.
An individual who receives conflicting commands, experiences stress, becomes
dissatisfied, and performs less effective than if the expectations imposed on him did
not conflict (Rizzo, House and Lirtzman, 1970). Although the chain of command
theoretically guards against a supervisor or librarian having more than one boss, there
are still other sources of role conflict. Such sources include conflict between
supervisor’s and subordinate’s values or attitudes, gaps between role expectations and
realistic ones, and expectations coming from different sources like quantity and
quality of output.
The principle of chain of command stipulated that organizations set up on the
basis of hierarchical relationships with a clean and single flow of authority from top to
bottom should be more satisfying to members. It should also result in more effective
economic performance and goal achievement. The principle of unity of command
states that for any action, an employee should receive orders from one supervisor only
and that there should be only one leader. According to Szilagyi and Wallace (1990)
and Ifelunni (1992), this principle/structure is designed to stop a member of an
organization from being caught in the cross fire of incompatible orders or
expectations from more than one superior. It will also save him/her from the
35
conflicting demands of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t dilemma”. Role
conflict is, therefore, explained in relation to the dimensions of compatible-
incompatible in the requirements of the role, where congruence or incongruence is
judged relative to a set of standards or conditions, which impinge on role
performance. Role conflict arises when an individual is under different pressures from
different people, such as supervisors, subordinates, clientele and colleagues. This
situation has been widely found to produce increased blood pressure and other
somatic complaints (Argyle, 1994).
Although violations of the chain-of-command principle may create role
ambiguity and role conflict, these conditions can also arise from other sources such as
failures to communicate, different interpretations of the area of freedom, conflict in
goals or values, and personality clashes.
Role ambiguity according to Breaugh and Colihan (1994) refers to uncertainty
about such areas as work method, scheduling and performance standards. When there
is lack of clarity on the individual’s perception of his or her job duties, authority and
responsibility, role ambiguity occurs (House, Rizzo and Lirtzman, 1972). Following
this obscure nature of his role expectations, he gets confused about his authority to
act. Going by the stipulations of the classical theory of organizational behaviour
management, every position in a formal organizational structure should have a
specified set of task or position responsibilities.The essence of this is to enable the
management to hold subordinates responsible for specific duties, and to guide and
direct them. When he/she knows the scope of his/her job, authority, and when to act,
he will be quick to accomplish his set task with great precision. Xie and Johns (1995)
carried out a study of person -environment fit and stress. They looked at the role of
job scope, which they defined as job-related activities performed by a jobholder. In
36
this study, 418 respondents representing 143 different jobs completed questionnaire
about stress. Emotional exhaustion was greatest when job scope was either very small
or very large. Individuals who perceived a misfit between their abilities and job
demands experienced higher stress (Edward and Shipps, 2007) Lack of certainty
about role priorities, about the balance of duties, and about how to do specific tasks is
usually inevitable. These may occur when one is new to a job, when the job itself is
new or redefined, or when the organizational polices or procedures are in a state of
flux. However, many research studies have shown that when role ambiguity has a
long-term condition of work, a number of adverse consequences are likely to result
(Katherine et al,2008).Such consequences include job dissatisfaction, elevated blood
pressure, depression, anxiety, distorted reality, less motivation, and work in efficiency
(Schafer, 1992 and Nawe,1995).
Role underload is another role-based stress concept used to imply under
challenging workload. In most jobs, role underload can occur from time to time. More
often, it results from too little variety in work tasks called qualitative underload than
from too little to do also known as quantitative under load. When a worker becomes
under stimulated for a long time, he begins to experience demoralization, anxiety,
depression, and physical symptoms of distress (Schafer, 1992). One study found that
executives at higher and low ends of a stress scale had more medical problems,
suggesting a curvilinear association between stimulation and health. This study seems
to demonstrate that those who are bored or under stimulated and those who feel highly
pressured represent the two ends of a continuum, each with a significantly elevated
number of symptoms (Routray and Satpathy, 2007). A worker experiences role under-
load when too few demands are made upon him, depicting that his resources far
exceed the demand of the job. He is completely underutilized.
37
Role overload is a concept, which denotes a situation depicting over
challenging workload. When job demands are so great that the worker feels an
inability to cope, stress will develop (Greenberg, 1996). When it develops and the
condition becomes chronic, the result may be stress and break down (Schafer, 1992
and Curzon, 2005). Overload can as well take two forms. These are quantitative,
which depicts too much to do in time available, and the qualitative, which imply
impossibly demanding expectations by supervisors. Either of the two when chronic
may lead to stress and health difficulties. Other likely negative outcomes as reported
by researchers include increased risk of heart attacks, low job satisfaction, escapist
drinking behaviour, high absenteeism, low confidence, high accident rates on the job,
and high cigarette consumption (Stevenson & Harper, 2006). Commenting on role
overload, Ivancevich and Matteson (1980:11) stated thus.
An electrical system that is unable to handle all of the
electricity introduced to it is overloaded. In most
instances a fuse blows or a circuit breaker is tripped,
stopping the input and preventing damage to the
system. When an individual is unable to handle all the
work input, that person might become overloaded.
Unfortunately, unlike the electrical system, people do
not have automatic device and the overload condition
can lead to physical, mental, and job performance
problems.
In a related study, Barnett and Baruch (1985) carried out on investigation into
women’s involvement in multiple roles and psychological distress using data from
stratified random sample (N = 238) of Caucasian women between 35 and 55 years of
age. The results showed that the quality of experience in the work and parental roles
was a significant predictor of role overload, while quality of parental role experience
was a significant predictor of role conflict and of anxiety. In their own findings,
however, Adams, King, and King (1996) reported that higher job and roles
involvement are usually related to higher job satisfaction.
38
Many researchers have carried out a number of studies on role-based stress
and workers’ background variables. For instance, Buchanan and Huczynski (2004)
have in their studies shown that ambiguity is adversely related to a host of work-
related outcomes. In this study, role conflict or role ambiguity has been demonstrated
to be related outcomes. Role conflict or role ambiguity has been demonstrated to be
related directly to job-induced tension and anxiety, and propensity to leave the
organization. The two role-based stressors are related to job satisfaction and attitudes
like trust, liking and respect towards role senders. Also, Pantry (2008) looked at role
stress from the point of view of the individual’s personality. They investigated the
relationships between role stress measures in the form of ambiguity, conflict, overload
and psychological strain involving tension at work and job dissatisfaction, in a sample
of ninety middle managers. Role stress was associated with low job satisfaction and
high levels of tension at work. However, these relationships were moderated by
personality characteristics such as locus of control and personality dispositions, which
according to Lazarus and Folkman (1984) influence cognitive appraisal of stressful
events.
A number of subsequent studies like that of Campbell and Cellini (1981) have
confirmed the writings of Schafer (1992) that both role conflict and role ambiguity are
associated with low job satisfaction and high job related tension. Apart from role
conflict, other areas of role-based stress are sources of stress and psychological
burnout. For example, a condition whereby the employee has too much to do within a
given time is likely to be stressful. Schultz and Schultz (1986) maintained that
overload is a sure sign of stress, and clearly linked it to stress-related symptoms like
psychological burnout.
39
From all indication, if having insufficient resources to perform a quantitative
and qualitative overload may be stressful, what then becomes of the quantitative and
qualitative under load? Does it follow that too easy work is healthy and stress free?
French, Caplan and Harrison (1982) carried out a study of more than 1,500 executives
of a large company and found out that those under high stress and those under low
stress had significantly more health problems than those who experienced moderate
level of stress. This depicts that lack of stimulation can be just as stressful as being
over stimulated. Therefore, monotony and boredom could be as deleterious as being
overloaded and calls for job enrichment (Tehrani, 2002).
In 1987, Decottis and Summers probed into the relationships between an
organizational commitment and role conflict among 376 managers of American
Restaurant Company. Their results depicted that role conflict was significantly but
negatively related to organizational commitment. The higher the level of experienced
role conflict, the less their level of commitment to the organization. From every
available study, there is no iota of doubt that worker stress, burnout and job
dissatisfaction form vital issues among people- helping professionals. These are
caused by and are interrelated to role conflict (Schwab, 1981). The role conflict
experience of a role player is an aggregate of many factors internal and external to the
role incumbent. In other words the interplay of events and personality variables are
very highly implicated in role conflict experience. Ugwu (1996) quoted Gelzel and
Guba as having stated that each individual occupies a number of role defined by his
group. The extent to which he meets the role expectations determines his being
approved. And that the extent which he fails to meet these role expectations he is held
eccentric and at extremes liable to sanctions. Thus faced with a conflict situation
between two role expectations that are inconsistent and incompatible, the worker can
40
only perform one of such roles. And where he fails to meet the expectation of other,
the defining group judges him ineffective in the role management. The implication is
that where a worker performs a role that is contrary to the expectations of the public,
he is judged ineffective. And in such a situation, he has some alternatives. He can
either conform to one set of role expectation or damn the consequences of non-
conformity to other sets or he could attempt to harmonize the conflicting tendencies,
withdraw physically or psychologically from the role altogether (Ugwu, 1996).
Role conflict is generally believed to be negatively related to one’s
psychological well-being, performance, and subsequent career progression (Zunker,
1998). However, Siber, according to Ugwu (1996) differed significantly in that he
theorizes that role conflict can have positive outcomes and lead to higher levels of
performance. Ivancevich and Matteson (1980) and Osif (2008) make this link clearer.
Their works show that at moderate amounts of stress, performance is at its highest.
Stress in moderate amounts such as from reasonable deadlines, a focus on quality,
rational performance rating systems, a system of accountability, often motivates
performance. When stress rises to higher levels and number of stressors is affecting
individuals, performance deteriorates. Here, an individual is not as effective in solving
problems and on-the-job performance is negatively affected. Stress level has been
found to be linked to worker productivity.
In another related study by Swanson, Power and Simpson (1998), they found
that many factors might affect the relationship between the occupation of multiple
role and the experiences of stress or strain. Such includes personality, positive and
negative affectivity, and mental or physical health status. Their result also indicated
that marriage and parenthood have been shown to be linked with increased role
41
conflict, and role overload for women with the role of parents perceived as most
stressful.
Role conflict in an organization can lead to career problem of performance,
adaptation, as well as frustration and ineffectiveness (Ngoka, 2000; Osif, 2008). Thus
a worker, for example a librarian, with role conflict might begin to experience a
decrease in productivity and become ill- adjusted to his work environment. Ifelunni
(1992) quoted Getzel and Guba as stating that the severity of role conflict depends on
the relative incompatibility of the expectations and the rigour with which the
expectations are defined within a given situation.
According to Goldman (1997) two people faced with the same conflict
situation will not feel it the same way. This goes to depict that it is the depth of
feeling or perception built unto disputes that makes for role conflict. And this depth of
feeling is called role conflict experience and has to do with the extent to which a
person personally feels the role conflict situation. This simply means that role conflict
could exist without one noticing or experiencing it.
In an organizational environment, occasional overload is unavoidable.
Overload as a chronic condition can be avoided through wise role definitions, proper
assessment of manpower resources needed to carry out a given workload, and
establishing a good fit between individual capabilities and need of the job (Schafer,
1992). Moreover, workers need to be sensitive to their limits of time and energy in
order to avoid chronic overload when they can.
42
SCHEMA DIAGRAM SHOWING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VARIABLES
OF THE STUDY AND THE LITERATURE REVIEWED.
(1) (2) (3)
The Worker Personal attributes Role Stress areas
Work Related Stress
(4)
Figure 1: Research Model
Fig.1 above shows first, (1), the position of the worker who is the librarian. He has
the personal attributes being studied. These attributes occupy the second, (2), position
and comprises of age, educational qualification, gender, marital status, and years of
work experience. These personal attributes which impinge individually and according
to their weight on the third, (3), position, the role stress areas may lead to the fourth
position, (4), work related stress for the librarian.
These personal attributes of the librarian may individually or collectively
influence any or the entire role related stress areas namely, role ambiguity, role
conflict, role underload and role overload to resist or elicit work related stress.
Age
Educational
qualification
Gender
Marital status
Years of work
experience
Lib
rari
an
Role Ambiguity
Role Conflict
Role Underload
Role Overload
43
Theoretical Framework
In order to better understand and effectively be able to deal with stress effects,
some authorities in the field have propounded and documented theories to guide
students. They include:
Person – Environment fit theory of French
Theories of stress have long recognized the importance of both the person and
environment in understanding the nature and consequences of stress. The
contributions of the person and environment to stress have been formularized in the
person-environment (P-E) fit theory of stress (French, Caplan & Harrison, 1972). The
core premise of P.E fit theory is that stress arises not from the person or environment
separately but rather by their fit or incongruence with one another. .
The theory states that the interaction between an individual and his or her
environment determines whether or not a situation is stressful for the person. If the fit
between an individual and environment is incompatible, stress results. P E fit theory
proposes two basic subtypes of fit; objective and subjective. Objective fit refers to the
match between the environment and the person’s characteristics when both are
objectively measured; that is, independently of the person’s perception of them.
Subjective fit refers to the congruence between the perceived aspects of the
environment and the person’s cognition of his\her characteristics, that is, the self-
concept or self-identity of the person. Yet another basic component of the theory is
that for subjective fit, mismatch may result either when the person’s needs or wants
are not met by appropriate environmental supplies or when the person’s capabilities
and resources are incongruent with environmental demand. P.E theory, therefore,
offers distinctions such as between objective and subjective representations, and
demands abilities. Job stress can occur if there is a mismatch between the reality of
44
the work environment (objectivity) and an individual’s perception of the work
environment (subjectivity). Likewise, lack of fit between the demands placed on
individuals and their abilities to meet those demands can result in stress.
The proponents of P-E fit theory view any situation wherein there is a
mismatch between an employee’s needs and available environmental opportunities for
their gratification as constituting “job stress”. To illustrate, when the need for a
certain level of environmental stimulation such as the need for a challenging job, is
not met by the organization, P-E Fit theorists would have us refer to the situation as
stressful, referring to it as “underload.”
Misfit has been linked to turnover, but perhaps the most studied consequences
of misfit are stresses in individuals. Misfit is generally assumed to be lack of fit,
where P is not equal to E. PE fit holds that misfit increases stress levels resulting in
physiological or psychological symptoms and that misfits may employ coping or
defense mechanisms in order to increase their fit. Similarly, misfit between
individuals’ needs and what the environment supplies can leads to people
experiencing stress. Stress also exists when supplies fall short of the peoples needs.
PE theory posits that stress results from an imbalance between what the organization
demands and what the individual is able to contribute in terms of his abilities. Stress,
in the PE fit view, results when there is a lack of complementary fit between
individual’s resources and the organizational demands.
People may erroneously join organizations where they do not fit and then leave
when the misfit becomes apparent. Misfit has been shown to result in stress and low
levels of job satisfaction which suggest that misfit is a negative state and thus to be
avoided.
45
The Person- Environment Fit Theory is relevant to this study because a fall in
the environmental supplies against the demands of a librarian is bound to spark off
stress. So also if the demand supersedes the librarian’s resources to act, it would lead
to stress. In libraries, assessment of stress would be seen from the misfit of
environment and the individuals. Person -Environment fit theory has been criticized
for being too broadly conceptualized and being too all-encompassing.
Cognitive Model of Lazarus and Folkman
Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed a model that emphasizes the
transactional nature of stress. According to them, stress is a two way process; the
environment produces stressors and the individual finds ways to deal with them.
Following this, the proponents stated that Cognitive model is a mental process
by which people assessed two factors of
(a) whether a demand threatens their well-being, and
(b) Whether the persons consider that they have the resources to meet the
demand of the stressor. In appraising an event, people make two types of
appraisals which are called (a) the primary and (b) the secondary
appraisals.
In the primary stage, a person will be seeking answers to the meaning of the situation
with regard to his well-being. One of the three types of appraisals could be made: (a) is
it irrelevant? (b) Is it good (benign, be-positive)? (c) Is it stressful? Further appraisal is
also made with regard to three implications as follows: harm-loss, threat, and
challenge.
Secondary appraisals occur at the same time as primary appraisals. A secondary
appraisal can actually cause a primary appraisal. Secondary appraisals include feeling
of not being able to deal with problems such as;
46
• I can’t do it –I know I will fail
• I will try, but my chances are slim
• I can do it if I get help
• If this method fails, I can try a few others
• I can do it if I work hard
• No problem. I can do it.
This theory has great relevance to this work because no librarian will ever feel
distressed unless he has fully appraised the event or the stressor vis-à-vis his
abilities/resources to contain the event. If he has enough potential, he disregards the
event/stressor, but where he has not, he enters into stress. This model, therefore,
emphasizes appraisal of a situation before becoming stressful, or otherwise. Following
this, events are stressful depending on two types of factors like (a) those that relate to
the person and (b) those that relate to the situation. However, this model forgets that
there are situations where appraisal cannot take place before becoming stressful. Such
situations include accidents. During this period of accident when one’s cognitive
functioning is impaired, there exist no chances of appraisals.
Review of Empirical Studies
Studies on Personal Attributes and Role-Based Stress
This section examined all the available empirical data on stress and personal
attributes. The literature examined were produced as a result of practical experiences
based on observations and, or experiments rather than on ideas glimpsed from
theories.
The studies presented below are of great significance and relate to the work
under study. Although, not many of them were done on librarians, all of them were
47
based on people helping services/ professions. For instance, the counselors, the
teachers, and the general medical practitioners are all of the same type with librarians.
They all have the basic target of getting human beings live happily and improve
on their living through their direct services. They are people helping oriented
professions and as such, what happens to any of them in terms of stress as it carries
out its job, may likely be said about others. In the same way, impacts and causative
factors could be identical and may be transferable.
Moreover, the background variables, attributes, and personal characteristics used
in all the studies are the same as obtained in the present study. These are gender, age,
marital status, experience and qualification. However, personal attributes are used in
this work, yet, it is a matter of nomenclature, for demographics, personal variables,
characteristics and attributes mean the same and play the same role in the whole
studies - for prediction and relationship.
Even though this study is purely based on stress, many had the same, and further
added or used other similar or closely related terms as burnout, anxiety, tension, etc.
While burnout proceeds from stress as a result of poor handling; anxiety, and tension-
ridden personality is very much prone to stress. So, one can see that whichever one is
used, is akin to the others and would likely produce almost the same results. Hence,
the studies to be seen relate to the work at hand in all ramifications.
Though some of the works being presented were done in Nigeria, majority were
done outside Nigeria with different socio-cultural background and perceptions. Many
of them are correlation studies just as this one. Methods of data collections, and
analysis as well as types of instruments are very much related. The above-discussed
factors make it highly reasonable that these studies done in different countries and on
different professions are brought out here for us to see their bearings on this work.
48
Ifelunni (1992), for instance, investigated the extent to which some personal
attributes (such as age, sex, marital status, counseling functions, counselor caseload,
and years of experience) can predict job related stress and burnout among secondary
school counselors in Nigeria, using correlation survey method. The population for the
study consisted of 960 secondary school guidance counselors from the old Anambra
and Bendel states. Subjects used were 403 guidance counsellors drawn by means of
multi-stage sampling techniques. To guide the study, eight research questions were
posed and three hypotheses tested. The instruments of study were the job-related
stress inventory (JSI) and the burnout inventory (B.I). In analyzing the data, mean
scores were used to answer the research questions while the step-wise multiple
regressions were used to test the hypotheses. The hypotheses were tested at .01 and
.05 level of significance.
The study revealed among others that:
1. The Nigerian counselor experiences stress in areas of role conflict and role
overload. On burnout areas, except for personal accomplishment subscale,
the Nigerian counselor does not experience burnout.
2. Age, experience and counseling functions are statistically significant
predictors of job related stress.
3. Age, counseling functions, marital status and qualifications are statistically
significant predictors of burnout.
4. Role overloads, role underload are significant predictors of burnout.
The author in general highlighted the implications of these findings for
counseling students and the nation. With the exact dependent variables of age,
educational qualification, gender, marital status, work experience, and independent
variable of job stress, it is very apt to say that Ifelunni’s work relates significantly
49
with this study. The role based areas of ambiguity, conflict, underload, and overload
used in both studies make the relationship clearer. Moreover, the same mean and
multiple regression analyses were used to answer research questions and null
hypotheses respectively.
Again, Togia (2005) carried out a study on the measurement of burnout and
the influence of background characteristics in Greek academic libraries. The purpose
of the study was to measure levels of burnout among Greek academic librarians and to
assess its relation with certain background attributes such as age, number of years as a
librarian, and participation in decision-making. The Maslach burnout inventory (MBI)
was administered to a stratified random sample of 136 librarians obtained across
Greek. The data collected through mailed questionnaire was analyzed using analysis
of variance. Findings showed that the respondents experienced low levels of
emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and moderate levels of personal
accomplishments. Of the background characteristics, age, number of years as
librarians and participation in decision-making were found to be significantly related
with the experienced stress. Togia in his study made use of librarians and their
background variables of age and years of work experience as this very study. This
forms the areas of relationship
Uwadiae and Okorie (1991) studied the role conflict experience of teachers of
agriculture in Bendel State Secondary schools. The study covered all secondary
schools in former Bendel State. The principals and teachers of agricultural science in
the schools formed the two sets of population of the study. Two hundred principals
and 257 teachers (corresponding to 84.1 and 85.71 of the respective samples) returned
their questionnaires. The instruments used for the study were two sets of
questionnaires, one of which was responded to by principals and the other by teachers
50
of agriculture. The study identified a total of 19 conflict-vulnerable occupational
responsibilities as found in their responses. Their responses were analyzed using
mean, standard deviation, t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results of the
analysis of relationships between teachers’ role conflict experiences and their sex,
educational qualifications, and years of experience revealed that male and
experienced teachers are associated with lower conflict experience scores. These
findings led to the conclusion that sex and years of experience in teaching are
significant moderators of teachers’ role conflict experience. Uwadiae and Okorie
studied role conflict experience and used other variables of age and years of work
experience as found in this study. These formed the areas of relationship.
Matthias, Koerber, Fadavi and Punwani (2005) conducted a study on specialty
and sex as predictors of depression in dentists in the U.S. The authors conducted a
survey of a sample of dentists chosen randomly from the American Dental
Association’s mailing list of members. The survey, stratified by sex and specialty,
resulted in 560 responses for a 53 percent response rate. The authors used the Zung
Self-Rating Depression scale to measure depression. They examined the respondents’
age, sex, number of children, marital status, specialty, practice type, location of
practice, years in practice, and hours worked per week. The results of multiple
regression analysis showed that the rate of depression in the overall sample was nine
percent. Sex was associated with depression (p < 001), but specialty was not. It was
equally found that sex was significantly related to depression in only two specialties-
Periodontics and pediatric dentistry. The results also showed that only female
pediatric dentistry and periodontists were more depressed than their male
counterparts. Conclusively reporting their findings, the authors showed that from the
results of the analysis, none of the variables studied showed any significant
51
relationship with depression except sex. The areas of relationship between the work of
Matthias et al and this study are in the areas of variables of sex, age, marital status and
years of practice. Also, the two studies made use of multiple regressions for testing
hypotheses.
Salsali and Silverstone in 2003 studied the relationship between demographic
factors and psychosocial stressors on self-esteem of psychiatric patients. For this
study, a sample of 1,190 individuals who attended an open-access psychiatric out
patient clinic was diagnosed according to diagnostic criteria following detailed
assessments. During screening, they completed two self-esteem questionnaires, the
Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, and the Janis and Field Social Adequacy Scale. In
addition, a large amount of demographic and psychosocial data from age, sex, marital
status, educational qualification, income, employment status, and enduring
psychosocial stressors was collected and analyzed using analysis of variance
(ANOVA). Results of the analysis showed significant increase of self-esteem with an
increase in age, educational achievement, and income. Female patients had a
significantly lower self-esteem compared to male patients. The self-esteem of these
patients did not vary significantly with their marital status. No relationship was
detected between acute stressors and their self-esteem, although severe enduring
stressors were associated with their lower self-esteem. This work of Salsali and
Silverstone relates with this study in the areas of demographic variables of age, sex,
marital status and educational qualification. The two studies collected their data using
questionnaire.
Barnett and Baruch in 1985 studied women’s involvement in multiple roles
and psychological distress in United States. This study was examined in relation to
three stress indices: role overload, role conflict and anxiety. Data were collected from
52
a disproportionate stratified random sample (N = 238) of Caucasian women between
the ages of 35-55 years. Using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, effects of
number of roles occupied; occupancy of the particular roles of paid worker, wife and
mother, and the quality of a woman’s experience in her roles were analyzed. For the
total sample and for employed women, occupancy of the role of mother was related to
two stress indices; occupancy of the role of paid workers was related to none. The
quality of experience in the work and parental roles was significant predictor of role
overload; quality of parental role experience was a significant predictor of role
conflict and of anxiety. The relationship here consists of the two being predictive
studies. The two made use of role conflict and role overload variables, and used
multiple regressions for the analyses of their hypotheses.
Vanagas and Bihari –Axelsson (2004) carried out a cross-sectional study of
general practitioners (GPs) in Lithuania to determine whether gender differences have
influence on psychosocial stress, quality of life and work demands. Randomized
sample size of 300 general practitioners was used. Equal number of psychosocial
stress questionnaires based on Radder scale were sent to the respondents. Out of the
300 questionnaires, only 197 were filled and returned, and out of the 197 respondents,
162 (82.2 %) GPs were females and 35 (17.8%) were males. The general
practitioners’ ages ranged from 31 – 66 years. Data collected were analyzed using the
Pearson correlation coefficient. Psychosocial stress was investigated with a
questionnaire based on Radder scale while job demands were investigated using
Karasek scale. There were no significant gender differences among Lithuania GPs in
quality of life, job demands and psychosocial stress. Strong relationships were
however discovered between quality of life and psychosocial stress; psychosocial
stress of job demands; job demands and quality of life for males and females
53
respectively. There was no significant gender difference in quality of life, job
demands, and psychosocial stress among Lithuania GPs, but there are strong
associations between psychosocial stress, job demands, and quality of life for both
genders. High job demands and high psychosocial stress for GPs predict a low quality
of life for both genders compared to those in low job demands and low psychosocial
stress. The two studies relate in the following areas: variables of stress, gender, use of
questionnaire as instrument of data collection, and use of correlation coefficient for
data analysis.
Again Brewer and Mc Mahan (2004) studied job stress and burnout among
industrial technical teacher educators in U.S.A. The purpose of the study was to find
out the level of job stress and burnout among industrial and technical teacher
educators, and to find out whether demographic characteristics predict differences in
levels of job stress and burnout among them. The demographic characteristics
addressed by the questionnaire were age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, years on
current position, years of working in industrial and technical teacher education, tenure
status, academic rank, employment status, and typical workload during the previous
year. Using random sampling procedure, the authors drew a sample of 347 industrial
and technical teacher educators. Out of the 347 instruments sent out, a total of 133
were returned. The job stress survey (JSS) developed by Spielberger and Vagg (1999)
measured stress; the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Human services survey (MBI –
HSS) developed by Maslach and Jackson (1999) measured burnout. Step wise
multiple regressions were used to determine the amount of variance in job stress and
burnout levels predicted by demographic characteristics. Participants perceived
stressors related to lack of organizational support as more severe than stressors related
to the job itself. Also, participants reported an average degree of burnout while
54
demographic characteristics did not explain a large amount of variance in levels of job
stress or burnout. Relationships between exist in the following areas: variables of job
stress, age, gender, marital status, and use of multiple regressions for data analyses.
Mumtaz, Jahangeer, Habib, Adnan and Mumtaz (2010) conducted a research
to evaluate and compare stress level of postgraduate trainee doctors in public and
private sector Medical Universities of Karachi, Pakistan. A comparative cross
sectional study was conducted at Dow University of Health Services and Agah Khan
University Hospital, Karachi among postgraduate medical trainees from January 2008
– December 2008. A total of 207 doctors were selected by non-probability
convenience sampling technique. The main outcome was major stress level of medical
trainees or resident. Out of the total 207 trainee doctors (62.3%) were found to be
under stress and the proportion of females with stress was 66.3%. Most of the married
PGs (67.2%) had high stress level. A large proportion, almost 69.7% of doctors who
were in stress belonged to low-income group. This study did not find any statistical
significance of stress with respect to different demographic and socioeconomic
variable that were age, gender, monthly income, specialty and university. The authors
finally reported that the stress was found to be higher among female trainees but no
risk factor showed significant association with stress. Mumtaz et al’s (2010) research
relates to this study in the areas of job stress, demographic variables of age and
gender.
Ugwu (2008) carried out a study that investigated the effects of worker-
background variables (age, gender, marital status, and type of institutions) on
perceived psychological burnout among employees of people- helping and non-
helping institutions. The sample comprised 174 female and 224 male employees (N =
418) of people- helping and non-helping employees of old Enugu and Anambra states.
55
Data was statistically computed using analysis of variance. Results showed that
employees of people- helping institutions experience more psychological burnout than
employees of non-helping institutions. In addition, interactions between types of
institutions by marital status, and age were found. Male employees of people- helping
institutions reported more burnout than female employees of the same institution;
whereas female employees of non-people helping institution reported more burnout
than their male counterparts. Also, married employees of people helping institutions
reported more burnout than their unmarried counterparts; whereas the reverse was the
case with employees in non-helping institutions. The worker background variables of
age, gender, and marital status vis-a-vis the use of people-helping- profession
institutions formed the greatest link in Ugwu’s (2008) study and this present study.
Ifeagwazi (2008) in his study investigated the influence of some selected
variables (gender, age and year of study) in test anxiety among university students.
Two hundred and ninety four, undergraduate students of the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka participated in the study. They completed the Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI) in
a group setting immediately before course examination. A 2-Way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) with unequal sample sizes was performed on the data to test the
hypotheses of the study. Scores obtained from the 20-item inventory (total TAI
scores) served as the dependent measure for this study. Mean scores and standard
deviations (SDs) of the groups compared showed that the mean scores obtained by the
male (× = 1.98, SD = .45) and female (× = 1.96.SD = .42) undergraduates were
similar. The difference in mean scores between younger (× = 1.92, SD = .42) was
small and insignificant. A 2 -Way analysis of variance (ANOVA) performed on the
data showed that there were no significant main effects of gender, age and year of
study. Results showed that there were no significant main effects of gender, age and
56
year of study. It was concluded that test anxiety is a common reaction to examination
stress and that male and female, younger and older, lower class and higher-class level
students appear to be equally impacted by examination stress. Ifeagwazi’s use of the
variables of age, gender, and use of mean and standard deviation formed the basics of
the relationship between Ifeagwazi’s (2008) study and this work.
In the same vein, Ozdemir (2007) conducted a research on the role of
classroom management efficacy in predicting teacher burnout in Cankay Province of
Turkey. The purpose of the study was to examine the extent to which classroom
management, marital status, gender, and teaching experience could predict burnout
among primary school teachers. Participants of this were 523 (345 female, 178 male)
teachers who filled the inventories and whose selection was through stratified random
sampling. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that those dimensions
of teacher burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal
accomplishment) were affected differently from four predictor variables. Findings
indicated that for the Emotional exhaustion; classroom management efficacy, marital
status and teaching experience; for depersonalization dimension, classroom
management efficacy and marital status; and finally for the personal accomplishment
dimension, classroom management efficacy, gender, and teaching experience were
significant predictors. For the fact that Ozdemir’s work is a predictive study and
made use of marital status, gender, and work experience depicts a striking relationship
between it and this study.
Vanagas, Bihari-Axelsson and Vanagiene (2004) took a critical review of
series of empirical studies on the import of demographic characteristic of general
practitioners and stress vulnerability published in Medline from 1983 – 2003. The
authors’ study was based on whether age, gender, and marital status have relationship
57
with and act as predictors of job strain development for general practitioners. The
methodology adopted was to search computerized database Medline. In the review,
data from many comparative cross-sectional studies found in the database were
included. A data collection form was developed, prepared and filled up on reading
each article. Results from collected studies indicated that age, gender and marital
status influence significantly job strain development for general practitioners but were
controversial on how. It was also found that job strain outcomes have higher impact
for females than for males and the age impact on job strain between females and
males increases in older age groups. Married females were found to have the worst
health and are most vulnerable to job strain. Conclusively, the authors reported that
the magnitude of job strain varies depending on age, gender and marital status of
general practitioners and that the rates of job strain are mostly observed in married
females and younger general practitioners, and that they are predictors of job strains.
Relationships exist between the two in the areas of prediction studies and use of
demographic variables of age, marital status and gender.
In the same vein, Collings and Murray (2005) examined the perception of
work- related stress and factors contributing to high and low levels of stress in a
sample of 243 social workers drawn by means of stratified random sampling from
four local authorities in Northern England. The sample was broadly based in terms of
a range of personal background factors, and included social workers in urban, rural,
and semi-rural locations. A measure of overall stress was constructed encompassing
psychological and physical aspects; and. which permitted an analysis of the relative
importance of the predictive variables using ANOVA. The study identified certain
caseload and supervision related predictors of stress, but, apart from tenure, age,
marital status, personal background factors seemed of weak predictive power.
58
Dua (1994) studied job stress and their effects on physical health, emotional
health and job satisfaction in a university of New England. He sent questionnaires
designed to elicit information about job-related factors which acted as stressors for the
entire staff, their general stress, their emotional health and their physical health.
Factor analysis of the job stressors questionnaires revealed that six factors, namely,
job significance, workload, work politics, interpersonal dealings at work, work
conditions, and university reorganization, were the major stressors for the staff. In
general, Dua found out that those younger staff members reported more job stress
than older staff. He further reported that staff belonging to the faculties of Education,
Nursing, and professional studies at the Armidale campus reported more job stress
than other staff. The study further revealed that the staff employed at the higher job
levels as a result of higher qualifications, were less stressed than those employed at
the lower job levels and support staff. The presence of job stress, use of qualification
and people-service professions made a significant relationship Dua’s (1994) study and
this present study.
In a survey study of 958 junior and senior secondary school teachers drawn
from Enugu and Anambra States, on the prevalence of stress relating to teaching
profession, Ngoka (2000) used questionnaire to elicit information from his
respondents, who were school teachers. Data collected was analyzed using inferential
statistics of t- test. From the analysis, he reported that those teachers with least
experience reported greatest stress, and lowest levels of stress reported by the most
experienced teachers. Further findings depicted that the highest stress levels were
reported by teachers with low qualifications (NCE, HND and ND) and least stress
levels reported by teachers with both a degree and professional training. This study
depicted that experience and qualifications were predictors of job stress among
59
schoolteachers. Ngoka’s work relates significantly with this study in the areas of job
stress, use of predictor variables of experience, qualification and of people-service
professionals
Nwadiani and Ofoegbu (2004) studied the level of perceived stress among
lecturers in Nigerian universities using the variables of age, sex, marital status,
experience, domicile, area of specialization; and administrative responsibilities. On
the whole, a sample of 228 (123 males and 105 females) lecturers was selected. The
stress research questionnaire developed by the researchers was used to collect data on
the level of stress in relation to the variables. The results showed that the level of
stress among lecturers in Nigerian universities is significantly high with a mean of
75.8 as against the theoretical mean of 72. The results depicted also that the level of
stress was not significantly different among married and single lecturers. Likewise,
the level of stress did not vary significantly among lecturers who work in federal and
state universities. The findings also indicated that Nigerian lecturers are highly
stressed irrespective of their sex and marital status. However, the level of stress was
statistically different among experienced and inexperienced lecturers, and among
young and older lecturer. Nwadiani and Ofoegbu’s work relates significantly with
this study in the following areas: being a predictive study, use of predictor variables
of age, sex, marital status, qualification and experience. They also relate in the use of
questionnaire for data collection, mean to analyse data and use of university workers.
The works reviewed above have a lot in common with the work under study.
They all have stress as their area of study, and sex, age, years of experience, marital
status and educational qualification as their background variables, attributes or
characteristics. Many of them made use of questionnaires as instruments for data
60
collections, and analyzed the data collected using inferential statistics like t –test, chi-
square and regression analysis just as this study did.
However, differences exist as many added other attributes that are not part of
the work at hand and studied burnout, and/ or stress. As a result, some made use of
Maslach Burnout Inventory for their data collection. Only very few studied librarians
while many made use of analysis of variance for their analysis. Differences are also
seen in the cultural background of the place of the research. While some as this work
under study have Nigerian background, many have foreign origins or backgrounds.
Studies on Stress Response Management
Today, as in the past, work stress is costing organizations and businesses
billions of dollars each year. It has been estimated by the International Labour
Organization that stresses on the job costs organizations over 200 billion dollars per
year (Swoboda, 1992). These costs include salaries for sick days, cost of
hospitalizations and outpatient care, and costs related to decreased productivity. Also,
employees trained over a long period of time at great cost may break down when
stressed on the job. They may make poor decisions, miss days of work, begin abusing
alcohol and other drugs, or die and have to be replaced by other workers who need
further training. All of these are costly (Greenberg, 1996). On the part of employees,
stress related illnesses include insomnia, migraine and tension headaches, arthritis,
ulcers, heart disease, high blood pressure, and sudden death. Psychologically, work
stress reduces job satisfaction and increases moodiness, depression and job burnout
(Atemie & Akikibofori, 2007).
The very nature of library work predisposes a librarian to stress and burnout.
His normal workday can best be described as a continuous round of interruptions.
When demands for his services, such as reference questions and readers advisory roll
61
in, he refocuses himself to find the answers and set aside whatever else he has been
working on. The constant breaks in his day interrupt the flow of his concentration and
make it hard for him to complete his tasks. The repetitive nature of library work
induces monotony. Following this, boredom can set in with ease as he does one thing
over and over again. These and more render a librarian a potential candidate for stress
(Tim & Baird, 2005)
Since stress is part of life, and has such staggering negative effects on
librarians, it becomes very imperative to devise means of vitiating its effects in the
form of coping or stress response management. Stress management is the limitation of
stress and its effects by learning special types of behaviour and ways of thinking
which reduce it (Cambridge International Dictionary of English, 1996). To
Oboegbulem (2003) stress management strategies include all coping actions,
behaviours or attitudes, which an individual can adopt when faced with certain
psychological, physiological and social demands that task his adaptive resources.
Quoting Bockaerts, Omeje (2004) asserts that coping has to constantly do with
changing the cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and
internal demands that are experienced and which tax or exceed the resources as well
as immediate capacity of an individual.
Discussing the stress management strategy, Lazarus and Folkman (1984)
stated that for effective control of stress, difficult and tensive situations, one passes
through three stages. First, one gets engaged in primary appraisal of the stressor.
Here, he decides given his knowledge of himself and the situation, whether he is
potentially threatened or is in jeopardy. In other words, is this threat worthy of being
concerned about? If the situation is judged to be irrelevant or trivial, the coping
62
process ends. If the circumstance is meaningful and potentially threatening, the stress
coping process continues.
Next, one gets engaged in the secondary appraisal. Here, he assesses his
resources for dealing with the stressor. This assessment is influenced by previous
experiences in similar situations, generalized beliefs about the self and the
environment, and the availability of personal (for example physical strength or
problem-solving skills) and environmental (for example social support) resources.
Important to this secondary appraisal is an assessment of how much control one has
over the situation. The less the perceived control the more threatening the situation
will be.
The third phase is coping. Here, one now takes whatever actions seem
appropriate. This response might involve action or merely a cognitive adjustment-
redefining the situation through self-talk. However, whether one’s coping response is
helpful and constructive is, of course, another matter. Moreover; it is vital to state that
men and women differ in terms of their choice of coping strategies
Having discussed how stress coping strategies develop, it now becomes
necessary to examine some methods of stress management.. Studies have shown that
men tend to engage in more problem-focused coping and that females tend to seek
social support from friends or engage in emotion-focused strategies. These findings
have been attributed to the different ways men and women are taught to cope with
stress (Ptacek, Smith & Dodge, 1994). But a study carried out by Porter and Stone
(1995) indicates that men and women differ very little in the amount of stress they
report or in the stress management strategies, which they adopt. They also stated that
men are more likely to report work related stress, whereas women tend to report stress
problems arising from parenting, and interactions with others.
63
Ivancevich, Matteson, Freedman and Phillips (1990) in their study
distinguished three types of programmes to alleviate the effects of occupational stress.
These management strategies can occur at the levels of the individual employee,
organization, and the individual-organizational interface.
At the individual level different activities are designed to improve employee’s
coping skills. These programmes usually focus on such things, as relaxation training,
time management, cognitive restructuring, physical exercise and fitness training,
health screening, nutritional education, and the reduction of health-impairing habits
like over eating and smoking.
Stress management strategies at the organizational level are intent on making
work environments less stressful. This is usually done by improving working
conditions like making the surroundings very comfortable and attractive. Other
techniques include redesigning the requirements of jobs like giving workers different
tools or responsibilities, giving workers adequate decision control over their work,
redesigning the organization’s work to accommodate rapid influx of new technology.
Other relevant techniques include re-evaluating the organizational structures and
granting workers greater participation in decision making (Offermann & Gowing,
1990).
Stress response intervention at the individual-organization interface takes
many forms, such as accommodating the changing nature of the work force like the
dual-earner couples, giving counseling services, creation of cordial coworker
relationship, and provision of time off to workers.
In his study, Bryson asserted that role and interpersonal demands can be
prevented from being stressors by team-building, provision of social support, goal-
setting programmes, flexible work schedules and provision of adequate career
64
development. Atser (2006) in his study on ‘managing examination stresses, quoted
Awake as putting across some of the following workable strategies thus;
Being wary of one’s diet, indulging in physical and
mental exercise, getting enough sleep, being organized,
getting support from professional helpers, resolving
conflicts as they arise, avoiding unreasonable
comparisons of self with others, making time for
relaxation. Others include learning from each distress,
meditating for inspirational solutions (p24)
From the above discourse, it becomes pertinent to state that there is wide
variety of strategies for managing work stress. At any point in time, one is, therefore,
constrained to rationally and realistically appraise any stimulus. This among others
will help avert or reduce stress. As Schafer (1992) quoted Epictetus as stating that
people are disturbed, not by events but by their view of those events.
In a study carried out by Landsbergis (1998) among 289 hospitals and nursing
home employees, he found out that stress is significantly higher in jobs that combine
high job demands with low job control. This association remained significant after
controlling such variables as age, gender, education, and marital status, having
children, hours worked per week and shift work. De Jong, Janssen and Van Breakelon
(1996) confirmed this in their study. They made use of 249 nurses and nurses’ aids in
their structural equation modeling study. Results depicted that high levels of job
control appeared to attenuate the increase in stress and emotional exhaustion due to
job demands. This supports the view that unless high job demand is matched with
high job control, stress will result irrespective of sex or age.
Many studies on stress management and role conflict experience have found
some attributes that are capable of moderating the deleterious effects of role conflict,
overloads, ambiguity, under load and stress. These attributes are referred to as stress
buffers or moderators of role-based stress. Stress buffering refers to variables’
65
mitigation influence on stress reaction (Schafer, 1992, Cohen and Wills, 1985).
Attribute buffering or mitigation influence has to do with the extent to which an
attribute is able to reduce a person’s feeling of conflict, overload, ambiguity or stress.
Summary of the Literature Review
In order to adequately and efficiently cover the related and available literature
in this section, the review was stratified into four main headings thus: conceptual
framework, theoretical framework, empirical studies and summary of literature
review. These were again split into eight very minute segments to ensure optimal
comprehension, proper handling, and in-depth treatment. These segments are concept
of personal attributes, concept of stress, concept of role based stress, person-
environment theory, and Cognitive theory. Others are empirical studies on personal
attributes and role-based stress, studies on stress response management and summary
of the review.
Various materials were consulted during the review. Among them are journals,
books, and grey literature. Out of these materials, journals were in the majority and
were of foreign and local origins, with the foreign ones ranking higher in number.
Further efforts were equally made to access information from the Internet, and were
so accessed.
The literature review in this work depicts that many scholars have made useful
efforts at probing into job stress among different occupations. Many of these works
have revealed many attributes, such as age, sex involvement, marital status,
experience, and qualification which boarder on stress, and found to be seemingly
related to stress. However, one glaring thing is that many of these findings are not in
agreement with each other. In other words, they tacitly do not agree. For instance,
while many of them reported that women experience role-based stress more than their
male counterparts, others reported that men experience stress equally, if not more than
66
women. This, according to the proponents of the latter, is because the more roles
women partake and juggle with, the healthier they become. Also, while some writers
reported that men showed more negative reaction in their relation or attitudes towards
students than women, some others held that women depicted more psychosomatic
symptoms.
Much as the review helped in the formulation of hypotheses, it significantly
aided in the construction of the instrument that was used in answering the research
questions and testing the hypotheses. This instrument is the job-related stress
inventory (JSI). The review, therefore, revealed many attributes of librarians and role
related areas on stress, which combined with each other to indicate the content and
design of the instrument that was used in this work. It was equally from the review of
literature that the researcher was able to realize the likely subjects to be used, and the
method of data analysis.
The review equally depicted a great dearth of literature on job-related stress
among librarians in and outside Nigeria. The situation presents a greater gap, begging
for action, when within and outside the country, one hardly lays hand on any study,
especially empirical, put down to correlate personal attributes and job stress among
librarians.
Since the information gleaned from the research findings of various literature
reviewed relate mostly to other work settings and job characteristics, quite different
from those of librarians’ and aware that most of the findings were obtained from other
cultural background, it now becomes necessary that such investigations as this be
conducted within Nigeria.
The fact that many Nigerian librarians face stress in their workplaces depicts
that library stakeholders and the nation at large loose much following librarians poor
67
quality services, constant sick leave, and loss of clientele. Yet, the influence of
personal attributes of these librarians on their work stress has not been ascertained.
Considering the importance of librarians in Nigeria’s wealth creation and
transformation agenda, it becomes pertinent to investigate the relationship between
librarians’ personal attributes and their job related stress. Unless this is done, it may
be very difficult for Nigerian university library administrators to have good insight
into ways of restructuring work assignments using personal attributes. It may as well
be difficult reducing stress, ensuring mental and physical wellness, and enhancing
greater productivity among librarians.
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CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter is concerned with the method that was used in this study. It
discussed such subtopics as the design of the study, area of the study, population of
the study, sample and sampling technique, instrument for data collection, validation of
the instrument, reliability of the instrument, method of data collection, and method of
data analysis.
Research Design
The design of this study was a correlational study. The method seeks to find
the relationships that exist between personal attributes and job-related stress.
According to Nwogu (2000) correlation type of study seeks to establish the extent of
relationship or association that exists between two or more variables. Correlational
study allows researchers to study how several variables, either singly or in
combination, might affect a particular pattern of behaviour. To Borg and Gall (1977),
it is used for exploring the relationships between variables and for predicting scores
on a variable from the subjects’ scores on other variables. This study is, therefore, a
predictive study (an aspect of correlational studies). A predictive correlational study is
a study whereby two or more variables are systematically measured and the
relationships between them can be assessed and predicted using correlation
coefficients. As a predictive study, the predictor variables (personal attributes) were
used to predict the occurrence of the criterion behaviour (job-related stress) among
university librarians. The method permits one to measure simultaneously a great
number of variables and their interrelationships.
69
Area of the Study
The area of study was the South East and South South geopolitical zones of
Nigeria. These two zones comprise eleven states namely, Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi,
Enugu and Imo. Others are Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and River
States. These two geopolitical zones have had a common history of colonial and
postcolonial development. They have imbibed the same burning zeal for utilization of
education as a new paradigm shift for human and material development. They
therefore established libraries earlier than many other zones so as to back up their
desire to excel in university education. Under their former administrators, great
interest in library development emerged as a leverage to academic excellence. For
instance, the former Eastern Region which comprised nine out of these eleven states
was the first to establish library services in Nigeria ( Opara, 2008) and out of the
twelve (first and second generation) university libraries established from 1948-1975,
four belonged to these zones (Ani & Edem, 2012). This trend continued up to the
present time.
Population of the Study
The population of this study is 354, and comprised of all the professional
librarians who held at least Bachelor degrees in library and information science and
were working in the university libraries covered by this study. It included also those
who may not hold the above qualification but were designated as librarians by the
universities being studied.
Sample and Sampling Technique
The sample size of this study comprised 354 librarians that made up the
population of the study. The entire librarians were used because they were few in
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number and within reach following the availability of enough research assistants.
There was no need for sampling.
Instrument for Data Collection
The instrument used in this study for data collection is a structured
questionnaire titled Job-related Stress Inventory (JS1). The instrument was
constructed after a detailed and critical review of available and related literature. The
instruments used by Ugwu (1996) and Ifelunni (1992) were carefully examined, some
relevant items culled from them, modified and synthesized to make for this
instrument. The questionnaire instrument was, therefore, adapted from these two
researchers.
This instrument designed to measure job-related stress has two sections. The
first section contains the personal attributes of the respondents - age, gender, marital
status, years of job experience and educational qualification. The second part
consisted of a twenty-item index of job-related stress. These items were highly
structured and respondents were requested to indicate the degree to which they agree
with the items. For instance, strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree
with assigned values of 4, 3, 2, and 1 point respectively.
The twenty items are on the four role-related stress areas of role ambiguity,
role conflict, role under load, and role overload. In order to elicit information from the
librarians, there are five items on each of the four clusters to determine the extent to
which they (librarians) experienced them in the process of executing their functions.
Validation of the Instrument
To ensure the face- validity of the instrument, the following steps were taken.
The instrument was given to three scholars in the areas of research study. The
following experts validated the instrument; an expert in tests and measurement, an
71
expert in research design and an expert in educational psychology from the Faculty of
Education, University of Nigeria Nsukka They were requested to correct the
instrument in terms of clarity of expressions, appropriateness of language and
relatedness to the research questions. They were also requested to examine the
instrument based on the content representativeness. The experts were freely
mandated to either remove any item considered irrelevant or add any other item
considered important but not reflected in the instrument. Following their comments,
no item was added but all the ‘I’s inserted at the beginning of each item were
expunged. The validated instrument is attached at the end of this work as an appendix
ix.
Reliability of the Instrument
In order to affirm the reliability of the instrument, the researcher used twenty
librarians from Federal University of Agriculture Library, Makurdi and Benue State
University Library, Makurdi. The two libraries are in Benue State of the North
Central Geo-political zone of Nigeria. The trial testing of the instrument outside the
study area of the study was to ascertain the clarity and comprehensibility of the
instrument. Also, the trial testing acted enough to guard against possible
misinterpretation of the instruments by the respondents and ensure reliability.
After the trial testing, scores from the twenty librarians were collated and the
internal consistency of the instrument was calculated using the Cronbach’s Alpha.
The result was 0.80 for all the clusters. This value was considered high enough and
showed that the instrument can be reliably used to measure job-related stress.
Method of Data Collection
Following the geographical spread of the population covered, the researcher
engaged the services of 13 research assistants in the administration and collection of
72
the data. These assistants were the postgraduates and undergraduates of the University
of Nigeria, Nsukka. They were sufficiently taught on the administration and collection
processes of the instrument. They were as well advised to put human faces on their
interactive processes with the respondents to enable them feel psychologically
disposed while responding to the items. After adequately instructing them on how to
go about it, packets containing copies of the questionnaire including self-addressed
envelopes, and money to enable them do the transaction and mail back the filled
questionnaire to the researcher were given to them. The researcher himself
administered and collected completed questionnaire from other libraries where
assistants were not obtained.
Many of the assistants returned the filled questionnaire personally. On the
whole, there was a high return of the filled instrument. Thus, out of the 354 copies of
the questionnaire administered, 46, representing 13 percent of the total copies were
not returned, while 10 copies representing 3% were not filled. A total number of 298,
representing 84%, were correctly completed and served for the data analysis of this
study.
Method of Data Analysis
Mean scores were used for the analyses of research questions while standard
deviation was made use of to measure the variations in the distributions of the scores.
A mean of 2.50 and above was judged to be the acceptable levels of stress existence
while a mean below it was judged otherwise.
In testing the hypothesis, the multiple regression analysis was used in order to
determine the relationship between the predicator variables (personal attributes) and
the criterion or independent variable (job related stress). The multiple regressions
were considered useful in predicative correlation studies like this one. The procedure
73
yielded a multiple regression equation that combined the predictive values of several
measures into a single formula. The multiple regression equation weighted each
variable in terms of its status in making the desired prediction. The entire hypotheses
were tested at 0.05 level of significance.
74
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
This chapter deals with the presentation and analysis of data obtained from
the investigation of the study. In presenting the findings relevant to this research, this
chapter has been organized in such a way that answers to the research questions are
provided first using mean scores and standard deviations. This is followed by the
testing of the hypotheses using multiple regression analysis. (N.B. For Tables on
Means and standard deviations, and on item by item analyses, see Appendix X. For
Tables on regression analyses, see Appendix X1.)
Research Question 1: What are the areas of job-related stress of librarians in
university libraries in South East and South- South Nigeria?
N=298
Key to the Tables:
Dec= Decision. A= Agree. D= Disagree.
Table 1: Mean Response on Areas of Job-Related Stress of Librarians in
University Libraries in Nigeria.
Job Stress Areas
x
SD
Decision
Role Ambiguity 2.28 0.35 D
Role Conflict 2.55 0.38 A
Role Under load 2.38 0.23 D
Role Overload 2.59 0.28 A
Results from Table 1 shows that librarians working in university libraries in
south East and South-South Nigeria experience role conflict (2.55) and role overload
(2.59). The mean scores of 2.28 for role ambiguity and of 2.38 for role under load fell
short of the mean score cut off (2.50) needed for the given subscale of stress to occur.
75
The librarians, therefore, suffer stress in the areas of role conflict and role overload
only, with the role overload being the greater area of stress.
Research Question 2: What is the influence of age on the job-related stress of
librarians working in these university libraries?
This research question is answered using the results generated from the data analysis
and displayed in the Table 2.
Table 2: Mean Scores of Librarians on Job- Related Stress Inventory (JSI) in
Relations to Age
Job stress areas 20 – 30
N = 38
31 – 40
N = 100
41 – 50
N = 123
50 +
N = 37
Overall
mean &
Std. dev
Dec
x
SD
x
SD
x
SD
x
SD
x
SD
Role Ambiguity
Role Conflict
Role Underload
Role Overload
2.48
2.41
2.44
2.47
0.59
0.38
0.48
0.71
2.35
2.67
2.50
2.63
0.53
0.55
0.51
0.53
2.27
2.64
2.32
2.68
0.60
0.50
0.62
0.57
1.87
2.15
2.07
2.26
0.46
0.57
0.51
0.43
2..24
2..47
2.33
2.51
0.55
0.50
0.53
0.56
D
D
D
A
Overall mean 2.45 0.54 2.54 0.53 2.48 0.57 2.09 0.49 2.39 0.54
Table 2 shows the mean ratings of librarians in university libraries in South East and
South-South zones in Nigeria on the stress areas of their job in relation to their age.
The findings reveal differences in the mean ratings on the stress areas of role
ambiguity, role conflict, role under load and role overload. The mean ratings of
librarians between 20 and 30 years of age was found to be 2.45, between 31 and 40
years was 2.54, between 41 and 50 was 2.48, and 50 and above was 2.09. These
results therefore show that librarians between the ages of 31 and 40 years (2.54) have
76
more job-related stress than others. The results also suggest that only role overload is
strongly influenced by the age of the librarians. Moreover, the responses of librarians
according to the standard deviation do not vary widely.
Null Hypothesis 1: Age does not significantly predict job-related stress of librarians
in university libraries.
The testing of the above hypothesis is presented on the Table 3 using the results
generated from the data on the age of librarians and job stress area.
Table 3: Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Age and Job Related
Stress.
Model Unstandardized
coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.610 .077 34.053 .000
Age of Respondent -101 .072 -.213 -3.755 .000
Data on Table 3 further indicate that age is a significant predictor of job-
related stress. This is shown by the calculated t of -3.755 which is significant at .000
and also significant at 0.05 levels set for the study. Thus, the null hypothesis that age
does not significantly predict job-related stress is rejected.
Research Question 3: What is the influence of educational qualification on the job-
related stress of librarians in university-libraries?
The above research question is answered using the results generated from the data
analysis and displayed in Table 4:
77
Table 4: Mean Score of Librarians on the JS1 in Relation to Educational
Qualifications.
Job Stress Areas BLS/BA/BSC/
BAED
N = 81
MSC/MA/MED/
MLS
N = 185
Ph.D
N = 32
Overall mean
& std. dev
Dec
x SD x SD x SD x SD
D
A
D
A
Role Ambiguity
Role Conflict
Role Underload
2.41
2.57
2.44
0.56
0.55
0.44
2.26
2.58
2.34
0.58
0.54
0.58
2.03
2.41
2.32
0.57
0.52
0.79
2.23
2.52
2.37
0.57
0.54
0.60
Role Overload 2.67 0.62 2.54 0.56 2.61 0.54 2.61 0.57
Overall mean 2.52 0.54 2.43 0.57 2.34 0.61 2.43 0.57
Table 4 shows the mean ratings of librarians in university libraries in South–
East and South-South zones in Nigeria on the stress areas of their job in relation to
their qualifications. The findings reveal differences in their role ambiguity, role
conflict, role underload and role overload. The mean rating of librarians with
bachelors’ degrees was seen to be 2.52, while those with master degrees were 2.43.
For holders of doctorate degrees their mean rating was 2.34. These results therefore
show that librarians with bachelor degrees have more job-related stress than others.
The overall mean scores of librarians show that role overload (2.61) and role
conflict (2.52) are strongly influenced by educational qualification. Role ambiguity
(2.23) and role underload (2.32) have less influence on the educational level of the
librarians. Except in role underload, the librarians’ responses do not show wide
variation
Null Hypothesis 2: Educational qualification is not a significant predictor of job-
related stress of librarians in university libraries.
The testing of the above hypothesis is presented on the Table 5 using the results
obtained from the data on educational qualification and job stress inventory.
78
Table 5 Regression Analysis on the Relations Between Education Qualification
and Job Related Stress.
Model Unstandardized
Coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.610 .077 34.053 .000
Highest qualification -090 .040 -131 -2.265 .024
Results on Table 5 further show that educational qualification is a significant
predictor of job-related stress among librarians in university libraries. This is shown
by the calculated t of -2.265 which is significant at 0.024 and also significant at
0.05 levels set for the study. The null hypothesis which states that educational
qualification is not significant predictor of job related stress is therefore rejected.
Research Question 4: What is the influence of gender on the job-related stress of
librarians working in university libraries?
This research question is answered using the results generated from the data analysis
and displayed in the Table 6.
Table 6: Mean Scores of Librarians on Job Stress Inventory in Relation to
Gender.
Job Stress Areas Male
N = 127
Female
N = 171
Overall mean
& SD
Dec
x SD x SD x SD
Role Ambiguity 2.20 0.50 2.33 0.63 2.27 0.57 D
Role Conflict 2.53 0.50 2.58 0.57 2.56 0.54 A
Role Underload 2.32 0.56 2.40 0.58 2.36 0.57 D
Role Overload 2.54 .55 02.62 0.59 2.58 0.57 A
Overall mean 2.40 0.53 2.48 0.59 2.45 0.56
79
Table 6 shows that the librarians’ vulnerability to job stress is higher for
female librarians with an overall mean of 2.48 than for males with 2.40. Role
ambiguity, role conflict, role underload and role overload are all higher for females
than males. However, males are distressed in the areas of role conflict (2.53) and role
overload (2.54). The overall mean scores of both the male and female librarians on
the stress area depict that role conflict (2.56) and role overload (2.58) are in existence
and appear to have strong relationship with gender than role ambiguity (2.27) and
role underload 2.36). The responses of the librarians, following the standard
deviation, do not show wide variability
Null Hypothesis 3: Gender is not a significant predictor of job related stress of
librarians in university libraries.
The testing of the above hypothesis is presented on Table 7 using the results obtained
from the data on gender and job stress inventory.
Table 7: Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Gender and Job Related
Stress.
Model Unstandardized
coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
T Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.312 .079 29.293 .000
Gender of Respondents .055 .048 .102 1.767 .078
The data on Table 7 indicate that gender is not a significant predictor of job related
stress. This is shown by the calculated t of 1.767 which is significant at .000 and also
not significant at 0.05 levels set for the study. Thus, the null hypothesis that gender is
not a significant predictor of job stress among librarians working in University
libraries is upheld.
80
Research Question 5: What is the influence of marital status on the Job-related stress
of librarians working in university libraries?
The research question is answered using the results generated from the data analysis
and displayed in Table 8.
Table 8: Mean Scores of Librarians on JS 1 in Relation to Marital Status
Job Stress Areas Unmarried
N = 127
Married
N = 171
Overall mean
& Std. dev
Dec
x SD x SD x SD
Role Ambiguity 2.32 0.59 2.26 0.58 2.29 0.59 D
Role Conflict 2.47 0.50 2.60 0.55 2.54 0.53 A
Role Underload 2.5 0.50 2.34 0.59 2.42 0.55 D
Role Overload 2.50 0.64 2.61 0.56 2.56 0.60 A
Overall mean 2.45 0.56 2.45 0.57 2.45 0.57
Table 8 shows that both the married and the single (unmarried) librarians have
overall mean scores of 2.45 respectively. This shows that they are at par when it
comes to being stressed on their job. However, role conflict (2.60) and role overload
(2.61) are higher for the married librarians than for the unmarried with mean scores of
2.47 and 2.50 respectively. Role ambiguity and role underload are higher for the
single (2.32 and 2.50 respectively) than for the married with mean scores of 2.26 and
2.34 respectively. The overall mean scores of both the married and the single
librarians show that role conflict (2.54) and role overload (2.56) are in existence and
appear to be strongly influenced by marital status. Even though neither the married
nor the unmarried librarians by their mean scores reached stress level, the married
81
appear to be more prone to stress than the unmarried. The responses of the librarians
do not show wide variation according to scores from the standard deviation.
Null Hypothesis 4: Marital status does not significantly predict job-related stress
among librarians in university libraries.
The testing of the above hypothesis is presented on Table 9 using the results generated
from the data on the marital status of the librarians and the job stress inventory (JSI).
Table 9: Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Marital Status and
Job Related Stress.
Model Unstandardized
Coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.390 .108 22.043 .000
Marital status of Respondents .031 .059 .030 .522 .602
Results on Table 9 further indicate that marital status does not predict job related
stress among librarians working in university libraries. This is shown by the
calculated t value of .522 which is not significant at 602 and at 0.05 levels set for the
study. Thus, the null hypothesis that marital status does not significantly predict job
stress among librarians is upheld.
Research Question 6: What is the influence of years of work experience on the job-
related stress of librarians in university libraries?
The above research question is answered using the results generated from the data
analysis and displayed in Tables 10.
82
Table 10: Mean Scores of Librarians on JS1 in Relation to Years of Work experience.
Table 10 shows the mean rating of librarians in university libraries in South
East and South-South zones in Nigeria on the stress areas of their job in relation to
their experience. The findings reveal differences in their mean ratings on the stress
areas of role ambiguity, role conflict, role underload, and role overload. The mean
rating of librarians between 1 and 5 years of experience was 2.50, between 6 and 10
years was 2.60, between 11 and 15 years was 2.37, 16 and 30 years was 2.19, while 31
and above years was 2.32. The results therefore show that librarians between 1 and 5
years, and 6 and 10 years were more stressed on their job than other librarians. Those
librarians that fall between 16 to 20 years job experience showed lowest degree of
stress and followed by those between 11 and 15 years. However, the overall mean
scores of all the librarians across different years of experience on their job stress areas
show that role conflict (2.51) and role overload (2.50) have strong relationship with
years of experience. Role ambiguity (2.19) and role underload (2.31) are non-existent
and therefore seem to have weak relationship with years of experience.
Job stress
areas
1-5
N=73
6-10
N= 67
11-15
N = 53
16 -20
N = 24
21- 25
N = 30
26-30
N =19
31+
N=12
Overall
mean
Dec
x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD SD
D
A
D
A
Role
Ambiguity
2.40 0.64 2.43 0.48 2.18 0.58 2.17 0.56 2.00 0.49 2.01 0.54 2.15 0.73 2.19 0.57
Role
Conflict
2.60 0.55 2.71 0.43 2.44 0.56 2.66 0.56 2.37 0.60 2.23 0.54 2.53 0.53 2.51 0.54
Role
Underload
2.42 0.54 2.46 0.45 2.34 0.64 2.40 0.71 2.06 0.60 2.26 0.69 2.23 0.52 2.31 0.59
Role
Overload
2.56 0.67 2.82 0.42 2.50 0.55 2.61 0.66 2.43 0.56 2.26 0.55 2.35 0.47 2.50 0.55
Overall
mean
2.50 0.60 2.60 0.45 2.37 0.58 2.46 0.62 2.22 0.56 2.19 0.58 2.32 0.56 2.38 0.56
83
Null Hypothesis 5: Work experience is not a significant predictor of job related stress
of librarians in university libraries in Nigeria.
The results of the above hypothesis are presented in Table below using the data
generated from the librarians work experience and job stress inventory.
Table 11: Regression Analysis on the Relationship Between Years of Work
Experience and Job-Related Stress.
Model Unstandardized
Coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
T Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.625 .044 59.067 .000
Work experience of Respondents .063 .013 -.265 -4.734 .000
Data on Table 11 indicate that years of work experience predicts job related
stress significantly. This is shown by the calculated t value of -4.734 which is
significant at .000 and also at 0.05 levels set for the study. This depicts that the null
hypothesis that work experience is not a significant predictor of job related stress
among librarians in University libraries is rejected.
Research question 7:
What are the predictive values of age, qualification, gender, marital status and
work experience on job related stress of librarians in university libraries?
Null hypothesis 6:
Age, qualification, gender, marital status and work experience do not
significantly predict job related stress among librarians in university libraries.
For research question 7 and null hypothesis 6, Table 12 has been used to present them.
84
Table 12: Unstandardized and Standardized Coefficients
Model Unstandardized
coefficient
Standard
Coefficient
T Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1.(Constant) 2.700 .072 37.632 .000
Age of Respondent -101 .072 -.213 -3.755 .000
Qualification -090 .040 -131 -2.265 .024
Experience .063 .013 -.265 -4.734 .000
Marital status .031 .059 .030 .522 .602
Gender of Respondents .055 .048 .102 1.767 .078
The data on Table 12 show the predictive values of the predictor variables- age,
qualification, experience, marital status and gender. The data indicate that years of
experience has the highest predictive value of B = -0.265, and followed by age with
B= -0.213. Others are qualification, with B= -.131, gender with B= .102 and marital
status with B=.030 respectively. These imply that work experience predicts job related
stress among university librarians more than other predictor variables in the study.
This is followed by age, qualification, gender and marital status in that order. These
show equally that years of experience, age and educational qualification significantly
predict job related stress among librarians working in university libraries while gender
and marital status do not. These scores on librarians’ attributes were lumped together
here to enable one view at a glance and predict their relative values
Summary of major findings
This sub-section has to do with the presentation of the summary of major
findings of the study which were obtained from the explored research questions and
the null hypothesis tested. The followings are the major highlights of the findings.
85
1. The librarians serving in university libraries in South East and South- South
zones of Nigeria experience stress in the areas of role conflict (2.55) and role
overload (2.59).
2. Age is statistically a significant predictor of job related stress among librarians
in University libraries in South East and South-South zones.
3. Statistically, educational qualification is a predictor of job related stress among
librarians working in University libraries in South East and South-South. The
level of significance set by the computer (0.024) is less than the significance of
0.05 set for the hypothesis.
4. Gender is statistically not a predictor of job stress among librarians working in
University libraries in South East and South-South zones. The level of
significance set by the computer (.078) is greater than the significance level of
the hypothesis (0.05).
5. Statistically, marital status is not significant in predicting job related stress
among librarians in University libraries. The computer level of significance
(.602) is greater than the level of significance set for the hypothesis
6. Work experience is statistically a significant predictor of job related stress
among librarians in South East and South-South. The computer level of
significance (.000) is less than the level of significance set for the hypothesis
(0.05).
7. Years of work experience has the highest predictive values and was followed
by age, educational qualification, gender and marital status.
86
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS
AND CONCLUSION
This chapter contains the discussion and interpretations of the major
research findings derived from the seven research questions and six null hypotheses
postulated for the study. This chapter contains also the implications of the study,
recommendations, limitations, suggestions for further research and conclusion of the
study. The discussion here is presented in line with the research questions and the
hypotheses tested.
Discussion of Findings
Areas of Job Related Stress of Librarians
Research question 1 sought to identify the areas of stress where the librarians
working in University libraries in South East and South-South zones experience the
greatest job related stress. The result shows that the librarians experience stress in
areas of role conflict and role overload, with role overload being the greater stress
area. This result is in agreement with Ifelunni (1992), Agolla and Ongori(2009), and
Kreitner, Kinicki and Buelens (2002). They all observed that role conflict and role
overload are among the great sources of job stress and have deleterious effects on
employees. As shown in the same Appendix II, the librarians have role conflict and
role overload which arise from poor clarity of social work relationships, and excess
job demands that defy workers’ ability to cope. The result as well conforms to
McGrath (1976) who theorizes a poor fit between work demands and workers ability
as one of the greatest sources of stress. It does appear then that the librarians in the
university libraries face role conflict arising from the conflicting demands made on
them by their clientele, their subordinates and their role expectations. While the
students may be asking for gratifications like waiving overdue charges and borrowing
87
from the closed access sections, their role expectations may not be allowing for those
pleas. Another probable cause of role conflict of librarians is lack of freedom to select
and implement policies as they affect their clientele. The experience of role overload
by the librarians may not be a surprise due to the great upsurge in the number of
university library users in recent years and the volumes of information to be handled.
Age as a Predictor of Job Related Stress among Librarians.
The focus of research question 2 is on identifying whether age is a predictor of
job related stress among librarians. The result of this investigation is discussed
alongside the contributions of age as an independent variable to the prediction of job
stress. The result shows that symptoms of stress increased with increase in age until
the age bracket of 50 and above where serious decline sets in. Further analyses of
hypothesis 1 shows that it was rejected. Therefore, age has been shown to be a
significant predictor of job related stress among librarians in the two zones. This result
is consistent with Ngoka (2000) and Ifelunni (1992). They found out in their studies
that age statistically predicts job stress of teachers and counsellors in secondary
schools. It therefore follows that the younger librarians may be stressed because they
are yet to master the necessary rudiments of their work and form some basic elements
of social support system. They are inexperienced and feel very anxious about what
should be done. They swallow all instructions unedited and attempt to carry them out
that way. In the process, they get distressed. Moreover, they are yet to taste, to a large
extent, the problems of librarianship that emanate from the tossing around of
university library clientele. When so confronted, they get upset. The young librarians
appear very idealistic, anxious, exuberant and full of complaints on trivial issues. The
older ones use their old age experience to solve attendant work problems. They appear
to be very calm and thoughtful all the time. Hence, they report lower stress levels.
88
Educational Qualification as a Predictor of Job Stress among Librarians
Analysis of the related research question showed that job stress decreased with
higher qualification. This is evidenced in the overall mean scores of the holders of
bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees, which is 2.52, 2.43, and 2.34 respectively.
The four areas of stress also decreased with increase in qualification. This shows that
with higher qualifications, librarians are exposed more to the intricacies, the odds and
the realities in the practice of their profession. They also learn more of the psychology
of library users, which helps to ease relationships and clearer understanding of their
boss view about them. Heavy workload and lack of job control are shown to be
stressful. Doctoral degree holders experience role overload resulting, probably, from
their extreme involvement in teaching, supervising students’ projects, publishing in
impact factor journals, attending international conferences, etc.
Regression analysis of personal attributes of librarians on the job related stress
shows that educational qualification is a statistically significant predictor of job stress.
It is also significant in predicting role ambiguity and role underload but not in role
conflict and role overload. These results are in consonance with Uwadie and Okorie
(1991) and Ngoka (2000). They found in their works that university graduate teachers
reported less stress than non-graduate colleagues;; and that the highest stress levels
were reported by teachers with low qualification (NCE, HND and ND) and least stress
levels reported by teachers with both a degree and professional training. That stress
decreases with higher qualifications appear to show that with higher qualifications, the
librarians are exposed more to the intricacies, the odds, and the realities in the practice
of librarianship.
89
Gender as a Predictor of Job Related Stress among Librarians
From the regression analysis on gender (Table 9), result shows that gender is
not statistically a significant predictor of job stress of librarians working in university
libraries. The same result also applies to the four stress areas. Examination of Table 8
shows that females with an overall mean score of 2.48 are more prone to job stress
than male (2.40). Among the four subscales, only role conflict and role overload show
positive relationship with gender. The whole subscales are all higher for females.
The result of this study contradicts Martocchio and O’Leavy (1989) and
Ifelunni (1992). They reported that males are more prone to stress related illness than
females. However, the result of this study agrees entirely with Zunker (1998) and
Ngoka (2000) that women experience more role conflict and role overload than men.
Buttressing the finding, Antonion et al (2006) pointed out that women experience the
greater levels of occupational stress as they are more vulnerable to the demands of
work to the extent that they often have more non-work demands than men.
The reason for the higher level of stress experienced by female librarians
could be attributed to their being exposed to the pressures of multiple role demands
and conflicting expectations in the family. Their traditional sex roles apply to all
females, married or single, and do compound their role conflict and overload
experience. Apart from their traditional sex roles, these female librarians still contend
with publications, seminars and conference attendances needed for their promotions.
Marital Status as a Predictor of Job Related Stress.
The regression analysis on marital analysis (Table 9) has shown that marital
status does not statistically predict job related stress among librarians. Table 8 shows
that the overall mean score of the single and the married librarians are at par with
90
2.45 respectively. Much as they have not reached the expected score level (2.50) for
stress to occur, the result shows they are very prone to job stress. Further examination
of the stress areas/subscales reveals that role conflict and role overloads are higher for
the married with 2.60 and 2.61 respectively. Role ambiguity and role underload are
higher for the single librarians. The result of this study conforms to the finding of
Ajala (2007) that both the single and married librarians have reported librarianship to
be very stressful nowadays. It contradicts the findings of Ifelunni (1992) and Ngoka
(2000) who reported that stress on the job is higher for the married than the single.
However, the significant prevalence of role conflict and role overload for the married
shows that the married are more prone to stress arising from the two subscales. The
fact that these are found among the married librarians seems to be because of their
involvement in multiple roles of wife-husband, mother-father, and homemakers.
Moreover, librarians suffer stress arising from lack of job control, work overload and
poor clarity of social work relationships. From the foregoing, it would appear that the
higher stress level of the married could be attributed to their responsibilities outside
their workplace. There is no clear cut distinction between what happens in the house
and what happens in the work place.
Work Experience as a Predictor of Job Related Stress
From the analysis of Table 11, it is evident that work experience is a
statistically significant predictor of job stress among librarians. Except for role
ambiguity and role underload, work experience is also a significant predictor of other
stress areas. As the research finding (Table 10) shows, job stress depends on years of
work experience of librarians. Job stress decreases with the increase in years of
experience. Only those between 1-5 and 6-10 have been found to experience job
stress.
91
Further examination of Table 10 shows that job stress diminishes with increase
in years of experience. The older librarians experience less stress on their job. This is
expected because the older librarians have to some extent adjusted to the work
environment, built up social support system, have higher decision latitude, and known
some forms of stress prevention and management techniques. This finding is
consistent with Feitler and Tokar (1982) and Ngoka (2000). According to them, young
beginning teachers experience more stress and conflict because they must adjust to a
new job environment, establish new relationship with supervisors, colleagues, pupils
and parents, and develop teaching materials. The same applies to the fresh librarians.
They are yet to master the rudiments of their job. Thus, they suffer from poor clarity
of social work relationships, work overload, lack of job control, excess writing and
traveling for seminars, workshops and conferences. The experienced librarians do not
fidget over work issues that tend to worry the less experienced. Having worked for a
long period, they have experienced several clandestine and deceitful attitudes of their
clientele and continue to maintain emotional stability.
Implications of the study
The findings of this research work have the following implications for the
following groups of people involved in librarianship. These groups are the university
and library administrations, librarians, and the library users.
1. The librarians experience job stress in the areas of role conflict and role
overload, with role overload being the area of greater stress. This clearly
shows that these librarians have great conflicting demands made on them by
their innumerable clientele, library administrations and perhaps, their families.
They are equally overburdened with many tasks which exceed their resources.
Being highly overloaded these librarians are stressed up and perform
92
abysmally below expectations. For their poor performance, all the stakeholders
in university libraries do not benefit as they ought to in terms of productivity
and university ranking. The library administrations should reconsider how
assignments are given to librarians to help avert role overload and role conflict
experience.
2. The findings on age show that age is inversely related to job stress. This
depicts that the younger and the greater number of librarians are more prone to
stress. The older librarians who are fewer have minimal stress experience,
perhaps, because of their old age experience. However, since they are fewer,
only an infinitesimal number of library users will be fully benefiting from their
services. This shows that many of the provisions made in libraries by the
university and library administrations for effective teaching and learning
would be grossly under-utilized. It, therefore, becomes necessary that youth
age should be supplemented with aggressive, constant training and retraining
on the rudiments of librarianship to beef up their experience and cushion the
effects of youth age. After all, old age does not determine wisdom and
knowledge.
3. The result on educational qualification shows that job stress decrease with
higher qualifications. That depicts that the higher the qualifications a librarian
has the less job stress he experiences. Considered along this line, one notices
that university libraries and library users are both unlikely to benefit
maximally from the services of the librarians. This is because only very few
have their doctorate degrees and are less prone to library stress. The university
administration in conjunction with the library authorities should encourage
their librarians to pursue higher degrees so as to lessen job stress experience
93
and be able to offer proficient services. The situation where many Universities
in the Northern zones allow their librarians to go for study leave with pay is an
ideal way of salvaging the situation.
4. From the findings on gender, female librarians are more prone to job stress
than their male counterparts. This could be because many of the females have
other great responsibilities in their families. The conflicting demand nature of
their multifarious duties impose on them role based stress. This calls for a
restructuring of work activities to lighten the burden of work for females. If
relevant measures are not taken, teaching, learning and researches would suffer
in those universities.
5. The result derived from the analysis on marital status shows that the married
librarians are slightly prone to job stress than the unmarried considering their
(married) scores in role conflict and role underload. However, the overall
mean scores of the married and the single (unmarried) are equal. This depicts
that the two groups are not stressed. Therefore, there is no clear difference
between the married and the unmarried in their stress handling techniques and
job performance.
6. Result on work experience shows that stress on the job is inversely related to
years of experience. The newly employed who are more resilient, ebullient and
energetic are distressed, probably, because they try to carry out instructions as
given to them without editing them or matching theories with practice.
Moreover, they are yet to establish a strong social network system to help them
in case of stress. Those who have had many years of experience are
emotionally stable and not stressed on their job. However, they are usually
fewer in number. The authorities have to emphasize constant staff training and
94
development to experientially stem up those with less years of experience
otherwise; libraries may not adequately cater for their clientele.
Recommendations
Following the findings derived from this study and the discussions
given, the following recommendations are concisely made to improve the mental and
physical health of librarians working in South East and South-South zones.
1. Library administrations should attach greater premium to the personal
attributes of individuals in their recruitment policy as well as in the
restructuring of librarians’ job. This is necessary for the effective recruitment,
development and motivation of librarians. Moreover, these demographic and
work characteristics provide a good starting point for understanding and
predicting how people will respond under different areas of stress.
2. National Universities Commission (NUC) should establish National policy for
employee assistance programme (EAP) for all university libraries. EAP is a
work-based early intervention strategy which provides appropriate, timely,
professional and confidential counseling and referral services for staff and
their families. This is to assist them to identify and resolve professional,
personal health or work related issues. As a work place counseling, it is needed
in libraries for the resolution of role conflict and other psychological distress.
3. Encouraging librarians to pursue postgraduate studies. University and library
administrations should encourage librarians to go back to schools for higher
studies through the granting of study leave with pay. This is important since
higher qualifications attract low stress level.
4. Studies in stress and stress management should be integrated into the
curriculum for library study. This is to enable graduating librarians to be aware
95
of the causes and consequences of stress among librarians. With these at the
background, they would be able to avert, and or manage stress without letting
it affect their personal health.
Limitations of the Study
The followings are the limitations of this study.
1. The withdrawal of the services of my former supervisor from the University of
Nigeria, Nsukka was a great limitation. It made this study to linger beyond the
anticipated period of completion.
2. Another limitation is the delay in the collection of the filled instrument from
South Eastern state University libraries. These universities went on strike after
the distribution of the instrument, which delayed the collection, and reduced
the numbers that were collected back.
3. Another limitation has to do with the area of the study. Since only two zones
out of the six were used for this study, generalization of its result to the rest of
the zones in Nigeria is not automatic.
Suggestions for Further Research
In view of the findings and limitation of the study, the researcher suggests the
followings as areas for further research.
1. A study of this nature could be undertaken by other researchers on a wider scope.
Since this was done using only two geopolitical zones, the remaining four zones
may be used.
2. Other researchers could carry out similar studies using librarians in other academic
libraries such as colleges of education and polytechnics.
96
3. Other researchers could carry out a similar study on other areas of stress like the
task-based, stress within the person system, etc. which are different from the role
based stress.
4. Other researchers could carry out a similar study using only role ambiguity and
role conflict.
5. Other researchers could carry out a study of this nature using only two personal
attributes of age and gender.
6. Other researchers could carry out a study on the stress management techniques of
librarians.
Conclusion
In pursuance of our daily activities, we face restrictions, delays, illnesses,
failures, losses, conflicts and pressures. These hurdles have placed a greater
population of workers under stress. Nigerian librarians are not exempted. The new
expectations and the constantly changing role of librarians due to the dynamic nature
of information delivery have sparked off the stress level of librarians. Heightened by
the emergence of information technology in libraries, problems of funding, lack of
enough human and material resources, the librarians as part of human service
professionals are getting worse off. This will continue if not properly understood,
managed and weighed on the balance of personal attributes of librarians. Hence, the
emergence of this study; to investigate if personal attributes of age, educational
qualification, gender, marital status and work experience could predict the job stress
of librarians.
The purpose of this study was, therefore, to determine whether personal
attributes of librarians working in university libraries in South East and South-South
zones are predictors of job related stress. It was also to find out the areas of stress of
97
librarians. To actualize the above objectives, seven research questions were posed and
six hypotheses formulated.
The literature reviewed was carried out using three broad headings thus,
conceptual framework, theoretical framework and empirical studies.
While the research design for the study was descriptive correlation study, the
population of the study comprised all the librarians working in 28 universities in the
studied area. They were 354 in number. The instrument for data collection was a
questionnaire titled “Job- related stress inventory” (JSI). The instrument has two
sections. One contained the personal data of the respondents and the other has twenty
items which the respondents were requested to react to by indicating their degree of
agreement. The research questions were analyzed using means and standard deviation,
while the hypotheses were tested by means of regression analysis using Correlation
coefficient.
The analysis of data yielded the following results.
1. The librarians working in the university libraries in South East and South-South
experience stress in areas of role conflict and role overload.
2. Age is a significant predictor of stress among librarians.
3. Educational qualification is also a predictor of librarians’ job stress.
4. Gender does not predict job related stress among librarians.
5. Marital status is not a significant predictor of job related stress of librarians
working in university libraries.
6. Work experience is statistically a significant predictor of job related stress of
librarians.
7. Years of work experience has the highest predictive value, and was followed by
age, educational qualification, gender, and marital status.
98
It is the fervent belief of this researcher that librarians would carry out their
professional duties near stress-free and even possibly stress-free if the following
measures are put in place:
1. Library Administrations should attach great importance to the personal
attributes and work characteristics of individuals in their recruitment policy
and restructuring of the work of librarians.
2. National University Commission (NUC) to establish employee assistance
programme (EAP) for all university libraries.
3. Encouraging librarians to pursue their postgraduate courses
4. Studies in stress and stress management to be integrated into the curriculum
for library study.
99
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111
APPENDIX I
UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTH EAST AND SOUTH SOUTH GEO-
POLITICAL ZONES OF NIGERIA
S/N UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES NO. OF
LIBRARIANS
1. University of Calabar (Unical) Library Calabar 46
2. Nnamdi Azikiwe University Library (NAUL) Awka 16
3. University of Port Harcourt(Uniport) library Port Harcourt 16
4. University of Nigeria Library (UNNL) Nsukka 56
5. University of Uyo Library (UUL) Uyo 35
6. Michael Okpara University of Agric. Library (MOUL) Umudike 8
7. Federal University of Technbology Library (FUTOL) Owerri 16
8. Abia State University Library (ABSUL) Uturu, Okigwe 7
9. Cross River University of Technology Library (CRUTECHL)
Calabar
11
10. Ebonyi State University Library (EBSUL) Abakiliki 6
11. Imo State University Library (IMSUL), Owerri 8
12. Niger Delta University Library (NDUL), Wilberforce Island 16
13. Anambra State University of Science And Technology Library
(ANATECHL), Uli
7
14. Enugu State University of Science and Technology Library
(ESUTECHL), Enugu
8
15. River State University of Science and Technology Library
(RSUSTL), Port Harcourt
9
16. Caritas University Library (CUL), Enugu 2
17. Madonna University Library (MUL), Okija 1
18. Renaissance University Library (RUL), Agbani, Enugu 1
19. Akwa Ibom State University of Science &Technology Library 5
20 Federal University of Petroleum Resources, Efurum, Delta State 1
21 Ambrose Ali University Library, Ekpoma, Edo. 6
22 University of Benin Library, Edo. 16
23 Delta State University Library, Abraka, Delta State 36
24 Benson Idahosa University Library, Benin city 6
25 Igbinedion University Library, Okada, Benin city 6
26 Novena University Library, Ogume, Kwale, Delta state 2
27 Western Delta University Library, Oghara, Delta state. 5
28 Obong University Library, Obong Ntak, Akwa Ibo State. 2
Total 354
Sources: Culled from the concerned universities’ staff statistical records.
112
APPENDIX II
Table 1: MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION OF RESPONSES OF
LIBRARIANS ON ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF JOB
STRESS
S/N Stress Area Statement x SD Decision
Role
Ambiguity
1 Being unclear on just what the
scope and responsibility of my
job are
2.42 0.90 Reject
2 Unclear on who to take orders or
directives from
1.96 0.84 Reject
3 Unclear about what my boss
thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me.
2.71 0.88 Accept
4 Feeling unable to get information
needed to carry out my job
2.04 0.73 Reject
5 Unclear about what opportunities
for advancement or promotion
exist for me.
2.34 0.84 Reject
Grand Mean 2.28 0.35
Role Conflict
6 Thinking that I will not be able
to satisfy the conflicting
demands of those who have
authority over me.
2.50 0.83 Accept
7 Lacking freedom to select and
implement polices as they affect
my clientele.
2.88 0.93 Accept
8 Feeling that my work interferes
with my family life
2.90 1.00 Accept
9 Doing things on the job that are
against my better judgment.
2.65 0.79 ,,
10 Lacking effective
communication between me and
my supervisor
2.01 0.86 Reject
113
S/N Stress Area Statement x SD Decision
Grand Mean 2.55 0.38
Role
Underload
11 Feeling that I have too little
authority to carry out
responsibilities assigned to me.
2.46 0.87 Reject
12 Clientele do not bring in enough
challenging queries i.e. do not
present tasking problems.
2.17 0.81 Reject
13 Few clienteles come in for
academic directives and
guidance.
2.24 0.82 Reject
14 The same task is performed
everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity.
2.75 0.87 Accept
15 Doing the work, which could be
done by a less qualified person.
2.26 0.86 Reject
Grand Mean 2.38 0.23
Role Under
load
16 Feeling that I have too heavy
workload, one that I can’t
possibly finish during the normal
working day.
2.69 0.88 Accept
17 Clientele sometimes require such
urgent services that there are
hardly chances of meeting
expectations.
2.50 0.83 Accept
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on
librarians constitute a delay in
carrying out normal routine
work.
3.01 0.95 ,,
19 Clientele bring problems that are
too complex and brain tasking.
2.45 0.80 Reject
20 Excess seminars, conferences,
workshops tend to slow down
library work.
2.51 1.00 Accept
Grand mean 2.59 0.28
114
APPENDIX III
ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION
BETWEEN AGE AND JOB-RELATED STRESS.
RQ 2 Age of Respondents 20-30
38
31-40
100
41-50
123
50+
37
S/No Statement x SD x SD x SD x SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of my
job are
2.58 0.79 2.60 0.79 2.37 0.98 1.70 0.70 2.39 0.90 Reject
2 Unclear on who to take orders or directives from 2.18 1.01 2.02 0.85 1.88 0.79 1.68 0.63 1.94 0.83 Reject
3 Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me.
2.89 0.92 2.61 0.54 2.36 0.84 2.03 0.80 2.66 0.90 Accept
4 Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my job 2.08 0.71 2.06 0.66 2.11 0.81 1.92 0.68 2.06 0.73 Reject
5 Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or
promotion exist for me.
2.68 0.87 2.44 0.83 2.18 0.87 2.03 0.73 2.31 0.86 Reject
6 Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting
demands of those who have authority over me.
2.39 0.75 2.43 0.88 2.37 0.84 1.97 0.73 2.35 0.84 Reject
7 Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they
affect my clientele.
3.03 0.72 3.06 0.87 2.90 0.87 2.22 0.92 2.89 0.90 Accept
8 Feeling that my work interferes with my family life 2.32 0.74 2.95 01.00 3.11 0.96 2.43 0.99 2.87 0.99 Accept
9 Doing things on the job that are against my better judgment. 2.55 0.80 2.79 0.83 2.66 0.84 2.27 0.69 2.64 0.79 Accept
10 Lacking effective communication between me and my
supervisor
1.74 0.72 2.10 0.82 2.16 0.91 1.86 0.86 2.05 0.86 Reject
11 Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out
responsibilities assigned to me.
2.42 0.83 2.66 0.76 2.40 0.93 1.92 0.80 2.43 0.87 Reject
12 Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e. do
not present tasking problems.
2.32 0.74 2.31 0.83 2.05 0.84 1.97 0.76 2.16 0.82 Reject
13 Few clienteles come in for academic directives and guidance. 2.37 0.91 2.35 0.87 2.10 0.81 2.87 0.77 2.24 0.85 Reject
115
RQ 2 Age of Respondents 20-30
38
31-40
100
41-50
123
50+
37
S/No Statement x SD x SD x SD x SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
14 The same task is performed everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity.
2.76 0.85 2.77 0.80 2.73 0.90 2.11 0.94 2.67 0.89 Accept
15 Doing the work, which could be done by a less qualified
person.
2.32 0.81 2.39 0.90 2.32 0.87 2.08 0.72 2.31 0.86 Reject
16 Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t
possibly finish during the normal working day.
2.37 0.94 2.71 0.88 2.89 0.87 2.08 0.83 2.71 0.89 Accept
17 Clientele sometimes require such urgent services that there is
hardly any chance of meeting expectations.
2.34 0.64 2.36 0.79 2.86 0.80 2.43 0.49 2.28 0.75 Reject
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitute a delay
in carrying out normal library work.
2.74 1.11 3.01 0.89 3.15 0.90 2.08 0.85 3.00 0.93 Accept
19 Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain
tasking.
2.29 0.93 2.51 0.80 2.52 0.82 2.14 0.59 2.44 0.81 Reject
20 Excess seminars, conferences, workshops tend to slow down
library work.
2.63 1.08 2.57 1.06 2.57 0.98 1.89 0.77 2.50 1.02 Accept
118
116
APPENDIX IV
ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATIONAL QUALIFICATION AND JOB-RELATED STRESS.
RESPONDENTS
N =
BLS/BA/BSC/BAED
(81)
MSC/MA/MED/
MLS (185)
Ph.D
(32)
S/N Statement x SD x SD x SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of
my job are
2.60 0.77 2.36 0.92 2.03 1.03 2.39 0.90 Reject
2 Unclear on who to take orders or directives from 1.96 0.87 1.95 0.83 1.84 0.81 1.94 0.83 Reject
3 Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me.
2.85 0.88 2.59 0.90 2.56 0.84 2.66 0.90 Accept
4 Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my
job
2.06 0.73 2.10 0.74 1.88 0.71 2.06 0.73 Reject
5 Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or
promotion exist for me.
2.57 0.88 2.28 0.83 1.84 0.77 2.31 0.86 Reject
6 Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting
demands of those who have authority over me.
2.46 0.84 2.35 0.85 2.03 0.73 2.35 0.84 Reject
7 Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they
affect my clientele.
3.05 0.89 2.87 0.88 2.56 0.91 2.89 0.90 Accept
8 Feeling that my work interferes with my family life 2.70 0.97 2.92 0.99 3.00 1.05 2.87 0.99 Accept
9 Doing things on the job that are against my better
judgment.
2.73 0.77 2.63 0.78 2.50 0.92 2.64 0.79 Accept
10 Lacking effective communication between me and my
supervisor
1.90 0.83 2.13 0.88 1.95 0.82 2.05 0.86 Reject
11 Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out
responsibilities assigned to me.
2.57 0.81 2.43 0.85 2.03 1.06 2.43 0.87 Reject
12 Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e.
do not present tasking problems.
2.17 0.77 2.15 0.83 2.22 0.91 2.16 0.82 Reject
13 Few clienteles come in for academic directives and
guidance.
2.21 0.86 2.26 0.82 2.16 0.95 2.24 0.85 Reject
14 The same task is performed everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity.
2.89 0.71 2.57 0.91 2..72 1.05 2.67 0.89 Accept
15 Doing the work, which could be done by a less qualified
person.
2.35 0.81 2.27 0.87 2.47 0.92 2.31 0.86 Reject
117
RESPONDENTS
N =
BLS/BA/BSC/BAED
(81)
MSC/MA/MED/
MLS (185)
Ph.D
(32)
S/N Statement x SD x SD x SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
16 Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t
possibly finish during the normal working day.
2.60 0.92 2.74 0.87 2.81 0.97 2.70 0.89 Accept
17 Clientele constantly requires something new and creative
such that there is hardly any chance of meeting
expectations.
2.41 0.75 2.22 0.71 2.31 0.90 2.28 0.75 Reject
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitutes a
delay in carrying out normal library work.
3.12 0.94 2.96 0.92 2.94 0.95 3.00 0.93 Accept
19 Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain
tasking.
2.48 0.90 2.40 0.75 2.56 0.91 2.44 0.81 Reject
20 Excess seminars, conferences and workshops tend to slow
down library work.
2.74 1.03 2.39 1.02 2.44 0.91 2.50 1.02 Accept
118
APPENDIX V
ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN GENDER AND JOB-RELATED STRESS.
Respondents
N =
Males
127
Females
171
S/N Statement X
SD X
SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of my job are 2.26 0.84 2.49 0.94 2.39 0.90 Reject
2 Unclear on who to take orders or directives from 1.91 0.78 1.96 0.88 1.94 0.83 Reject
3 Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she evaluates me. 2.60 0.86 2.70 0.92 2.66 0.90 Accept
4 Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my job 2.02 0.71 2.10 0.75 2.06 0.73 Reject
5 Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or promotion exist for me. 2.19 0.79 2.40 0.90 2.31 0.86 Reject
6 Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting demands of those who
have authority over me.
2.21 0.78 2.45 0.87 2.35 0.84 Reject
7 Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they affect my clientele. 2.86 0.89 2.91 0.90 2.89 0.90 Accept
8 Feeling that my work interferes with my family life 2.91 0.98 2.85 1.00 2.87 0.99 Accept
9 Doing things on the job that are against my better judgment. 2.68 0.71 2.61 0.85 2.64 0.79 Accept
10 Lacking effective communication between me and my supervisor 2.02 0.82 2.07 0.89 2.05 0.86 Reject
11 Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out responsibilities assigned to me. 2.36 0.86 2.47 0.88 2.43 0.87 Reject
12 Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e. do not present tasking
problems.
2.08 0.80 2.22 0.83 2.16 0.82 Reject
13 Few clienteles come in for academic directives and guidance. 2.24 0.85 2.23 0.84 2.24 0.85 Reject
14 The same task is performed everyday giving no room for ingenuity and creativity. 2.51 0.88 2.79 0.88 2.67 0.89 Accept
15 Doing the work, which could be done by a less qualified person. 2.38 0.91 2.26 0.82 2.31 0.86 Reject
16 Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t possibly finish during the
normal working day.
2.74 0.99 2.68 0.89 2.71 0.89 Accept
17 Clientele constantly requires something new and creative such that there is hardly
any chance of meeting expectations.
2.21 0.72 2.33 0.77 2.28 0.75 Reject
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitutes a delay in carrying out normal
library work.
3.01 0.91 2.99 0.95 3.00 0.93 Accept
119
Respondents
N =
Males
127
Females
171
S/N Statement X
SD X
SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
19 Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain tasking. 2.38 0.84 2.49 0.79 2.44 0.81 Reject
20 Excess seminar, conferences and workshops tend to slow down library work. 2.42 1.01 2.59 1.02 2.51 1.02 Accept
120
APPENDIX VI
ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN MARITAL STATUS AND JOB-RELATED STRESS.
Respondents
N =
Single
61
Married
237
S/N Statement X SD X
SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of my job
are
2.41 0.78 2.38 0.93 2.39 0.90 Reject
2 Unclear on who to take orders or directives from 2.03 0.91 1.92 0.81 1.94 0.83 Reject
3 Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me.
2.72 0.92 2.65 0.89 2.66 0.90 Accept
4 Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my job 2.03 0.66 2.07 0.75 2.06 0.73 Reject
5 Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or promotion
exist for me.
2.43 0.83 2.28 0.87 2.31 0.86 Reject
6 Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting demands
of those who have authority over me.
2.43 0.78 2.32 0.85 2.35 0.84 Reject
7 Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they affect
my clientele.
2.90 0.81 2.88 0.92 2.89 0.89 Accept
8 Feeling that my work interferes with my family life 2.29 0.80 3.02 0.98 2.87 0.99 Accept
9 Doing things on the job that are against my better judgment. 2.62 0.78 2.65 0.80 2.64 0.79 Accept
10 Lacking effective communication between me and my supervisor 1.84 0.76 2.11 0.88 2.05 0.86 Reject
11 Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out responsibilities
assigned to me.
2.41 0.80 2.43 0.89 2.43 0.80 Reject
12 Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e. do not
present tasking problems.
2.39 0.82 2.10 0.81 2.16 0.82 Reject
13 Few clienteles come in for academic directives and guidance. 2.38 0.80 2.20 0.85 2.24 0.85 Reject
14 The same task is performed everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity.
2.80 0.81 2.64 0.90 2.67 0.89 Accept
15 Doing the work, which could be done by a less qualified person
2,25 0.81 2.33 0.87 2.31 0.86 Reject
16 Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t possibly
finish during the normal working day.
2.43 0.97 2,78 0.86 2.71 0.89 Accept
121
Respondents
N =
Single
61
Married
237
S/N Statement X SD X
SD Overall
mean
SD Decision
17 Clientele constantly requires something new and creative such
that there is hardly any chance of meeting expectations.
2.34 0.75 2.26 0.75 2.28 0.75 Reject
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitutes a delay in
carrying out normal library work.
2.82 1.01 3.05 0.91 3.00 0.93 Accept
19 Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain tasking. 2.36 0.84 2.46 0.81 2.44 0.81 Reject
20 Excess seminars, conferences, workshops tend to slow down
library work.
2.52 0.99 2.49 1.03 2.50 1.02 Accept
122
APPENDIX VII
ITEM BY ITEM ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION BETWEEN WORK EXPERIENCE AND JOB-RELATED STRESS.
Respondents 1-5
73
6-10
87
11-15
53
16-20
24
21-25
30
26-30
19
31+
12
S/N Statements x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD OV
M
SD D
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of
my job are
2.59 0.93 2.71 0.70 2.23 0.97 2.17 0.96 1.77 0.77 2.00 .75 2.17 1.03 2.39 .90 R
2 Unclear on who to take orders or directives from 2.00 0.94 2.00 0.78 1.98 0.82 1.88 0.95 1.67 0.66 1.89 .74 1.83 .94 1.94 .83 R
3 Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me.
2.78 0.89 2.95 0.79 2.47 0.91 2.50 0.98 2.47 0.86 2.00 .75 2.50 1.00 2.66 .90 A
4 Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my job 2.04 0.79 2.09 0.66 2.09 0.71 2.17 0.92 1.90 0.66 2.00 .75 2.17 .83 2.06 .73 R
5 Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or
promotion exist for me.
2.58 0.93 2.40 0.83 2.11 0.85 2.13 0.85 2.10 0.76 2.16 .83 2.08 .67 2.31 .86 R
6 Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting
demands of those who have authority over me.
2.43 0.88 2.37 0.85 2.36 0.79 2.42 0.88 2.10 0.84 2.16 .76 2.33 .78 2.35 .84 R
7 Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they
affect my clientele.
3.06 0.84 3.18 0.80 2.58 0.91 2.92 0.83 2.40 0.93 2.37 .90 2.92 .79 2.89 .90 A
8 Feeling that my work interferes with my family life 2.74 1.00 3.20 0.96 2.66 0.96 3.00 0.93 2.83 1.15 2.49 .84 2.75 .75 2.87 .99 A
9 Doing things on the job that are against my better judgment. 2.71 0.84 2.87 0.59 2.43 0.82 2.58 0.88 2.43 0.97 2.26 .73 2.67 .65 2.64 .79 A
10 Lacking effective communication between me and my
supervisor
2.03 0.96 1.94 0.75 2.17 0.75 2.38 0.97 2.07 0.87 1.89 .94 2.00 1.04 2.05 .86 R
11 Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out
responsibilities assigned to me.
2.48 0.91 2.74 0.74 2.21 0.82 2.41 0.88 1.80 0.85 2.58 .84 2.25 .87 2.43 .87 R
12 Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e. do
not present tasking problems.
2.26 0.87 2.22 0.69 2.09 0.84 2.21 0.98 2.03 0.85 1.95 1.03 2.00 .60 2.16 .82 R
13 Few clienteles come in for academic directives and
guidance.
2.29 0.96 2.18 0.72 2.23 0.73 2.38 1.06 2.03 0.85 2.32 .75 2.50 1.09 2.24 .85 R
14 The same task is performed everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity.
2.75 0.78 2.84 0.79 2.66 1.04 2.83 0.76 2.37 0.85 2.21 1.08 2.17 .83 2.67 .89 A
123
Respondents 1-5
73
6-10
87
11-15
53
16-20
24
21-25
30
26-30
19
31+
12
S/N Statements x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD x SD OV
M
SD D
15 Doing the work, which could be done by a less qualified
person.
2.32 0.86 2.34 0.79 2.49 0.93 2.17 0.96 2.07 0.93 2.26 1.05 2.25 .62 2.31 .96 R
16 Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t
possibly finish during the normal working day.
2.53 0.93 2.94 0.77 2.75 0.87 2.67 1.05 2.70 0.74 2.37 0.83 2.50 .80 2.71 .98 A
17 Clientele constantly requires something new and creative
such that there is hardly any chance of meeting expectations.
2.29 0.75 2.34 0.70 2.34 0.81 2.46 1.02 2.10 1.02 2.00 0.58 2.08 .51 2.28 .75 R
18 “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitutes a delay
in carrying out normal library work.
2.96 1.05 3.23 0.79 2.85 0.91 3.08 0.88 2.83 0.66 2.95 0.95 2.67 .78 3.00 .93 R
19 Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain
tasking.
2.42 .90 2.67 0.68 2.34 0.73 2.50 0.98 2.30 1.09 1.89 0.66 2.42 .79 2.44 .81 R
20 Seminars, conferences, workshops tend to slow down library
work..
2.59 1.09 2.91 0.91 2.15 0.93 2.33 1.09 2.20 0.96 2.11 0.99 2.08 .67 2.50 1.02 A
124
Department of Library and Information Science
University of Nigeria
Nsukka
08/11/2010.
Dear Sir/Madam,
REQUEST TO COMPLETE QUESTIONNAIRE
I am a Ph.D student in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of
Nigeria, Nsukka. I am carrying out a research on “Personal Attributes as Predictors of Job–
related Stress among Librarians in University Libraries in South East and South South
Geopolitical Zones of Nigeria”.
I am, therefore, soliciting your help in filling the items in the attached questionnaire. Note that
the information given will be considered privileged and treated with utmost confidentiality.
Thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Richard N. C. Ugwuanyi
125
JOB-RELATED STRESS INVENTORY (JSI)
SECTION A: PERSONAL DATA
Fill in the blank spaces or mark ‘x’ as it appropriately applies to you.
1. Age: 20 – 30 31 – 40 41 – 50 50 and above
2. Highest Educational Qualification__________________________________
3. Years of Work Experience 1 – 5 6 – 10 11 – 15
16 – 20 21 – 25 26 – 30 31 and above
4. Marital Status: Single [ ] Married [ ]
5. Gender: Male [ ] Female [ ]
SECTION B: ROLE-BASED STRESS AREAS
Instruction: Mark ‘x’ as it appropriately applies to you
Str
on
gly
Ag
ree
Ag
ree
Dis
ag
ree
Str
on
gly
dis
ag
ree
Role Ambiguity
1 Being unclear on just what the scope and responsibility of my
job are
2. Unclear on who to take orders or directives from
3. Unclear about what my boss thinks of me i.e. how he/she
evaluates me
4. Feeling unable to get information needed to carry out my job
5. Unclear about what opportunities for advancement or promotion
exist for me
Role Conflict
6. Thinking that I will not be able to satisfy the conflicting
demands of those who have authority over me
7. Lacking freedom to select and implement polices as they affect
my clientele
8. Feeling that my work interferes with my family life
9. Doing things on the job that are against my better judgment
126
Str
on
gly
Ag
ree
Ag
ree
Dis
ag
ree
Str
on
gly
dis
ag
ree
10. Lacking effective communication between me and my
supervisor
Role under Load
11. Feeling that I have too little authority to carry out responsibilities
assigned to me
12. Clientele do not bring in enough challenging queries i.e do not
present tasking problems
13. Few clientele come in for academic directives and guidance
14. The same task is performed everyday giving no room for
ingenuity and creativity
15. Doing the work that ought to be done by a less qualified person.
Role over Load
16. Feeling that I have too heavy workload, one that I can’t possibly
finish during the normal working day
17. Clientele constantly requires something new and creative such
that there is hardly any chance of meeting expectations.
18. “Publish or perish” imposed on librarians constitutes a delay in
carrying out normal library work
19. Clientele bring problems that are too complex and brain tasking
20. Excess seminars, conferences, workshops tend to slow down
library work.
