The Development of an Instrument to Measure ELL Teacher Work Stress

The United States is emerging as a nation of increased diversity, with the projection that “minority” groups will contribute to nearly 50% of the U.S. population by the year 2050 (U.S. Census). This increasing diversity of our nation’s population reflects an increase in immigrant and refugee students coming into our public schools. Understanding sources of ELL teacher stress allows us to be better informed about the school experiences of teachers who work with immigrant and refugee students, and, as a result, provides a potential roadmap for how the school setting affects their work. As part of this goal, it was important to understand stress as a psychological concept, and to understand how it has been defined in past research. The purpose of the current study was to develop a measure of ELL teacher stress that highlights multiple aspects of ELL teachers’ work settings that impact their work stress. Ninety-eight ELL teachers, representing a national U.S. sample, took part in the study. Teachers completed an online questionnaire, which included the current measure in development, as well as a demographic survey, the Teacher Stress Inventory, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The development of the final 40-item measure is described in detail. Findings revealed that the current measure captures stress events unique to ELL teachers, and has both discriminant and predictive validity. The measure developed for this study, the ELL Teacher Stress Measure (ETSM), addresses a significant gap in the field—a limited understanding of ELL teacher stress—and presents a tool that is useful in a variety of school settings.