Mental Stress and Its Relationship to Scientific Creativity Skills Among Middle School Teachers

Abstract

       The nature of the teaching profession and its performance behaviors are sources of mental stress in all countries with educational systems, regardless of their levels and the financial income of teachers and their different satisfactions. This, in turn, affects scientific creativity among teachers. Therefore, this study aims to identify the level of mental stress in its various dimensions and its relationship to scientific creativity skills. The descriptive correlational method was adopted, and the sample was selected using stratified random sampling with equal selection since the community is heterogeneous, comprising (170) teachers, with (85) male teachers and (85) female teachers from middle and secondary schools in Haditha city, Al-Anbar Governorate, Iraq. To achieve the research objectives, a mental stress scale was prepared by the researchers, and the (2013) scale for scientific creativity skills was adopted after making modifications to suit the research sample. The tools underwent statistical analysis procedures, and after processing the data using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), the results indicated that the sample members generally do not experience mental stress across all dimensions. There are differences in the cognitive stress dimension according to the specialization variable, favoring the humanities specialization. Additionally, there are differences in scientific creativity skills among the sample members across all dimensions. There is no statistically significant difference in scientific creativity skills according to gender and specialization. Furthermore, there is no significant correlation between the two variables in general; however, differences exist in the cognitive dimension of mental stress and originality skill within scientific creativity skills in a positive direction