Understanding the experience of stressors: The use of sequential analysis for exploring the patterns between various work stressors and strain

The availability of traditional self-report instruments for measuring work stressors may have diverted attention from exploring the way in which different stressors relate to one another. In order to develop a better understanding of the nature of the stressor experience a study was undertaken to explore the stressor–strain relationship using sequential tree analysis, a stepwise procedure that provides a “visual display” of the patterns and associations between stressors and strains. The study employed a sample of 695 principals and deputy principal teachers of secondary schools in New Zealand, who received a questionnaire measuring stressors and strains. SPSS AnswerTree® (version 2.0.1) was used to identify the patterns of association. The patterns of stressors that emerge from this analysis were used in a didactic or illustrative way to identify issues of measurement that may need to be resolved in order to derive a better understanding of the stressor experience. Different stressor patterns were associated with different levels of, but lower levels of strain were not simply the obverse of those stressors that cause higher levels of strain. Two not mutually exclusive issues emerge from the results, suggesting that stressor measurement practices may need to be reviewed. The first includes structural level issues such as considering the number, type, and potency of different stressors. The second includes issues best described as conditions of association. These concern understanding why different stressor patterns form, the relationship between stressors in those patterns, and the potency of patterns.