Evaluation of the Psychological Wellbeing of Special Science School Home Economics Teachers

: Due to the nature of the teaching profession, teachers at various institutions of learning across the world, particularly in the Nigerian setting, are obligated to take on more academic responsibilities than necessary. According to the literature, researchers attempt to assess the psychological health of instructors around the globe, but no such study has been done in Nigeria with respect to home economics teachers at special science schools. This study, which examined the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers at Nigerian special science schools, was inspired by the knowledge gap in the field. A cross-sectional survey research design with 156 home economics teachers randomly selected from the population of all home economics teachers in all the special science schools in Enugu State, Nigeria, served as the foundation for this study. A 42-item measure measuring psychological wellbeing was used to collect the data. The scale's psychometric characteristics were accurately estimated. Percentage, bar charts, and t-test of independent samples were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that the majority of home economics teachers at Nigerian special science schools were found to have very low psychological wellbeing. Further investigation indicated that school location has no significant influence on the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers. The researcher recommends that the post-primary school management board should establish a supportive academic environment that will promote the psychological wellbeing of the home economics teachers in special science schools.


Introduction
The mental health of teachers has recently attracted the attention of scholars as a fascinating topic of discussion.This is because statistics show that the majority of lecturers and teachers pass away due to one type of mental illness or another.When dealing with learners at various educational levels, such as elementary, secondary, and tertiary, where they may not be feeling well or truly feeling, the teaching profession poses a number of challenges (Rani & Pareek, 2019).A teacher has to work very hard at what they do in order to coach and motivate students.Teachers' days are typically very demanding in terms of energy, patience, class preparation, and health.Due to their demanding workloads, which include caring for their families in addition to teaching all of the primary school courses, teachers in the Nigerian educational system struggle with a variety of mental health issues (Ugwuanyi, 2023).Much focus has been paid to the research on how shifting academic circumstances impact teachers' well-being (Mudrak et al., 2018).According to research, teachers in Nigerian schools are more prone to suffer from mental health problems as a result of the negative working environment (Ugwuanyi, 2023).Mudrak et al. (2018) reported that public universities worldwide have undergone significant changes in recent decades, including massification, rising internationalization, increasing emphasis on the relevance of academic work, and the growing influence of university management, which have changed the nature of academic work and workplaces.The impacts of this global transition on academics' welfare are also reportedly the subject of a contentious debate, with studies suggesting that these effects vary significantly across cultural and contextual contexts (Mudrak et al., 2018).
Similarly, this decade has seen a lot of discussion about psychological well-being in Indonesia (Muqodas et al., 2020).There has been substantial progress in understanding the factors determining psychological health, and psychologists and other social scientists are now worried about the mental health of the academic staff (Kenku et al., 2023).The concept of psychological well-being is used to describe how people feel about, perceive, or evaluate their lives (Kenku et al., 2023).According to Kenku et al. (2023), psychological wellness refers to how frequently people experience positive or negative feelings and moods, which can have a positive or negative effect.Some people describe psychological wellness as the condition in which each lecturer or instructor reaches his or her capacity to control the regular stressors of teaching, work effectively and productively, and be able to contribute to the institution (White et al., 2014).It communicates how frequently people experience good or poor moods and feelings that have an impact on their life (Kenku et al., 2023).
People therefore experience some degree of subjective wellbeing even when they do not frequently actively analyze it, and their psychological system gives a practically constant assessment of their condition.Operationally, psychological wellbeing is the indicator of a person's level of health and sound mental condition, which enables them to function at their best.The direction of the university environment requires individuals with strong mental and psychological health, according to Kenku et al. (2023).According to Hezomi and Nadrian (2018), perceived stress was negatively connected with psychological wellbeing.Psychological wellbeing and emotional control were significant predictors of professional engagement, with psychological wellbeing appearing to be the best predictor among British and Iranian teachers (Greenier et al., 2021).Research has shown that stress at work negatively impacts employees' health and wellbeing (Cortese et al., 2019).Aza-Montes et al. (2018) found that psychological demands at work predicted psychological wellbeing less significantly than physical demands.There is evidence that positive personality and positive coping predict wellbeing positively, whereas negative personality and negative coping predict wellbeing negatively (Williams et al., 2017).Occupational demands, occupational control, and social support significantly impacted teachers' psychological health (Ibrahim et al., 2021).
Different work settings have a major impact on teachers' psychological health, with some having a positive impact and others having a negative impact (Kwon et al., 2021).Psychological well-being is significantly influenced by emotional intelligence (Pauletto et al., 2021).Employee happiness is directly influenced by the workplace environment (Hvali-Touzery et al., 2020).The foregoing established that there is a dearth of literature on the psychological wellbeing of teachers in the Nigerian context since the above-reviewed studies are foreign.

Statement of Problem
Due to the nature of the teaching profession, teachers at various institutions of learning across the world, particularly in the Nigerian setting, are obligated to take on more academic responsibilities than necessary.Moreover, mental health of teachers has recently attracted the attention of scholars as a fascinating topic of discussion.This is because statistics show that the majority of lecturers and teachers pass away due to one type of mental illness or another.Based on this, it can be stated that the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers in special science schools is not well understood in the Nigerian setting because the reviewed studies on psychological wellbeing are foreign.This gap in literature served as the foundation for this study, which examined the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers in Nigerian special science schools.

Purpose of the Study
The general purpose of this research was to assess the level of psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers in Enugu State, Nigeria.Specific purpose is to: (a) the level of psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Enugu State.
(b) the variation in the level of psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Enugu State based on school location.

Research Questions
The following research question guided the study:

Hypothesis
This hypothesis tested at 5% probability levels was formulated for the research.
Ho: There is no significant difference in the mean psychological wellbeing ratings of special science school home economics teachers based on school location.

Design for the Study
The researcher adopted a cross-sectional survey research design.When doing a cross-sectional study, you gather information from a large number of individuals all at once.

Ethics Statement
The researcher sought authorisation to conduct the study at the university and ethical approval from the education faculty committee on research ethics at the University of Nigeria in accordance with the ethical standards of the university.The participants were also given informed consent forms to complete and sign before the data collection started.
The study site for this research was Enugu State.Enugu state is one of the states in southeast Nigeria.The state has 17 Local Government Areas.

Population and Sample
In a population of special science school home economics teachers in Enugu State, a sample of 156 teachers was conveniently sampled for the study.The convenient sampling technique enabled the researcher to use the teachers who were disposed for the research at the time of data collection.

Instrument for Data Collection
Data were collected using a 28-item psychological wellbeing scale.The scale was modified by the researcher to create a 4-point Likert scale.To determine the instrument's face validity, experts in educational psychology, measurement, and evaluation reviewed the draft and made recommendations that would help the researcher accomplish her objectives.The researcher gave 20 copies of PWS to 20 home economics instructors at special schools in the state of Imo in order to evaluate its validity.The findings revealed that PWS had a reliability score of 0.84.

Data Collection Technique
The secondary school administration provided the researcher with a gatekeeper letter and ethical approval for the project before collecting data.It took an average of four weeks to collect the data.Each participant was given an average of 40 minutes to respond to the items of the questionnaire.The researcher and three research assistants administered and collected copies of the questionnaire.

Data Analysis Technique
Data collected were analysed using the statistical package for social sciences version 25.0 in order to get percentage, bar chart, mean, standard deviation and independent samples t-test results.
The research questions were answered using percentage, bar chart, mean, standard deviation while the hypothesis was tested at 5% probability levels using independent samples t-test.

Research question one:
What is the level of psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Enugu State?: 3.50 -4.00 = very low; 2.50 -3.49 = low, 1.50 -2.49 = high, 1.00 -1.49 = very high Table 1 shows that the mean ratings of the special science school home economics teachers on items 1-16, 22, 24 and 28 are within the mean range of 3.50 to 4.00 indicating that they have very low level of psychological wellbeing with respect to those items.For items 17-21, 23, 25-27, their mean ratings are within 2.50 to 3.49 indicating low level of psychological wellbeing.However, the overall mean rating of 3.50 with a standard deviation of .76indicates that the special science schools' home economics teachers have very low level of psychological wellbeing.This is also depicted in Figure 1.

Research question two:
What is the difference in the psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Nigeria based on school location?

Hypothesis one:
There is no significant difference in the mean psychological wellbeing ratings of special science school home economics teachers based on school location.very low level of psychological wellbeing.This is evident in Figure 2. Table 2 revealed that there is no significant difference in the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers based on school location, t (154) = .712,p = .477.This implies that the null hypothesis was not rejected implying that the school location does not determine the psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers.
This research sought to explore the psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers using a cross-sectional survey research design.The findings of this study revealed among other things that special science schools' home economics teachers had a very low level of psychological wellbeing.Moreover, it was further revealed that the school location does not significantly determine their psychological wellbeing.This finding may have been this way considering the fact that most Nigerian school environments are not conducive for the teaming population of the teachers.For example, the experiences of many special science schools' home economics teachers are not encouraging in any way.These teachers work overtime and do not have access to a good working environment.The quest for further studies by most teachers also contributes to their workload.All these factors may be responsible for the low psychological wellbeing found in this research.
on teachers' psychological wellness (Ibrahim et al., 2021).Different work settings have a major impact on teachers' psychological health, with some having a positive impact and others having a negative impact (Kwon et al., 2021).These conclusions are supported by research by Ariza-Montes et al. ( 2018), which discovered that psychological demands at work were more significant in predicting psychological wellness than physical demands.Williams et al.'s (2017) research also indicated that while job demands and negative coping were found to adversely predict wellbeing, positive personality and positive coping were shown to favorably predict wellbeing.The demands of their jobs, occupational control, and social support have a substantial impact on teachers' psychological health (Ibrahim et al., 2021).The study by Ariza-Montes et al. ( 2018) indicated that psychological demands at work were more significant in predicting psychological wellness than physical demands, which is consistent with our findings.In addition, Williams et al. (2017) observed that while job demands and negative coping adversely predicted wellbeing, positive personality and positive coping positively predicted wellbeing.According to Ibrahim et al. (2021), the demands of a teacher's job, occupational control, and social support all had a substantial impact on their psychological health.
The finding of this study has practical implications for the effective teaching and other academic responsibilities of special science school home economics teachers.This is for the fact that if the psychological wellbeing of the special science schools' home economics teachers is not improved, their teaching and other academic responsibilities will not be effectively carried out.The non-inclusion of the teachers' demographic characteristics such as gender, age, marital status and educational qualification may limit the generalizability of the findings of this study.Thus, future researchers can replicate this research with the inclusion of such demographics of the teachers.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of this research, the researcher concluded that special science school home economics teachers had low psychological wellbeing.Moreover, the level of psychological wellbeing of the special science school home economics teachers is not dependent on the location of their schools.Thus, it is recommended that the post primary school management board should create a conducive working environment that will enhance the psychological wellbeing of the special (a) What is the level of psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Enugu State?(b) What is the difference in the psychological wellbeing of special science school home economics teachers in Nigeria based on school location?

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Level of psychological wellbeing of home economic teachers Figure 1 shows that 61.5% of the home economics teachers had very low level of psychological wellbeing, 19.2% had low psychological wellbeing, 11.5% had high psychological wellbeing while 7.7% had very high psychological wellbeing.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Bar chart representation of the level of psychological wellbeing of teachers based on school location

Table 1 :
Mean analysis of the psychological wellbeing level of special science school home

Table 2 :
Mean and t-test analyses of the psychological wellbeing of home economics teachers based Ugwuanyi International Journal of Home Economics, Hospitality and Allied Research (ISSN: 2971-5121) https://ijhhr.org/Page | 24