The role of stress resilience in the professional development of working teachers pursuing education in adulthood

Context and relevance. In the context of the lifelong learning paradigm, the number of adults combining professional activity with study is increasing. Due to their high professional workload, teachers represent a particularly vulnerable group, for whom combining work and study creates the risk of chronic stress, professional burnout, and deterioration of physiological health indicators. Objective. To identify stress resilience characteristics in the professional development of teachers combining work and study in adulthood and compare their psychophysiological indicators with those of other professionals. Hypothesis. It is assumed that teachers who continue their education will demonstrate higher indicators of stress resilience as a professional characteristic. However, this will be associated with more pronounced negative psychophysiological indicators, in particular, accelerated biological aging, compared to representatives of other types of intellectual work. Methods and Materials. 63 individuals combining work and study for a master's degree were divided into a group of teachers (n = 39, average age = 33) and a group of representatives of other intellectual professions (n = 24, average age = 37,6). A set of diagnostic methods was used: assessment of biological age (V.P. Voitenko), psychological age (K.A. Abulkhanova, T.N. Berezina), stress resistance (K. Schreiner, T. Holmes and R. Rahe), neuropsychic stability (“Forecast”) and mental performance (E. Kraepelin). For statistical analysis, Student's t-test and Spearman's correlation analysis were used. Results. Teachers combining professional and academic activities were found to have an elevated index of biological aging (BA-IBA = 7,1), indicating pronounced accelerated aging of the body. A correlation analysis in their group revealed significant associations: the higher the biological age, the lower the stress resilience scores and the higher the neuropsychic instability scores. Conclusions. The hypothesis that teachers experience a significant negative psychophysiological “cost” for combining professional and academic activities was confirmed: a higher biological aging index indicates accelerated aging, which leads to a deterioration in body function. Furthermore, the identified correlation between biological age and stress resilience specifically in the teaching group points to the existence of an internal mechanism of resource depletion: advanced biological aging is a key factor gradually reducing a teacher's adaptive potential.