Job stress among general and special school teachers in Jahrom City, Iran

Introduction Teaching is among the careers which are associated with a lot of stress. Occupational or job stress is an unfavorable mental state which is caused by the workplace environment and can seriously impede employees’ performance. The purpose of this research was to compare occupational stress among general and special school teachers. Methods 84 teachers (42 were general school teachers and 42 were special school teachers) from Jahrom, Iran were selected as study samples. Special school teachers and general school teachers were chosen using convenience sampling and multistage random sampling methods, respectively. Parker and DeCotiis’s job stress scale was used to assess job stress. The collected data were analysed by two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results Results showed that job stress and its subscales were significantly higher among general school teachers than special school teachers (p <0.05); however, there was no significant difference between male and female teachers in terms of job stress and its subscales (p<0.05). Conclusions According to the findings of this study, the Ministry of Education is recommended to prevent job stress by improving the level of services in general school and holding workshops with the aim of offering teachers some coping strategies to deal with stress in schools

Evaluating the feasibility of constructing shopping centers on urban vacant land through a spatial multi-criteria decision-making model

Shopping centers are among the major economic and commercial places in cities in terms of social function, urban sustainability, environment, etc. Therefore, it is crucial to determine suitable locations for building new shopping centers. In this regard, urban vacant lands can be considered as high-potential locations to transform the urban landscape and enhance socio-economic development. The main purpose of this study is to assess the potential of urban vacant lands based on a spatial multi-criteria decision-making (SMCDM) system for building shopping centers in 22 districts of Tehran. In this study, first, 16 effective spatial criteria for locating the new shopping centers were identified using expert opinions and a literature review. The best-worst method (BWM) and the Min/Max method were used to calculate the weight and standardized values of each criterion. Then, the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) method was used to prepare a potential map of urban vacant lands for the construction of a shopping center under different decision-making scenarios, including very optimistic, optimistic, intermediate, pessimistic, and very pessimistic. Finally, the spatial distribution of potential locations in the 22 districts of Tehran was investigated. The results showed that among the different criteria, the distance from the highway networks and distance from public transportation stations had the most weight, whereas the distance from fault and distance from stream networks had the least weight. The number of vacant lands with a very high potential for building a shopping center in Tehran based on very pessimistic, pessimistic, intermediate, optimistic and very optimistic scenarios was obtained at 29, 95, 105, 122, and 224, respectively. An increase in the degree of optimism in the attitude of decision-makers or investors increased the number of available options in the very high potential category. Under all scenarios, all vacant lands in 10 of Tehran’s 22 districts with very high potential for building shopping centers. The results of the proposed model in this study can be useful and practical for a wide range of planners, decision-makers, and investors with different mental attitudes and risk tolerance. Close attention to these results can contribute to achieving sustainable urban development.Peer Reviewe