The research team set out to answer three linked questions: how prevalent role conflict is among female secondary school teachers, whether it differs between rural and urban locales, and what school leaders believe can be done to reduce it. The study was grounded in Role Theory, the framework developed by Robert L. Kahn and colleagues in their 1964 work Organizational Stress: Studies in Role Conflict and Ambiguity. According to that theory, every person occupies multiple social roles, each carrying its own set of expectations. When the expectations attached to two or more roles are incompatible, psychological strain follows. The authors distinguish three forms of the phenomenon: inter-role conflict, in which the demands of different positions clash, such as when motherhood and teaching both require time and emotional energy at the same moment; intra-role conflict, in which expectations within a single role diverge, as when students want warmth and flexibility from a teacher while school management demands strict academic rigor; and person-role conflict, which arises when the requirements of a role contradict an individual’s own values or abilities.

The theoretical backdrop matters because female teachers are, in the authors’ framing, especially vulnerable to inter-role conflict. Gender Role Theory holds that women are expected to carry a disproportionate share of household and caregiving labor, which raises the probability that their personal and professional roles will collide. The Work-Family Conflict Model adds that such collisions can be time-based, strain-based, or behavior-based, and that each variety can produce stress and diminished satisfaction. Earlier research cited in the paper links work-family conflict among teachers to elevated stress and burnout, reduced job satisfaction, lower psychological well-being, and higher turnover intentions, with work demands interfering with family life exerting a particularly strong effect. Yet, the authors note, little attention had been paid to how this conflict varies with the educational setting, the gap their study set out to fill.

Methodologically, the investigation was ambitious. The researchers employed a multistage, stratified random sampling procedure to recruit 450 female secondary school teachers from government schools in Kashmir, 254 from urban areas and 196 from rural ones, all of them teaching classes nine and ten. Quantitative data were collected using the Teachers Role Conflict Scale developed by Nain and Gupta, an instrument whose test-retest reliability coefficient was reported at +0.94 at the 0.01 level, with content validity established through expert opinion and item analysis. The scale measures six dimensions of role conflict. In parallel, the team gathered qualitative data through an open-ended opinionnaire administered to twenty Head Teachers selected purposively, chosen because their experience positioned them to offer informed perspectives on the remedies schools could adopt. Crucially, the qualitative and quantitative strands were collected simultaneously and independently, with the interview questions derived from prior literature rather than from the survey results, an embedded mixed-methods design the authors argue strengthened the credibility and depth of the conclusions.

The statistical analysis relied on descriptive and inferential techniques, including means, standard deviations, percentages, and t-tests, while the qualitative responses were subjected to thematic analysis, in which the data were read repeatedly, coded, and organized into recurring themes. The rigor of the process was assessed against recognized criteria: credibility, dependability, transferability, confirmability, and authenticity, supported by peer debriefing meetings, meticulous documentation of every research step, reflexivity on the part of the investigators, and adherence to the GRAMMS framework for reporting mixed-methods studies. Six response sheets were excluded during scrutiny for incomplete information, leaving the final sample of 450.

The headline quantitative result is striking for what it does and does not show. Eighty-two percent of the respondents reported a low level of role conflict, 15.4 percent reported an average level, and only 2.6 percent reported a high level. In other words, despite juggling teaching, administration, caregiving, and domestic labor, the large majority of these women reported managing their roles well or benefiting from supportive environments. When the researchers compared the mean scores of the urban and rural groups, however, the t-value of 0.46 indicated that the difference was not statistically significant. This finding partially complicates the study’s own summary observation that urban teachers experience higher conflict than their rural counterparts; at the level of mean comparison, geography alone did not separate the groups, suggesting that role conflict is shaped more by institutional and social factors than by locale per se. The authors themselves draw this conclusion in their discussion, arguing that the school environment, not the postcode, is the decisive variable.

The qualitative strand reveals what those institutional and social factors actually are. Among the negative forces identified through thematic analysis, excessive workload and multiple responsibilities ranked first. Head Teachers described teachers burdened with administrative and non-teaching duties that pull them away from their core instructional role. One respondent stated plainly that her school did not provide sufficient support because teachers were overburdened with multiple roles beyond teaching, and recommended that administrative tasks be assigned to dedicated support staff, that regular feedback sessions be held, and that duties be divided according to teachers’ interests. A second respondent spoke of tremendous pressure on working women in the education department to balance work and household, and proposed extra work be limited to the teaching domain, small breaks be introduced, and crèches or day care centers be arranged for the young children of teaching staff.

Staff shortages and uneven job distribution emerged as a second aggravating factor, with respondents pointing to insufficient staffing and favoritism by supervisors as sources of conflict, alongside a lack of proper job distribution within schools. A third theme concerned the absence of structured policies, with respondents calling for improved task allocation and supportive administrative practices. The fourth negative theme was inadequate work-life balance support; one Head Teacher recommended additional leave and flexible timings to counter the exhaustion created by the collision of school and family demands. On the positive side, the analysis identified congeniality of the work environment, where cordial relationships between teaching and non-teaching staff and a non-transferable posting foster mutual support; community building and flexible scheduling, including professional development integrated into work schedules or school breaks; and systematic workload management, including streamlining administrative tasks and investing in digital tools that reduce paperwork, grading burdens, and data collection chores.

The discussion situates these findings within the wider literature. The authors note that empirical studies consistently show female teachers face higher role conflict than male colleagues, and that their results align with work by Thakur, Chandrasekaran, and Guddattu, who found that role overload and unclear organizational structures significantly affect teachers’ psychological well-being, and by Saif-ud-Din and colleagues, who linked inadequate staffing and inequitable task allocation to stress and reduced professional satisfaction. The protective factors they identified echo the findings of Skaalvik and Skaalvik, who reported that collegial support, autonomy, and structured workload distribution foster job satisfaction and reduce burnout. The authors also acknowledge the study’s limitations: the sample is confined to a specific population of female secondary school teachers, limiting generalizability; the reliance on self-reported data introduces the possibility of social desirability bias; and the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference.

The conclusion the authors draw is that role conflict is not merely an individual problem to be solved by personal resilience but an organizational matter that can be reduced through planning and supportive management. In the Indian context, where women continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities, the stakes are especially high. Reducing structural problems, ensuring an equitable sharing of duties, and cultivating a positive, understanding school culture, the authors argue, can substantially lower role conflict, improve teacher well-being, and enhance overall school performance. For schools and policymakers, the practical prescription is concrete: address workload, clarify policies, promote a culture of cooperation, and provide a welcoming workplace atmosphere. As the teaching profession grows more attractive to younger generations of women, the study suggests that the mental health of educators, particularly women, depends less on where a school sits on the map and more on how the institution chooses to share its burdens.

Subject of Research: Role conflict among female secondary school teachers in urban and rural settings

Article Title: A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation of role conflict among female secondary school teachers across locales

Article References: Jan, M., & Jan, T. (2026). A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation of role conflict among female secondary school teachers across locales. Discover Education, 5(1), Article 1147. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-026-01898-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44217-026-01898-9

Keywords: role conflict, female teachers, secondary education, work-family conflict, mixed methods, urban-rural comparison, teacher well-being, workload management, Role Theory, Kashmir, school administration, gender roles

The research team, led by Silvia Gilardi with colleagues Alice Fattori, Daniela Converso, and Barbara Loera, set out to resolve a puzzle that has lingered since hybrid work became the dominant arrangement for knowledge workers worldwide. Studies of remote work conducted before and during pandemic lockdowns produced wildly mixed results, with some reporting boosts to autonomy, saved commuting time, and engagement, and others documenting isolation, role ambiguity, blurred work-home boundaries, and mental distress. The authors argue that much of this confusion stems from treating remote work as an all-or-nothing practice and from subsuming hybrid work under the broader category of telework. An employee who works from home one day per week, they note, lives a fundamentally different social and professional reality from one who works from home four days per week, and previous research rarely accounted for that temporal dimension.

To disentangle these dynamics, the team built their study on two complementary theoretical pillars. The first is the Job Demands–Resources theory, a central framework in occupational health psychology, which distinguishes between job demands—features of work that require sustained physical or psychological effort, such as workload—and job resources, such as role clarity, that help employees achieve goals and buffer the impact of demands. The theory proposes a dual process: demands trigger a health-impairment pathway leading to strain and anxiety, while resources activate a motivational pathway leading to engagement and performance. The second pillar is the transactional theory of stress and coping, which holds that employees appraise their circumstances as more or less controllable and then select coping strategies accordingly. When a situation feels manageable, people tend toward approach coping—seeking information, planning, and actively solving problems. When it feels overwhelming, avoidance coping—denial, distraction, disengagement—takes over.

The researchers focused on two job characteristics in particular. Workload was chosen because it has repeatedly emerged as the key demand affecting well-being among remote workers across sectors, including administrative staff in academia, where the abrupt shift to digital service delivery during lockdowns forced employees to redesign processes without adequate training, producing job intensification. Role clarity, defined as the extent to which employees receive clear and precise information about their duties, goals, and responsibilities, was selected because alternating between office and home requires greater self-regulation, and a clear understanding of expectations can reduce the ambiguity inherent in coordinating with colleagues one rarely sees in person. Well-being was measured along two psychological dimensions: anxiety, captured with the brief GAD-2 screening scale, and work engagement, assessed with the ultra-brief three-item version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, covering vigor, dedication, and absorption.

Data collection took place between October and November 2021, during the fourth wave of the pandemic in Italy. By that point, the vast majority of the Italian population had completed initial vaccination, hospitalizations were contained, full remote work was no longer compulsory, and employees could choose whether to participate in the university’s hybrid arrangement—of which the maximum allowed was eight remote days per month. Out of 1,989 eligible employees, 1,002 completed the anonymous online questionnaire, a response rate of just over 50 percent. The sample was 69.3 percent female, mostly aged between 51 and 60, and overwhelmingly composed of administrative and technical-scientific staff. Crucially, the distribution of remote work habits was far from uniform: 27.1 percent of participants worked exclusively in the office, 11.4 percent worked remotely one or two days per month, 19.2 percent worked remotely three to five days, and 42.3 percent—by far the largest group—worked remotely six or more days per month.

The analytical strategy was rigorous. Before testing any hypotheses, the team validated their adapted version of the Coping Strategies Inventory using Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling, confirming a clean two-factor structure in which approach and avoidance coping emerged as statistically independent dimensions, with a latent correlation of essentially zero. The main hypotheses were then tested with the PROCESS macro using 5,000 bootstrap samples to estimate bias-corrected confidence intervals, modeling coping strategies as mediators between job characteristics and well-being outcomes, and remote work frequency as a potential moderator of both direct and indirect pathways. All models were adjusted for gender and for fear and risk perception related to SARS-CoV-2, a control that mattered given the ongoing pandemic context.

The results told a coherent story. Perceived workload functioned exactly as the health-impairment pathway predicted: employees facing heavier loads reported higher anxiety and lower engagement, and these effects ran substantially through coping. High workload increased the use of avoidance strategies—things like avoiding thinking about the problem or withdrawing socially—which in turn raised anxiety and sapped the positive, energized state of engagement. Role clarity worked in the opposite direction, activating a protective cascade: employees who understood what was expected of them used more approach coping, such as working directly on solving problems and reframing situations constructively, and less avoidance, and this pattern translated into lower anxiety and stronger engagement.

Then came the surprise. The researchers had hypothesized, on the basis of the “boost effect” in Job Demands–Resources theory, that role clarity would matter most for those working remotely most often, and that workload would be most damaging for intensive remote workers, who face additional coordination burdens, technological friction, social isolation, and blurred work-home boundaries. The data refused to cooperate. Remote work frequency did not significantly moderate the direct effects of workload and role clarity on well-being, nor did it moderate the indirect effects flowing through coping strategies. Whether an employee spent zero days or more than six days per month out of the office, the psychological architecture linking job demands, coping, and well-being remained essentially the same.

The authors interpret this null result as a genuinely important finding rather than a failure of theory. It suggests that in a mature hybrid context—one where employees have accumulated experience with remote practices and can choose their degree of participation—the design of the job itself, not the location or the frequency of remote work, is what drives mental health and motivation. Hybrid work, in this reading, is not an independent source of strain or benefit but an amplifier of whatever the underlying job conditions already are. A poorly designed job with excessive demands will harm employees whether they perform it at a desk on campus or at their kitchen table; a well-resourced job will sustain them in either setting.

The practical implications are pointed. If the frequency of remote work does not change the psychological dynamics, then blanket policies restricting or mandating remote days are unlikely to move the needle on employee well-being. Instead, the authors argue, organizations should integrate individual-level coping interventions—training that encourages approach strategies such as problem-solving and cognitive reframing—with structural job redesign that reduces workload and sharpens role clarity for all employees, regardless of where they sit. Monitoring remote work intensity remains worthwhile, the European Working Conditions Survey data showing that intensive hybrid workers tend to log longer hours and work into their free time, but it should not be treated as the lever that determines psychological outcomes.

The study also fills a gap in a context that researchers say deserves more attention: the public sector, and higher education in particular, where hybrid arrangements spread rapidly in organizations with no prior tradition of flexible work. Italian universities adopted remote work abruptly in March 2020 under lockdown mandates and then retained hybrid models after three successive lockdowns, making them a natural laboratory for observing how hybrid dynamics play out when they are imposed quickly rather than cultivated over years. By studying this population at the moment when remote work became voluntary, the researchers captured hybrid work in something close to its steady state.

Limitations remain, as with any self-report, cross-sectional study conducted in a single institution during an ongoing pandemic, and the authors acknowledge that causal directions cannot be definitively established from correlational data. Yet the sample size, the response rate, the methodological care in validating the coping measures, and the careful adjustment for pandemic-related fear and risk perception all strengthen confidence in the central conclusion. As organizations worldwide continue to fight over return-to-office mandates, this research offers a reframing: the question that matters most may not be where employees work, but whether their workload is sustainable and their role is clear—because those are the forces, the data suggest, that actually decide whether hybrid workers thrive or buckle under the strain.