Development of an instrument to measure stress among software professionals
K. S. Raja Rajeswari, Reddiyoor Narayanaswamy Anantharaman · 2003
This study investigates sources of negative pressure among software professionals, from the perspective of the software development process. A multiple response questionnaire (survey instrument) was developed to measure sources of pressure among software professionals, based on a series of interactions with academicians, software professionals and senior software professionals employed in software industry. Ten key factors that cause stress in software professionals are identified using exploratory factor analysis from 156 usable responses. These ten factors are found to explain nearly two-thirds of the variance. The results indicate that stress resulting from fear of obsolescence and individual team interactions account for maximum variance. The results reveal that the stress levels are not high, among the respondents of the current study. The implications of the study are discussed.