A Complementary Intervention to Promote Wellbeing and Stress Management for Early Career Teachers

Abstract

The educational climate and culture in our schools present a variety of environmental (contextual) factors that influence teacher wellbeing, job satisfaction, and work-related stress. The magnitude of contextual factors cannot be ignored, and directing attention towards the environment teachers face daily is essential. Primary (organisational)-level interventions are documented in organisational health and wellbeing literature; however, to provide teachers with stress management strategies for promoting wellbeing, attention must also be directed towards secondary (individual)-level interventions. The present study addressed the issue of stress management techniques for early career teachers (n = 24) and aimed to contribute to the research surrounding complementary interventions (CIs) for educators. The intervention was designed to include strategies that operated through cognitive and physiological mechanisms that regulated the stress response and increased awareness of behaviours, emotions, and reactivity. The self-report measures included perceived stress, attention awareness, subjective wellbeing, burnout, and job-related affective wellbeing. The results indicated a statistically significant decrease in perceived stress and increases in attention awareness and subjective wellbeing. The salivary cortisol levels (waking and resting) decreased from baseline to week 6, and the pre- and post-session salivary cortisol levels indicated an immediate decrease in cortisol for weeks 4 to 6.

Exploring a Complementary Stress Management and Wellbeing Intervention Model for Teachers: Participant Experience

“…The MAAS is more indicative of naturally occurring (dispositional) mindfulness, that is, mindfulness as a state, not a trait. Previous MBIs have investigated mindfulness as a trait and that was not the aim in the present study [44]. The MAAS has high convergent validity, test-retest reliability, and coefficient alphas ranging from 0.80-0.90, and the reported norm for adults was 4.2 (n = 436) [76].…”

“…Previous interventions for educators have focused primarily on mindfulness-based approaches developed for clinical applications and the treatment of stress-related conditions. For a summary of the existing research of mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) for educators, see [43,44]. Yoga, however, is more often associated with fitness and health promotion [45] and to date, limited studies examine the use of yoga-based techniques for stress management or wellbeing interventions for educators.…”

“…Figure 2 does not include "professional development" or "theoretical knowledge" as a technique for promoting wellbeing because the theoretical components are embedded within the overarching techniques and mechanisms. The theoretical components (detailed in [44]) were included in the intervention (detailed below) to provide a deeper understanding of the importance of the techniques and mechanisms for promoting wellbeing and decreasing stress. The theoretical components provided self-knowledge and understanding, which was an important aspect of teacher stress management [6].…”

“…The PowerPoint slides were scripted, and the physical practice had the same method of delivery and instruction to ensure the consistency of session delivery. A detailed outline of the intervention has been reported elsewhere (see [44,72]).…”

“…An exploration of the experiences of the participants below provides contextual information surrounding the qualitative data. The self-report (PSS, MAAS, PWI) and biological measures for Ashley represented the overall trend from the participant sample (participant sample findings are reported in [44]). Ashley was a first-year upper primary teacher in fulltime employment (aged 25-29 years of age) without any dependents.…”