Confirmation Candidature - Stevie-Jae Hepburn

Embedding Teacher Well-being in the Workplace – Pre-service and Early Career Teachers

ABSTRACT

Teaching is one of the most rewarding professions, and yet an alarming number of teachers are affected by work-related stress and burnout. The effects of stress can permeate into an individual's professional and personal life and result in serious psychological and physical health concerns. Pre-service teachers and early career teachers are not immune to work-related stress, and symptoms of stress-related conditions can begin as early as the pre-service period. Teachers need to understand the importance of mental, social and physical well-being to adequately withstand the emotional and physical labour of teaching.

Recent studies have investigated the impact of Mindfulness-based Interventions for managing teacher stress (for e.g., Flook, et al., 2013; Jennings et al., 2017). However, few studies have investigated the benefits of mindfulness and yoga-based interventions for pre-service and early career teachers (Bernay, 2014; Miyahara et al., 2017). Even fewer studies have drawn on both qualitative and quantitative methodology to provide a detailed account of the experiences of the participants in Mindfulness-based Interventions. The mixed-methods design for the proposed study has been chosen to incorporate a breadth of measures including self-report questionnaires, weekly reflections, salivary cortisol samples and a semi-structured interview.

he proposed research comprises two separate studies and will investigate whether a natural level of mindfulness relates to perceived stress, psychological well-being and coping strategies. Additionally, the study will evaluate whether mind-body techniques can be explicitly taught to pre- service and early career teachers to reduce stress and burnout and improve well-being.