The Long-Term Effects of the CARE for Teachers Program on Teachers' Well-Being and Classroom Quality: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial of Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education

• In Event: 52.074 - Teacher, Classroom, and Student Impacts of Teacher Mindfulness Programs in Elementary and Middle School Settings

Abstract

Teachers’ social and emotional competence and well-being impact their ability to cultivate and maintain quality learning environments and manage occupational stressors (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). CARE is a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to reduce stress, promote social and emotional competence, and improve teachers’ performance and classroom learning environments through emotion skills training and mindfulness exercises specifically for teachers.

Positive effects of CARE on teachers, classrooms and students have been demonstrated in several studies (Jennings et al., 2011; 2013). Most recently, CARE was evaluated with large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial (IES #R305A140692). The study involved 224 racially diverse teachers in 36 different New York City elementary schools. Using a cluster randomized controlled design, the present study aimed to test the impact of CARE for Teachers on changes over one year by examining data collected at three time points (Fall-Spring-Fall) in trajectories of teacher personal distress, time urgency, mindfulness, adaptive emotion regulation and efficacy. Primary study outcomes between pre- and post-intervention were analyzed using 2-level Hierarchical Linear Models to account for the clustering of teachers within schools. Analyses showed that at post (Spring) CARE had significant direct positive effects on personal distress (p=.047), time urgency (p=.02), mindfulness (p=.007), and adaptive emotion regulation (p = .005) (Jennings et al., 2016).

For the present study we used three-level hierarchical linear growth models (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002; Singer & Willett, 2003) to examine the effects of CARE on changes in the same variables from the fall of one school year to the fall of the following year. The impacts of CARE were estimated for the intercept (i.e., initial status at pre-test) and linear slope parameters (i.e., linear rate of change). There were no significant baseline differences between the CARE and control groups for any outcome measure. We found significant time-by-intervention interactions for personal distress ( = -0.12, < .01), but time urgency and efficacy did not significantly differ between the two groups over time. This result indicates that self-reported personal distress declined at a significantly higher rate for teachers who participated in CARE versus those in the control group. A rate of decline per time unit was 0.12 points greater in the intervention group than the control group. We found a marginally significant time-by-intervention interaction for mindfulness ( = 0.05, < .10). This indicates that self-reported mindfulness improved at a rate of 0.05 points faster for CARE teachers than for control teachers. We also found a significant CARE impact on linear change in emotion regulation ( = 0.18, < .001). The result indicated that CARE teachers’ emotion regulation scores increased, on average, at a per time unit rate of 0.18 points higher than those of their control counterparts. The results demonstrated that the teachers’ reductions in personal distress and the improvements in mindfulness and emotion regulation as a result of participating in CARE were sustained over the course of an entire year including the transition from one school year to the next.

Authors

• Patricia A. Jennings, University of Virginia

• Joshua L. Brown, Fordham University

• Jennifer L Frank, The Pennsylvania State University

• Sebrina Doyle, The Pennsylvania State University

• Yoonkyung Oh, The Pennsylvania State University

• Regin Tanler, Fordham University

• Damira S Rasheed, Fordham University

• Anna DeWeese, Fordham University

• Anthony DeMauro, University of Virginia

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University