Teacher Candidates' Physiological Responses When Engaging in Simulations With Standardized Parents

• In Event: Preparing Teachers for Family-School-Partnerships: Exploring the Use and Impact of Clinical Simulations in Teacher Education

Abstract

1. Objective

Schools of Education are increasingly using simulations to prepare teachers for the challenges of classroom practice. Simulations are live, one-to-one interactions between a teacher candidate (TC) and a standardized student, parent, or paraprofessional. Since 2007, the author has situated TCs in a variety of simulations with standardized parents/caregivers. In post-simulation debriefings, TCs often report physiological stress responses (e.g., “…felt nervous in the simulation, but am now calm”; “my heart was beating faster”). Thus, we are exploring TCs’ physiological responses – heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) and physical movement (PM) – as markers of stress TCs exhibit when engaging in four distinct simulations with standardized parents.

2.Perspectives

Recent scholarship has focused on helping TCs more fully engage in the practices of teaching (e.g., discussing content with students, conversing with parents, or mediating classroom conflicts; Forzani, 2014). More fully engaging in the practices of teaching results in TC stress responses. The challenges of teaching have been examined through numerous, but dated, studies of teachers’ occupational stressors (e.g., Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998). Building from past studies, we examine TC stress within clinical simulations that approximate the uncertainties of teaching practices (Shulman, 2005), in consideration of the dual needs to better understand teacher stress (Wilhelm et al., 2000) and to better prepare TCs to engage with parents, families, and communities (Epstein & Sanders, 2006).

3.Methodology

In partnership with a medical simulation facility, we focused on stress response data as TCs (n=75) engaged in four different simulations with standardized parents. Using Polar H7 heart rate monitors and ActiGraph Link accelerometers, we gathered data on TCs’ heart rate, heart rate variability, and physical movement data. In comparison to these physiological data, we examined segments of each TCs’ video-recorded simulations with four standardized parents across a 15-week semester.

Mixed-method analyses distinguish the quantitative physiological data from the qualitative simulation videos. Physiological data are analyzed to identify changes in heart rate, heart rate variability and physical movement in fifteen-second increments. Simulation video analyses yield codes of the verbal triggers each standardized parent enacts, paired with each TC’s response to those specific triggers. This mixed-methodological analysis helps us understand if a standardized mother’s statement, “Tell me what you know about autism” increases TC heart rate and physical movement.

4.Significance

The significance of this scholarship centers on TCs’ physiological responses when engaging with parents/caregivers in carefully designed simulations. Physiological metrics are important to assess given that an exaggerated stress response (as captured by increased heart rate, and reduced heart rate variability) may impact TC performance. Recent research indicates an elevated heart rate during a medical simulation can predict impaired clinical decision making in medical residents (Clarke et al., 2014). An understanding of TCs’ stress response physiology as they engage with parents/caregivers may provide new insights on structuring and scaffolding teacher preparation coursework and clinical experiences.

Author

• Benjamin H. Dotger, Syracuse University