"It's All About Time": An Exploration of Educators' Stress Management Barriers, Facilitators, and Resource Recommendations

• In Event: Educator Well-Being

Abstract

Educator burnout has been linked to attrition (O’Brien et al., 2008) and diminished student achievement (Klusmann et al., 2016). Occupational stress substantially contributes to burnout (Skaalvik & Skaalvik 2017), which has spurred interventions to address educators’ stress (Iancu et al., 2017). However, most interventions were designed top-down (Iancu et al., 2017). The current study brought educators’ voices to the stress management conversation. Four focus groups were conducted with PK-12 public school educators. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted to explore barriers to and facilitators for stress management and desired resources. Emergent themes were grounded in Bandura’s triadic reciprocal causation and socioecological models and revealed important environment-individual relationships. Themes, definitions, and sample quotes along with implications for intervention design will be discussed.

Authors

• Cassandra Gearhart, University of Texas at Austin

• Moira Moran, The University of Texas

• Madison Blaydes, The University of Texas – Austin

• Travis Bauer, University of Texas at Austin

• Christopher J. Mccarthy, The University of Texas at Austin