Demands and Resources in Head Start Classrooms: Identifying Associations With Teacher Burnout

• In Event: Teacher Well-Being in Early Childhood Education: Essential Lessons From Large-Scale Studies

Abstract

There is ever-increasing concern about high stress and burnout among preschool educators (Smith & Lawrence, 2019). Theoretical and conceptual models of job stress suggest that teachers’ experience with burnout occurs, in part, because of an imbalance between job demands and the resources available to meet those demands (Bakker et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2019). For example, challenging student behavior or higher teacher-child ratios may contribute to more burnout for preschool teachers while positive staff relationships or intervention supports may reduce burnout (Bottiani et al., 2019). This study explored school-based demands and resources that contribute to preschool teachers’ self-reported burnout through the following research questions: (1) How do demands and resources relate to preschool teachers’ feelings of burnout? (2) How might demands and resources interact with one another to predict burnout?

The present study used data from the Head Start CARES Project, a large randomized controlled study that evaluated the effects of social-emotional learning interventions on Head Start classrooms. The larger study included 307 Head Start classrooms selected to reflect the geographic, racial, and ethnic diversity of the national Head Start population. Teachers assigned to the intervention group (n = 230) were used in the current study. Nearly all teachers were female (99.4%), a little over one-quarter were White (28.3%), and the majority of teachers had at least 10 years of teaching experience (66.9%).

Participating teachers completed a self-survey during the spring before the intervention year, which included information about their job-related emotional exhaustion and burnout (Maslach et al., 1996). In the spring of the following year (intervention year), teachers completed a second survey inquiring about their emotional exhaustion as well as their perceptions of various school resources including support from their center director and relationships with their teaching assistant (TA) and intervention coach. Teachers also reported on their teacher-child ratio and children’s behavior problems (BPI).

Regression analyses were conducted in Mplus7 (Figure 1). Results indicated that there was a significant association between TA relationship quality (β = -0.13, p < 0.05) and teacher-reported burnout. There was also a significant interaction between classroom BPI and TA relationship quality (β = 0.14, p < 0.05), such that TA relationship quality reduced burnout in classrooms with low and medium BPI but not in classrooms with high BPI (Figure 2). Finally, a trend-level association was found between director support (β = -0.09, p < .10) and teacher burnout.
Results highlight social support from assistant teachers as a potentially valuable resource in reducing teacher burnout. Prior research in preschool settings has identified collegial support as buffering against stress and increasing job satisfaction (Berlin et al., 2020; Hur et al., 2016). Given that assistant teachers are prevalent in preschool classrooms, the positive influence of the lead and assistant teacher dynamic has implications for leveraging, and further cultivating, existing school relationships to support teachers’ mental health. Findings also suggest that when child behavior problems are high, relationships with assistant teachers are not sufficient to reduce burnout and other targeted behavior management supports may be needed.

Author

• Lia E. Sandilos, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author