Mindfulness and Connection Training During Preservice Teacher Education Reduced Early Career Teacher Attrition Three Years Later

• In Event: Causal Evidence to Support the Development of an Equitable and Effective Teacher Workforce

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to examine whether training undergraduate preservice teachers (PSTs) in mindfulness and connection practices would allow them to better adapt to professional teaching, significantly reducing career attrition rates three-years later.

Perspective: Early career teacher attrition is at the nexus of persistent inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes for minoritized students. Teachers leave low-resource schools at higher rates (Sorensen & ladd, 2020), siphoning limited resources while creating a constant churn of inexperienced teachers being replaced by inexperienced teachers (Simon & Johnson, 2015). This churn is a major reason minoritized students are more likely to experience less effective teachers (Goldhaber et al., 2015). Although the high and inequitably distributed rates of early career attrition have been policy concerns for decades, there is virtually no evidence for PST education practices that reduce the likelihood that graduates will leave teaching during their first few years.

Methods: This blocked cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in collaboration with an early education PST program within a large midwestern research university. Blocked random assignment occurred at the cohort level (i.e., by licensure track). Participants (n=98) were followed throughout their final year of PST education and three-years post-graduation (four-years total). The likelihood of still teaching at in-service year three was tested using parallel quantitative methods (i.e., hierarchical linear modeling [HLM], Bayesian HLM, Firth’s bias reduced regression, Fisher’s exact test) to ensure robustness to modeling strategy.

The intervention was partially integrated into PST education during weekly cohort seminar across the first semester of the final PST education year. It consisted of nine weekly 1.5-hour sessions, two 4-hour retreat days (21.5 hours), and a requested 5-20 minutes of daily practice. The intervention was intended to develop mindful attention, acceptance, and connection (i.e., feeling connected to others, wishing others well). The lessons and practices were tailored to teacher experiences.

Data sources: The outcome was teaching status at in-service year-three (0=Not teaching, 1=Teaching). In addition, we conducted a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) on the intervention..

Results: There were no baseline group differences, no group differences in the types of schools participants worked in at in-service year-one and no group differences in turnover from low to high resource schools across the study period. The odds of intervention participants teaching at year-three were 4.44 to 7.78 times greater than control participants, depending on the model (all ps<.013; Figure 1 & Table 1). Every dollar spent on the intervention saved hiring districts an estimated $3.43 in replacement teacher recruitment and training costs.

Significance: Although many factors associated with inequitable opportunities and outcomes for minoritized students exist outside of school, teachers are a key lever in improving student outcomes, especially for minoritized students. This study suggests that training teachers in mindfulness and connection not only benefits their well-being, but also their career outcomes. The potential implications of reducing early career attrition on the educational opportunities of minoritized students are profound, made more so by the estimated savings to districts when teachers otherwise expected to leave stay.

Author

• Matthew Hirshberg, University of Wisconsin - Madison