Early Childhood Teachers' Physical Activity, Well-Being, and Life Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Early Childhood Professional Well-Being: Multiple Perspectives on Outcomes and Implications From Three Projects

Abstract

Improving one’s well-being and life satisfaction can be challenging even in the best of times. Early care and education (ECE) teachers, like everyone else, had little time to make what were often significant adjustments to their lives and self-care during the early months of the pandemic. Categorized early on as essential workers, ECE teachers served as frontline, non-health care essential workers early in the pandemic, which meant working under extremely stressful and anxiety-inducing conditions. Further, many ECE centers were temporarily closed or transitioned to online delivery, while others remained open (Bassok et al., 2020). These changes likely influenced ECE teachers’ well-being, including physical and psychological well-being, and life satisfaction, yet limited empirical evidence has been collected across states documenting these impacts.
Even before the pandemic, studies indicated that ECE teachers experience multiple challenges to their overall well-being due to job-related physical and psychological stresses (Linnan et al, 2017; Otten et al., 2019). Pre-pandemic psychological ill-being for ECE teachers was characterized by high levels of personal stress and depressive symptoms (Lessard et al., 2020; Roberts et al., 2016) as well as substantial job-related stress (Collie et al., 2020; Zinsser et al., 2013) and burnout (Herman et al., 2018). Lessard and colleagues (2020) found prior to the pandemic that ECE teachers had a higher prevalence of obesity and sedentary behavior—often more than 9 hours per workday (Linnan et al., 2017). These trends are important because poor teacher physical and psychological well-being are negatively associated with professional well-being and quality of care (Jeon et al., 2014).
To obtain a better understanding of the national ECE landscape during the early months of the pandemic, this mixed-method study examined its effects on the work and physical, psychological, and professional well-being of a national sample of 1,434 ECE teachers from 46 states. We aimed first to provide a descriptive account of teachers’ physical and mental health during the pandemic, followed by an examination of the association between their physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), well-being, and life satisfaction. Given the unique challenges and risks teachers may face by teaching modality (i.e., in-person, online, closed school), we explored these differences as well.
In summary, while many ECE teachers were committed to their work, moderately resilient, and try to have a positive outlook, they still faced stressful, challenging work environments. We found significant variation in work demands/challenges, well-being, and need for improvement across the three teaching modalities, with the highest risk group being in-person teachers; teachers in closed schools were the least at-risk, provided they were fully paid during the pandemic. Further, our SEM analysis indicated that teacher well-being mediated the association between PA, SB, and life satisfaction—emphasizing the role of physical activity on mental health and depression, but also the importance of providing more opportunities for teachers to engage in these healthy behaviors. Overall, our findings echo long-lasting concerns about the poor working conditions and well-being our ECE teachers, but also point to malleable teacher working conditions that can be leveraged in improving their well-being and life satisfaction.

Authors

• Timothy G. Ford, University of Oklahoma

• Kyong-Ah Kwon, University of Oklahoma

• Ken Randall, Oklahoma State University

• Jessica Tsotsoros, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center