Profiles of Teacher Wellbeing and Effects on Instructional Quality in Racially-Diverse Upper Elementary Classrooms

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Prior research on profiles of teachers wellbeing has examined how teacher attributes such as burnout, stress, relationships, and self-efficacy, contribute to child outcomes, such as aggression (Aloe et al., 2014; de Jong et al., 2014). Most studies have focused on one or two of these indices (Bottiani, et al., 2019; Hagenauer et al., 2015; Lauermann & Konig, 2016); those with more complex profiles have largely ignored positive aspects of teacher wellbeing, such as autonomy and personal accomplishment (Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2015; Herman et al., 2018; Salmela-Aro et al., 2019). The degree of stress experienced by teachers has been found to predict differential behaviors towards Black students, suggesting that teachers’ overall wellbeing and subsequent perceptions of children’s behaviors may be partially influenced by students’ race (Bottiani, et al., 2019; Jacoby-Senghor et al. 2016). This study sought to explore a wide array of teachers’ psychological characteristics, in order to identify profiles of overall wellbeing. These profiles were then examined as predictors of the observed quality of their instruction, accounting for ethnic-racial diversity in their classroom.
This study draws on data from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of public upper elementary school teachers (n = 268) and their third and fourth grade students (n = 4,200; 65% Hispanic, 22% Black, 7% White, 6% Other) who were part of a school (n = 58) cluster RCT of a SEL intervention. Teachers’ levels of autonomy, relationships, personal growth, burnout, positive/negative affect, depression, anxiety, and stress at Time 1 were used to develop composite cluster profiles. Preliminary cluster profiles were developed using the mclust package in R (Scrucca et al., 2016), with three distinct teacher profiles. These profiles revealed teachers to be in high stress/low coping (n = 29), low stress/high coping (n = 104), or moderate stress/moderate coping (n = 135) classifications.
Multilevel modeling was used to predict observed classroom instructional quality in the following three dimensions: analysis and inquiry, quality of feedback, and instructional dialogue. Membership in the teacher profile of high stress / low coping was associated with significantly lower scores in analysis & inquiry and quality of feedback, adjusting for contextual characteristics including class size and classroom ethnic-racial diversity (see Table 1).
The current study affirms previous findings that teacher wellbeing predicts observed teaching quality, but it expands upon these findings by taking a person-centered (as opposed to variable-centered) approach, and considering positive characteristics (Aloe et al., 2014; Bottiani et al., 2019; Herman et al., 2018). Classroom diversity was not associated with these instructional dimensions of teaching quality after accounting for teachers’ wellbeing. Further research is needed to clarify why teacher wellbeing seems to be associated with certain classroom quality features and not others (for example, dimensions of emotional support).

Authors

• Olga Pagan, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Madeline Barry, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheniqua Jeffrey, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joshua L Brown, Fordham University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jason Downer, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Non-Presenting Author

• Diane L Hughes, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author