The Impact of COVID-19 on Early Childhood Teacher Burnout

• In Event: COVID-19 and the Early Childhood Workforce: Analysis of Risk, Wellbeing, Resilience, and Modified Teaching Modalities

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unique challenges for the field of early child education. Burnout and turnover among early childhood teachers was a persistent problem in the United States pre-pandemic. Research on teacher burnout indicates that it impacts not only teacher outcomes but multiple student outcomes (Shen, et al., 2015). The added layers of stress from the pandemic coupled with stress surrounding the wellbeing of themselves and the children in their care may lead to increased levels of emotional exhaustion and burnout.

As part of a grant focused on the development of mindfulness and executive function skills in early childhood students from low income households, teachers were surveyed to measure their own levels of burnout and wellbeing. Time point two data collection regarding teacher burnout and wellbeing coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines teacher burnout before and during pandemic and how teacher participation in grant activities affected their wellbeing.

Teacher burnout was measured using the Maslach-Burnout Inventory-Educator’s Survey (MBI-ES, Maslach, Jackson & Schwab, 1986) a 22-item survey with three subscales: Emotional Exhaustion, Depersonalization and Personal Accomplishment. Items are rated on a 7-point Likert-type from Never (0) to Everyday (6). Focus groups with teachers from each grantee site were also conducted by members of their local evaluation team. Focus group questions focused on teacher wellbeing, interactions with families during the pandemic and the impact on site-level programming. Teachers from 12 high-quality early childhood sites completed the online survey in the spring of 2019 and 2020 (n=212).

Descriptive analyses of teacher scores on the MBI-ES on the MBI showed elevated levels of emotional exhaustion with over 50% of teachers scoring in the high category at time 1 and time 2. However, nearly all were in the high category for personal accomplishment (95%). Multilevel modeling found no significant change in scores from time 1 to time 2 in any of the MBI subscales. However, teacher position, organization tenure, and teacher depression were significant predictors of emotional exhaustion. Teacher depression was also a significant predictor of depersonalization. There was minimal variability in scores between sites. Qualitative analysis of the focus group responses indicated that while the pandemic forced sites to pivot on delivery, all sites continued to served families and students. The grant activities allowed staff to focus on meaningful and intentional parent engagement, provided support and recognition of the need for self-care and provided social and emotional learning opportunities for staff, students and parents. Most frequently, teachers discussed the critical importance of having learned and practiced mindfulness and other self-regulation strategies prior to COVID 19. Many responses indicated these practices had positively impacted how they were able to handle the stress and uncertainty of the pandemic and how the self-care practices were essential to emotional wellbeing.

While the pandemic impacted sites and teachers, the staff and sites were able to absorb the stress and uncertainty without significant increases to their levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment.

Group Authors

Jolene Johnson, Amy Encinger, University of Nebraska Medical Center
[email protected], [email protected]

Authors

• Jolene Johnson, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)
  Presenting Author

• Amy Encinger, University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC)
  Non-Presenting Author