Variation in Responses to Professional Development on Trauma and Resilience: A Mixed Methods Approach

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Prevention and Interventions

Abstract

Supporting adults to nurture resilience with young children experiencing trauma is paramount to advancing public health. Early care and education (ECE) is a particularly important context for these efforts, given that the majority of young children attend ECE prior to kindergarten (National Survey of Early Care and Education, 2016). Professional development focused on trauma and resilience are emerging and recent evidence suggests they can positively impact teacher-child interactions, and children’s engagement and skill development (Lipscomb et al., 2020). To advance understanding of interventions and their impacts, however, researchers must complement studies of overall impact with examinations of individual differences in responses to interventions, such as adherence and engagement (Berkel et al., 2011) and multifinality (Cichetti & Rogosch, 1996) in outcomes. The current study examines participants’ responses to the Roots of Resilience professional development program for ECE teachers.
This study examines interviews (7 participants), and mixed-methods case studies (5 of the 7 interviewees) within a broader study (authors masked for review, 2020) to examine themes characterizing similarities and differences in how participants respond to the program. The remaining two interviewees had been in the waitlist control during the pre-post period and thus did not have quantitative data post-intervention. Participants all identified as female and worked in Head Start (n=4), Home-based (n=2), and Center-based programs (n=1). Qualitative data consist of interviews and open-ended survey questions about impacts of the program, following participation. Interview transcripts were examined through content analysis (Cho & Lee, 2014), coded by two researchers for reliability. Quantitative data were collected before and after participation, and included systematic observations of teacher-child interaction quality with the Emotional Support domain of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (Pianta et al. 2008), and teacher-reports of self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk, 2001), classroom chaos (Wachs et al., 2004), and family-teacher relationships quality (Kim et al., 2015).
Interviews revealed three themes in teachers’ responses to the intervention, and also individual differences within themes (see Table 1). For example, all seven teachers described changes in thinking as a result of participation in Roots of Resilience, ranging from more awareness to more intentionality and consideration of trauma as a source of challenging behaviors. Five teachers reported improved daily interactions with children and six described improvements in their self-care and/or self-regulation, with variation across teachers in how changes were exhibited.
Findings from mixed-methods case studies (Yin, 2009) revealed that although all teachers showed adherence to the program, and moderate or high engagement, they showed multifinality in outcomes: teachers differed in the breadth and types of changes (Table 2). For example, cases A2 and B showed broad improvements in thinking, practices, self-care, self-efficacy, relationships with children and families, as well as observed interactions (CLASS). In contrast, Case C showed changes in thinking, knowledge and specific practices with a particular child, but a slight decline in classroom-level interactions (CLASS). This poster will use graphics and quotes to illustrate findings from Table 2, and add contextual information to explain the differences. Implications for intervention and research will be discussed.

Authors

• Shannon Tierney Lipscomb, Oregon State University
  Presenting Author

• Bridget E Hatfield, Oregon State University - Corvallis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hillary Ross Lewis, Oregon State University - Corvallis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emiko Goka-Dubose, Oregon State University Cascades Campus
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina Jaderholm, Oregon Health & Science University
  Non-Presenting Author