Mindful development: Promoting psychological and professional well-being of Palestinian teachers during Covid-19

• In Event: Educator Well-being During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Teaching is a stressful occupation, with heavy workloads leading to teacher burnout, reduced self-efficacy, and lower self-esteem (Bottiani et al., 2019; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2015). Previous research has found that chronic teacher stress and burnout can disrupt teacher-student relationships, which negatively affects student learning (Katz et al., 2016). Furthermore, COVID-19 has created additional stress for teachers worldwide since the end of 2019, which includes limited technology, the stress of virtual teaching, and balancing home and work life (Klapproth et al., 2020; Pressley et al., 2021). Whereas research has found that mindfulness interventions (MI) have the potential to promote psychological and behavioral changes in teachers (Taylor et al., 2016, Flook et al., 2013), only a few studies have tested it in the context of increased negative stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Keleynikov et al., 2022). Additionally, previous research on teacher MI has lacked attention to Palestinian teachers in Israel, who work amidst protracted conflict, social and economic discrimination, and its accompanying phenomena of misidentification and misrepresentation (Saada & Gross, 2019; Tatar et al., 2014). It is critical to investigate the psychological conditions of Arab teachers at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, while examining the protective role that participation in MI may play.

165 (n MI=41, n control group=124) female preschool teachers (M=43.3 years, SD=9.03) participated in this study. No baseline differences were found between the two groups of participants. Participants' demographic information, positive outcomes measures (i.e., satisfaction with life, empathy, social decentering, emotion regulation, self-compassion, sense of teacher efficacy, work engagement), and negative outcome measures (i.e., perceived stress, rumination, risk of burnout) were collected through self-report questionnaires. A 2 (group: MI, control) x 4 (time: pre-test; post-test; follow-up; Covid follow-up2) ANOVA with repeated measures on the last variable was conducted to assess the effectiveness of the MI on all measures over the four time points. Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni adjustments for inflated Type-I error were conducted to explore significant main and simple main effects.
Our findings reveal that participants in the MI, compared to control group participants, significantly increased in empathy, social decentering, emotion regulation, and self-compassion over time (see significant ANOVA results in Table 1 and pairwise comparisons in Table 2). Conversely, MI participants’ perceived stress and rumination were significantly reduced over time. Additionally, participants in the MI had a lower risk of burnout and significantly higher teacher efficacy and work engagement over time, compared to control group participants.

The current findings suggest that MI has a significant impact on the psychological outcomes of Palestinian teachers, which is maintained even in high-intensity negative stressful situations such as the outbreak of COVID-19. Furthermore, teachers’ self-efficacy and emotion regulation development coupled with increased empathy and work engagement–even in this time of heightened stress–facilitates teachers’ abilities to effectively respond to students’ needs and emotionally support students, which benefits student-teacher relationships. This is particularly impactful as both teachers and students felt disconnected during the pandemic (Keleynikov et al., 2022).

Authors

• Rui Wu, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Andrea Faith Ybanez, University of Connecticut

• Rony Berger

• Alaina Brenick, University of Connecticut