“We All Affect Each Other”: Exploratory Findings About Workplace Support and Early Educators’ Pandemic Well-being

• In Event: Emerging Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: Future Directions for Supporting the Early Childhood Workforce

Abstract

Introduction
The title of this flash talk comes from a participant in a mixed-method, exploratory study that broadly asks: 1) How have New York City’s (NYC) early childhood professionals been faring throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and 2) What lessons can be learned from their experiences to inform “post-pandemic” decision making? This paper focuses on the effects of workplace support on early educators’ well-being.

Hypotheses
More specifically, this analysis asked if there were associations between workplace supports (i.e., from colleagues, supervisors, and representatives from “the system,” such as coaches) and indicators of well-being, in this instance from a single-item burnout screening (Rohland, et al., 2004) and ratings of suffering-thriving from the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Gallup, 2009).

Study Population
Between June 14 and July 2, 2021, a Spanish-English survey was sent to members of the New York Aspire Registry who worked in NYC (N=23,020). The response rate was 2.8% (n=663), from which a sample of 28 interviewees was drawn,

Methods
This study employs surveys, interviews, and ongoing stakeholder consultation/co-interpretation (Canto-Farachala & Larrea, 2020; Patton, 1997). These data are approached through a recursive process of constant comparison between quantifiable and textual data (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018’ Glaser, 1965). The analysis occurs in multiple stages, involving descriptive summaries being shared with ECE stakeholders to generate discussion and questions for further analysis (e.g, Chi-square tests of independence and homogeneity, logistic regression, etc.). Second, the textual data are read both deductively (e.g., looking for specific references to stress and workplace support) and inductively (i.e., unanticipated issues and illustrative passages). Emerging impressions are compared with each other; field notes from stakeholder conversations and analytic memos being kept throughout the study (Glaser, 1965).

Results
With the clear caveat that the study’s sampling approach introduces considerable risk of self-selection and response biases, this flash talk discusses three interrelated findings:

1. 69% agreed or strongly agreed that they felt supported by their co-workers, 59% by their supervisors, and 38% by “the system” (e.g., coach, licensing specialist, etc.).
2. Support from Coworkers, Supervisors & someone from the system predicted ratings of potential burnout, albeit weakly, with both support from supervisors and someone from the system reducing the odds of potential burnout. Support from coworkers did not contribute to the model (table 1).
3. Their effects on ratings of thriving were similar, with support from supervisors and the system increasing the odds of contributors saying that they were thriving (table 2).

Despite the study’s design limitations, and generally small effect sizes, these findings raise questions - both for future study and for policy makers’ consideration - about the role of workplace supports in advancing key post-pandemic policy outcomes like workforce stability, well-being, and program “quality,” particularly through more fine-grained analyses of these supports and how they are differentially experienced (e.g., by racially minoritized professionals, job role, etc.).

Group Authors

NYC Early Childhood Research Network

Author

• Mark Nagasawa, Bank Street College of Education
  Presenting Author