Poster #115 - Preschool Teachers Workplace Self-Care and Their Use of Social and Emotional Learning Practices during COVID-19

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Stressors associated with COVID-19 had deleterious effects on preschoolers’ social and emotional development (e.g., Barnett & Jung, 2021). Social and emotional skills are an important positive predictor of preschoolers’ short- and long-term success (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2010). To intervene in preschoolers’ social and emotional declines, school administrators have prioritized preschool teachers’ implementation of social and emotional learning (SEL) (DeArmond et al., 2021). Teachers tend to exhibit more depressive symptoms when they experience workplace stress (Whitaker et al., 2015). More preschool teachers exhibited depressive symptoms since the start of COVID-19 (Hanno et al., 2022). Teachers at-risk for depression have poorer relationships with their students and ultimately have a harder time effectively implementing SEL (Jeon et al., 2014). Scholars have not examined but have theorized that positive aspects of the workplace, such as opportunities to engage in workplace self-care (i.e., professional development, positive community culture, and healthy workplace boundaries) are negatively related to teachers’ depressive symptoms and positively related to SEL (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). To address this gap, we examined how teachers’ perceptions of their opportunities for workplace self-care can relate to their SEL through their depressive symptoms during COVID-19.

A total of 181 teachers (95% female; 52% White) from 58 preschools receiving funding to provide high-quality care to 4-year-olds (Mteachers per school = 3.00, SDteachers per school = 2.70) from a mid-west U.S. city participated in this study (all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number). In fall 2020, teachers completed a survey online. They reported on their opportunities for workplace self-care (Lee et al., 2020), depressive symptoms (Radloff, 1977), amount of time they spend engaging in SEL each day as well as their education, racial/ethnic identity, difficulty paying bills, and whether the activities they facilitate designed to support SEL changed during COVID-19.

We conducted two multivariate regressions to test our hypothesized mediation model (see Figure 1) in SPSS version 24.0.0.2. In the first block for each regression, we entered teacher education, ability to pay bills, race/ethnicity, and perceptions of change in SEL practices since COVID. With the first regression, we found teachers’ self-care at work was unrelated to their depressive symptoms (see Table 1). With the second regression, we found teachers’ self-care at work, while accounting for depressive symptoms, was positively related to the amount of time teachers spent in SEL activities (see Table 1). Our results indicate that teachers’ depressive symptoms may not be related to their SEL practices, but teachers’ opportunities for workplace self-care may promote their use of SEL. While depressive symptoms may be a correlate of teachers’ SEL practices (Jeon et al., 2014), depressive symptoms may be harder for school administrators to remediate. However, there may be steps that school administrators can take to promote teachers use of SEL in the classroom, such as providing opportunities for professional development and support the creation and use of workplace norms that foster positive community culture and healthy workplace boundaries.

Authors

• Rebecca H Berger, Urban Institute
  Presenting Author

• Arturia Melson-Silimon, University of Georgia

• Vi-Nhuan Le, NORC at the University of Chicago