Direct and Moderating Impacts of the Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education for Teachers Intervention on Student Outcomes

• In Event: Examining Implementation, Process, and Outcomes of Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education for Teachers, a Mindfulness-Based Intervention

Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have gained increasing attention and empirical support as an effective means of improving both educational and developmental outcomes when delivered directly to teachers (Flook et al., 2013; Jennings et al., 2013; Roeser et al., 2012) and students (Greenberg & Harris, 2012; Parker et al., 2014; Zelazo & Lyons, 2012). The theories of change underlying current teacher MBI posit that developing and sustaining a constellation of interrelated practices, including present centered awareness, self-care, and a compassionate bearing towards others, will promote teachers’ psychological well-being, occupational health, and relational engagement capacities. These gains are expected to result in classroom learning environments marked by higher quality teacher-student interactions which, consistent with developmental-ecological theory (Bronfebrenner & Morris, 2006) and systems-based cascades models (Cox et al., 2010), anticipate improvements in students’ emotional, motivational, behavioral and academic outcomes (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Roeser et al, 2012), and particularly students at risk of school failure and/or sensitive to higher risk environments (Bergin & Bergin, 2009; Crosnoe et al., 2010). The impacts of teacher MBI on students, however, has yet to be examined. This paper reports direct and moderating impacts from an RCT of the CARE for Teachers intervention on student outcomes.
The sample consisted of 5,200 students from 224 teachers’ classrooms in 36 diverse urban elementary schools. Teachers were randomly assigned within schools to CARE or wait-list control groups. CARE was delivered only to teachers over 5 days with intersession coaching by phone. Data were collected pre- and post-intervention. At both time points, teachers self-reported on measures of mindfulness, personal distress, time urgency, efficacy, emotional skills, and burnout. Classroom observations were conducted by independent raters to code for elements of quality using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System. Teachers reported on consented students in their classroom (M=23) regarding student-teacher relationship closeness and conflict, beliefs about student daily preparedness for school and home support for learning, academic motivation, engagement, and social skills. No significant treatment-control differences were found among any assessments at baseline.
Two-level models (students nested in classrooms) were used to estimate a series of direct and moderating impacts of CARE on student outcomes. Model covariates included cohort ( classroom level) and student gender, age, race/ethnicity, IEP status, lunch status, and pre-test score.
No significant main effects of CARE were found across student outcomes. Moderation analyses testing differential impacts for students varying in levels of baseline risk ( student, teacher, and classroom-specific risk) revealed that students in CARE classrooms (compared to those in control classrooms) had higher motivation if they had either lower home support for learning (p = .034) or had CARE teachers with lower initial distress tolerance (p = .002). In addition, students in CARE classrooms were rated as having higher learning engagement with CARE teachers who had higher initial personal distress (p = .028). Finally, students in CARE classrooms (compared to those in control classrooms) had lower teacher-student conflict with CARE teachers who at pretest had lower observed classroom productivity (p = .039). Implications for teacher MBI will be discussed.

Authors

• Joshua L. Brown, Fordham University

• Patricia A. Jennings, University of Virginia

• Damira S Rasheed, Fordham University

• Sebrina Doyle, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jennifer L Frank, The Pennsylvania State University

• Regin Tanler, Fordham University

• Anna DeWeese, Fordham University

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University