Cortisol Dysregulation in Middle School Teachers Over the Course of One School Year

• In Event: Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Physiological Stress in Teachers and Students: Identifying Ways to Facilitate Adaptive Coping

Abstract

Teachers encounter high levels of occupational stress that can lead to burnout, poor teaching and attrition. Teacher burnout can have downstream, deleterious effects on student learning (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). There is need for research to understand factors influencing teacher stress and how to reduce it in order to improve teacher wellbeing and performance in the classroom.
Consistent exposure to stress can negatively impact long term health (Miller, Chen & Zhou, 2007) including immune, cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological functions (for a review see: McEwen, 1998). Specifically, higher waking cortisol levels and/or blunting of the cortisol awakening response (CAR, the difference between the morning concentration and 30 minutes later) has been associated with chronic stress and burnout (Grossi et al., 2005; Chida & Steptoe, 2009). Physiological measures of stress, such as salivary cortisol, may contribute to our understanding of teacher stress and their responsiveness to interventions designed to reduce burnout and promote wellbeing.
The current exploratory study investigated emotion regulation strategies and cortisol functioning in 29 middle school teachers from one school. A three-level hierarchical growth curve analysis was used to estimate diurnal profiles for each teacher during one day in the fall and spring of year 1 and fall of year 2. Multilevel modeling adjusts for the non-independence of nested data, permitting simultaneous modeling of diurnal hormone rhythms for each individual while examining person-level factors predicting differences in these rhythms. Cortisol concentration for each person was the outcome variable and was predicted by wave level predictors (fall, spring, following fall, level 2) and person-level predictors (level 3).
A comparison of the diurnal profiles of study participants reveal that middle school teachers show physiological indicators of chronic stress in the spring, as indexed by a blunted cortisol awakening response. Teachers had significantly higher waking levels of cortisol in the spring than in the fall (γ010=2.84, p<.001) and showed a less steep cortisol awakening response (γ210= -3.35, p=.02). Further analyses show teachers’ who report using reappraisal, an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, in the fall have a lower waking cortisol level in the spring (γ003=-1.34, p<.001), suggesting that reappraisal strategies used by teachers to manage their stress may buffer the typical accumulation of stress over a school year. The implications of these findings for promoting teacher wellbeing will be discussed.

Authors

• Alexis R Harris, The University of Virginia

• Deirdre A Katz, The Pennsylvania State University

• Patricia A. Jennings, University of Virginia

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University