Teacher Trainees’ Experiences with and Beliefs About Responding to Students’ Challenging Life Events

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Schools play an important role in supporting the development of children, as it is where they spend a majority of their day. However, when children experience psychosocial stressors they are at risk for behavioral challenges and lower academic achievement (Haine et al., 2008; Rappaport, 2013; McDougall & Vaillancourt, 2015). Bullying, family separation, and death of a loved one are unfortunately commonly experienced by children however, teachers often feel unprepared to support them (Cullinan, 1990; Dyregrov et al., 2013). The present study aims to assess teacher trainees' experiences with and proposed reactions to students' experiences with three types of challenging life experiences (CLE): death, family separation, and bullying.
Participants
Participants were 121 pre-service teachers enrolled in a mid-sized public university in Northeastern United States. Participants were primarily female (86%) undergraduate students (87.7%) and came from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds (59% White Non-Hispanic, 27.4% Hispanic, 3.4% Black/African American, 1.7% Asian-American/Pacific Islander). 8.7% of participants identified as more than one race.
Measures
Participants completed a survey created by authors to measure the frequency of student disclosure, training related to handling disclosures of CLEs, and perceived preparation related to responding to students disclosure. Additionally, a vignette-based methodology was used in order to understand how participants would respond to a student reporting a CLE.
Results
Experience with students’ disclosure of CLE
Half of the participants indicated they had no experience with children disclosing CLE. Of those that had experience with student disclosure, bullying was the most commonly reported CLE followed by family separation and then death of a loved one.
Training related to addressing CLE
Bullying was the CLE with the most reported training. Out of college classes, certificate programs, on the job training, or workshop, college classes were the most reported setting for training on topics of CLEs. Notably, 49.5% of participants reported having no training related to death of a loved one, followed by family separation (44.1%).
Preparation for responding to CLE
Perceived preparation varied by type of CLE and participants felt less prepared to address the death of a loved one and family separation compared to students who disclose bullying, although the reported preparation for bullying was also only in the moderate range.
Proposed reaction to students CLE
A repeated measured ANOVA was conducted based on gender (male or female), age (6 or 11-year-old) of vignette character, and type of CLE. Participants were more likely to ask male students clarifying or follow up questions compared to female students. An age effect indicated that participants were more likely to express condolences to younger students than the older students in the vignette. Significant effects by type of CLE indicated that participants would demonstrate more compassionate and sympathetic responses to children who disclosed death of a loved one, with the least compassionate responses were received by the vignette character who disclosed relational bullying. Further analysis and discussion of results will be provided in the poster and will offer suggestions for teacher preparation and school-based training.

Authors

• Csilla Greiner, Montclair State University
  Presenting Author

• Jeanie Park, Montclair State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sara E Goldstein, Montclair State University
  Non-Presenting Author