ECE and ECSE Teachers’ Psychological and Professional Well-Being in the Job Demands and Resources Model

• In Event: A Holistic Approach to Early Childhood Educators’ Well-being and Work Environments

Abstract

Teaching is often difficult and emotionally demanding (Sahbaz & Koyuturk, 2017). This is particularly true in early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) where poor working conditions are the norm, and teachers need to frequently work with families and other professionals. Research demonstrates the negative consequences of ECE teachers’ poor psychological well-being on their professional well-being and the quality of care which they provide children (Jeon et al., 2019; Kwon et al., 2019). The ECSE workforce shares the struggles of the ECE workforce plus having unique challenges due to the demands of working with children with disabilities (Cheong et al., 2013), which seem likely to increase their stress and job burnout. However, limited research is available on how ECE and ECSE teachers’ job demands and resources are associated with their well-being. Therefore, we examined associations among (a) job demands (teacher’s perceptions of job demands and the number of the children with disabilities they have), (b) job resources (their perception of job resources and school climate), (c) internal resources (beliefs about developmentally appropriate practice and social emotional learning [SEL], job commitment), (d) perceived stress, (e) depressive symptoms, and (f) job burnout for both ECE and ECSE teachers (see Figure 1) using the Job Demands and Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017).

Participants were 143 ECE teachers from private, state-funded, Early Head Start, and Head Start programs and 121 ECSE teachers from inclusive co-teaching classrooms and ECSE classrooms in northwestern state in the U.S. Teachers completed an online survey which included several measures of their working conditions and well-being. There was no difference in the means of study variables between ECE and ECSE teachers except the number of children with disabilities in their classrooms. We found some similarities and a few differences, in the pathways of professional and psychological well-being between these teachers (Table 1). The number of children with disabilities in their classrooms was positively related to both ECE and ECSE teachers’ job demands, and exhaustion and was also associated with ECE teachers’ cynicism and depression. Teachers’ beliefs about their teaching practice were positively associated with their job resources and negatively associated with their perceived stress, whereas ECE teachers’ beliefs were negatively associated with their cynicism and depression. Teachers’ beliefs about SEL were positively associated with job resources, whereas they were negatively related to ECSE teachers’ perceived stress and depression and to ECE teachers’ cynicism. Their job commitment was negatively related to their perceived stress and job burnout and to ECSE teachers’ depression. For both, school climate was negatively related to job burnout and depression and positively related to their job resources. School climate was negatively associated only with ECE teachers’ job demands.

Our study will employ structural equation modeling to predict ECE and ECSE teachers’ psychological and professional well-being and will provide a better understanding of teachers’ psychological and professional well-being and implications for their professional development programs.

Authors

• Hyun-Joo Jeon, University of Nevada, Reno
  Presenting Author

• Kyong-Ah Kwon, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lindsay L. Diamond, University of Nevada, Reno
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina M. McCartney, University of Nevada, Reno
  Non-Presenting Author