Early childhood teachers' stress and children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning

Validation of the Early Childhood Teacher Experiences Scale in Head Start

“…Contrary to our hypotheses, we did not find that teacher stress was related to children's social‐emotional skills or behavior problems. These findings differ from what has been found in previous work examining the relationship between teacher stress and children's social‐emotional skills in early childhood classrooms (Jeon et al, 2019; Mantzicopoulos, 2005; Stormont & Young‐Walker, 2017). The inconsistent findings may be due to the fact that the current study sample differs from previous studies that have examined these relationships; for example, previous studies included older samples of kindergarten children and more mixed samples of low‐income and higher income preschool samples.…”

“…Based on early childhood research, we hypothesized that teacher‐reported self‐efficacy and school support would be associated with higher social‐emotional and academic skills (Chen & Phillips, 2018; Early et al, 2007; Guo et al, 2010). Conversely, we expected to find a negative relationship between teacher‐reported stress and children's social‐emotional and academic skills (Jeon et al, 2019).…”

“…Research suggests that early childhood teachers' report of their work experiences is associated with children's social‐emotional and academic skills. Teachers who report experiencing higher levels of stress are more likely to rate children with more behavior problems and lower executive functioning skills (Jeon, Buettner, Grant, & Lang, 2019; Neuenschwander, Friedman‐Krauss, Raver, & Blair, 2017). Several early childhood studies report a positive association between workplace stress, teacher–child conflict, and challenging behaviors (Gastaldi, Pasta, Longobardi, Prino, & Quaglia, 2015; Mantzicopoulos, 2005; Stormont & Young‐Walker, 2017; Whitaker et al, 2015).…”

Preschool Teachers’ Emotional Exhaustion in Relation to Classroom Instruction and Teacher-child Interactions

“…For example, Arens and Morin (2016) found that fourth graders whose teachers were more emotionally exhausted demonstrated a lower likelihood of mastery of course content and achievement. Other studies have shown that teachers' stress and emotional exhaustion also relate to greater levels of conflict with children in the classroom (Whitaker et al, 2015) in addition to less optimal socio-emotional adjustment (Jeon et al, 2019). In terms of consequences for teachers, emotionally exhausted teachers have been found to demonstrate lower levels of motivation toward teaching (Hakanen et al, 2006), greater levels of doubt regarding their ability to teach effectively (Dicke et al, 2015;Evers et al, 2002;Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008;Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010), and lower commitment to the profession (Buettner et al, 2016;Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016).…”

A Snapshot of Educational Research in 2019

“…However, SEL might seem to be full of promise but also run the danger in the way we define and practice it (Hamilton and Schawartz, 2019) [8]. For example, no matter how technically advanced the program improvement measures, teachers' emotional stress and exhaustion will still have adverse effects on children such as anger and aggression, anxiety and self-regulation, or diminishing social capacity (Jeon et al, 2019) [11].…”