Identifying primary and secondary stressors, buffers, and supports that impact ECE teacher wellbeing: implications for teacher education

Abstract

Stress has been shown to negatively impact early childhood teachers' abilities to provide high quality, responsive environments for young children. Previous studies of early childhood teacher stress have focused on the tasks and responsibilities inherent in the job as well as on structural conditions within the field of early childhood education. The present study explored inter-and intra-personal dimensions of early childhood teacher stress and applied the Stress Process model to teachers' experience of work-related stress. Results from this qualitative study suggest that teachers experience primary stressors associated with the work itself and interactions with others within the workplace. They also experience secondary stressors when their work interferes with other domains of their lives. Despite these stressors, teachers have developed a variety of coping strategies and created networks of social support to buffer the impact of stressors on their practice. These findings use teachers' own experiences to inform the types of pre-service training, professional development, and policy interventions that have the greatest potential to reduce ECE teacher stress and enable them to provide the highest quality early care and education for all children.

Thriving Beyond Resilience Despite Stress: A Psychometric Evaluation of the Newly Developed Teacher Stress Scale and Teacher Thriving Scale

“…The TSS was created to assess the extent to which early childhood teachers “felt stressed” regarding a specified aspect of their teaching situation. The development of the items for the TSS was informed by theories (e.g., Lazarus and Folkman, 1984 ; Kyriacou, 2001 ) and the extant literature on early childhood teacher stress and stress coping (e.g., Whitaker et al, 2015 ; Roberts et al, 2016 ; Clayback and Williford, 2021 ; Tebben et al, 2021 ; Chen, 2022 ; Chen, under review ). For instance, the theoretical and empirical body of literature suggests that the lack of social support and high levels of teaching demands are two key sources of teacher stress.…”

“…Data from the 2013 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index revealed that nearly half of the K-12 teachers (46%) reported experiencing high levels of daily stress during the school year, paralleling other exceedingly demanding professions, such as nurses (46%) and doctors (45%) ( Gallup, 2014 ). While teacher stress in the United States is pervasive in general, stress experienced by early childhood educators is particularly prevalent (e.g., Whitaker et al, 2015 ; Roberts et al, 2016 ; Tebben et al, 2021 ). For example, in their large-scale survey-based study of 2,199 preschool educators working with young children in 66 Head Start programs in Pennsylvania, Whitaker et al (2013) found that these educators experienced significantly poorer levels of mental health, with 23% of them reporting diagnosed depression compared to 17.6% of two national samples of peers with similar sociodemographic characteristics.…”

“…Teacher stress among early childhood teachers is a pervasive yet complex phenomenon. Its antecedents and correlates can be multifarious, including a lack of support system and poor work conditions (g., Jeon and Ardeleanu, 2020 ; Clayback and Williford, 2021 ; Tebben et al, 2021 ), and additional teaching challenges during COVID-19 ( Nagasawa and Tarrant, 2020 ; Tarrant and Nagasawa, 2020 ). For instance, in their secondary analysis of a sample of 427 preschool teachers in the United States, Clayback and Williford (2021) found that both individual and environmental factors (e.g., a lack of administrative support) predicted teacher stress.…”

“…Even before COVID-19, early childhood teachers in the United States had already been enduring high levels of stress (e.g., Whitaker et al, 2015 ; Roberts et al, 2016 ; Tebben et al, 2021 ). During COVID-19, the unconventional instructional modalities nationwide have imposed new additional teaching-related demands and challenges on early childhood teachers, thereby exacerbating their stress levels (e.g., Bassok et al, 2020 ; Tarrant and Nagasawa, 2020 ; Randall et al, 2021 ; Chen, 2022 ).…”

ECE Program Supports and Teacher-Perceived Support from Families: Are They Connected?

“…Self-determination and COR have identified possible mechanisms by which this may occur: (1) promoting teachers' work engagement and quality by meeting their psychological needs, and (2) by reducing stress and facilitating teachers' use of energy for the acquisition of greater resources. Moreover, qualitative (e.g., Nitecki 2015;Tebben et al 2021;Zulauf and Zinsser 2019) and quantitative (e.g., Goddard et al 2015;Jung and Sheldon 2020;Lubienski et al 2008) studies suggest an interplay between program climate and culture and teachers' attitudes about parents. The present study extends such work by examining associations between programlevel supports, as reported by ECE program directors, and perceived support from families, as reported by teachers.…”