Tiered Neuroscience and Mental Health Professional Development in Liberia Improves Teacher Self-Efficacy, Self-Responsibility, and Motivation

Abstract

After acquiring knowledge of the neuroscience of learning, memory, stress and emotions, teachers incorporate more cognitive engagement and student-centered practices into their lessons. However, the role understanding neuroscience plays in teachers own affective and motivational competencies has not yet been investigated. The goal of this study was to investigate how learning neuroscience effected teachers’ self-efficacy, beliefs in their ability to teach effectively, self-responsibility and other components of teacher motivation. A pilot training-of-trainers program was designed and delivered in Liberia combining basic neuroscience with information on social, emotional, behavioral and mental health issues faced by students. Tier I of the professional development was a 2 weeks workshop led by a visiting neuroscientist. A subset of the 24 Tier I secondary science teachers formed a Leadership Team who adapted the content to the Liberian context and subsequently led additional workshops and follow-up sessions for the Tier II secondary science teachers. Science teachers in both tiers completed the affective-motivational scales from the internationally vetted, multiscale Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey from the OECD. Tier II teachers completed the survey in a pre-post-delayed post design. Tier I teachers completed the survey after the workshop with their attitudes at that time and separately with retrospective projections of their pre-workshop attitudes. Ten of the 92 Tier II teachers participated in structured interviews at follow-up. Statistical analysis of survey data demonstrated improved teacher self-efficacy, self-responsibility for student outcomes, and motivation to teach. Qualitatively, teachers expressed more confidence in their ability to motivate students, engage them through active learning, and manage the class through positive rather than negative reinforcement. Teachers’ own self-regulation improved as they made efforts to build supporting relationships with students. Together, these results demonstrated that (i) teacher affective-motivational attitudes can be altered with professional development, (ii) basic neuroscience, as knowledge of how students learn, can improve teacher competency, and (iii) a training-of-trainers model can be effective in a low and middle income country for disseminating neuroscience knowledge, increasing teachers’ knowledge of students’ social and emotional needs, and promoting educational improvement.

Training-of-Trainers Neuroscience and Mental Health Teacher Education in Liberia Improves Self-Reported Support for Students

“…The Tier II neuroscience content was reviewed by email and approved by the visiting neuroscientist. Tier II content was approximately 50% similar to Tier I content (see Brick et al, 2021 for a more detailed discussion of workshop content and fidelity). Workshop delivery consisted of Liberian teachers training fellow Liberians.…”

“…Program evaluation focused upon the success of meeting those goals and upon the success of the training approach. Program outcomes regarding teachers affective and motivational attitudes and pedagogy (goals 2 and 3) and the translation from Tier I to Tier II appear in a companion paper (Brick et al, 2021). Here the focus is on teachers' acquisition of neuroscience knowledge (goal 1) and development of their understanding of MH issues in students (goal 4).…”

“…In this two-tiered training, a visiting neuroscientist with prior experience providing teachers with neuroscience training (MacNabb et al, 2006b;Roehrig et al, 2012;Dubinsky et al, 2013Dubinsky et al, , 2019Schwartz et al, 2019) delivered a workshop (10 days over 2 weeks) for Liberian secondary science teachers (Tier I). A subset of the Tier I teachers then adapted the material for the Liberian context and delivered a series of 1-week (5 full day) workshops to train additional Tier II Liberian teachers [see below, Table 1 and ( Brick et al, 2021)]. An intensive training approach was chosen because short neuroscience exposures change very little (Howard-Jones et al, 2020) and evaluation of United States science teacher training programs determined 80 or more hours of PD were needed for teachers to enact substantial classroom changes (Lawrenz et al, 2007).…”

“…The Leadership Team selected the Tier II neuroscience content and added mental health awareness content and how to identify early warning signs of MH issues from the Manual of School Mental Health (Pacione and Cooper, 2014) and The Good Schools Toolkit (Section 3.5, Devries et al, 2015), resources specific to successful MH education in Africa. Additional internet resources were used to stimulate discussions of students' and teachers' MH issues (Brick et al, 2021). The Tier II neuroscience content was reviewed by email and approved by the visiting neuroscientist.…”

“…However, 35% of Tier II teachers were without university level teacher training as opposed to 21% of Tier I participants. Teachers' educational backgrounds have been previously reported (Brick et al, 2021). Only one teacher in each tier had any prior MH training (Brick et al, 2021).…”