Teacher Stress and Coping in the Early Childhood Context: A Pilot and Feasibility Study
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Date
2025-02-24
Authors
Kinavey Wennerstrom, Erin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
High quality environments include attention to the wellbeing of the teachers helping young children learn to manage emotions. Through empathetic responses and directly teaching children how to recognize and regulate physiological states. Relationships and self-regulation are interrelated and critical to establishing healthy classroom climates. Unlike older students, young children under 5 are in the process of learning critical skills that will lead to later developmental and academic success. High quality teacher–child interaction and responsive caregiving requires the teachers be adept at classroom management, stress management, and their own self-regulation. Teacher stress and wellbeing is at the crux of quality environments. Using linear regression and factor analysis respectively the purpose of this project was to pilot the use of teacher coping and stress measures to determine how coping impacts wellbeing, as well as investigate the usability and feasibility of the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) survey with an early childhood serving population. The data for this project were collected in the Pacific Northwest and show that emotional based coping strategies predicated burnout and secondary stress. BO, the adjusted R² =.176, F(4,113)=7.02, p<.001), specifically, escape was significant ?=.37, p< .001. Emotion-based coping also predicted STS, confirming the alternative hypothesis with an adjusted R² =.153, F (4,113) = 6.09, p<.001. Furthermore, the preliminary ProQOL results in this early childhood serving population (n=412) did not support the a 3-factor model as proposed by Stamm (2009) but evidence for a bifactor model similar to other child serving populations (Lenz et al., 2019).
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Keywords
Burnout, Early Childhood, ProQOL, Secondary Stress