Building educator resilience through mindfulness

WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Anna Hipps (Creator)
Institution
Western Carolina University (WCU )
Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
Advisor
Heidi Von Dohlen

Abstract: Educator stress is a growing concern as the demands on the profession have increased in recent years. Multiple factors have been found to contribute to educator stress levels. Increasing educator resiliency is one way to protect teachers from burnout. Mindfulness training has been used in recent years with educators in order to build educator resilience. Equity concerns related to the typical demographics of mindfulness trainers and participants are important to consider. The researcher’s theory of improvement holds that providing educators with mindfulness training will increase their resilience in the short term, and in the long term potentially impact student outcomes. This disquisition proposal outlines a planned intervention based on Plan-Do Study-Act cycles that provide mindfulness training to a small group of educators. The research setting is a public high school in North Carolina. As part of the improvement initiative, educators participated in a six-week program during which they received new mindfulness lessons during the odd weeks and participated in group discussion sessions during the even weeks. Participants completed weekly surveys to measure outcomes, process and balancing measures. Qualitative data coding as well as quantitative measures were used to assess the impact of the mindfulness training improvement initiative.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2021
Keywords
Educator, Resilience, Mindfulness
Subjects
Educators
Educators -- Stress management
Mindfulness (Psychology)

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