Project Activities
The research team iteratively developed the burnout intervention using focus groups with school administrators and special education teachers; field-based observations of classroom climate, instructional quality, and student engagement; and data on the intervention’s usability and feasibility, teacher outcomes, and student outcomes. The research team piloted the intervention over the course of several studies to test its feasibility and promise of efficacy for reducing teacher burnout and improving instructional quality, classroom climate and, ultimately, student academic and social/behavioral outcomes. They also conducted a nationwide longitudinal survey to better understand the trajectory of burnout and its predictors.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The intervention research took place in urban and rural public schools in Indiana and Kentucky. The longitudinal survey was conducted nationwide.
Sample
For the focus groups, 15 school administrators and 15 special education classroom teachers participated and provided information on teacher burnout toguide intervention revisions. Fifteen special education teachers participated in the initial pre-post study. For the first randomized controlled trial, 21 special education teachers and their students with IEPs participated; 14 teachers participated in the second trial. For the subsequent pre-post studies, 23 special education teachers participated in the first study and 20 in the second. For the longitudinal survey, 623 teachers participated in at least one timepoint.
The intervention was adapted from an existing manualized intervention for mental health workers, Burnout Reduction: Enhanced Awareness, Tools, Handouts, and Education (BREATHE). The resulting intervention, BREATHE-EASE GOALS (Burnout Reduction: Enhanced Awareness, Tools, Handouts, and Education – Evidence-based Activities for Stress for Educators), is designed to prevent and reduce special education teacher burnout and improve instructional and classroom quality and student outcomes. It is delivered through a combination of group-based in-person workshops and virtual booster sessions. The sessions include a brief introduction, overview of principles of burnout prevention, and a series of exercises designed to increase personal resources and ability to cope with and manage stressful job demands. It includes a combination of traditional cognitive behavioral stress reduction strategies, meditation/relaxation practices, social skills training, and other self-care strategies. The intervention also includes a goal setting component that involves teachers developing individualized goals that, if achieved, would signify less stress and burnout.
Research design and methods
To begin, the intervention was adapted based on feedback from school administrators and teachers. Focus groups were conducted with school administrators and teachers to gather information on teacher burnout (such as how burnout looks, how it might affect teaching, how it might affect student outcomes, and how burnout is handled) to guide revisions to the intervention and measures. The research team revised the intervention based on focus group data and convened a workgroup of administrators and teachers to review the focus group results and the revised intervention. Next, they conducted a pre-post study of the intervention to gather data on usability, feasibility, and teacher burnout outcomes. At post-test, teacher interviews were conducted to obtain additional feedback on the intervention. During this time, the research team also developed an intervention manual and fidelity scale and obtained feedback on the manual from the administrator and teacher workgroup. In the following year, the research team conducted a randomized controlled trial to test the promise of the intervention for reducing teacher burnout and improving instructional quality, classroom climate, and student outcomes. Based on the results and feedback from teachers, the team made further adjustments to the intervention, adding a goal setting component to personalize the intervention and maximally reduce stress and burnout. The revised intervention was piloted in two subsequent pre-post studies. For the pilot randomized controlled trials as well as the subsequent pre-post studies, follow-up data on teachers was collected to assess the impact of the intervention on special education teacher turnover. The research team also conducted a nationwide longitudinal survey of special education teacher burnout, stress, and mental illness. Teachers were surveyed across three timepoints (late fall, early spring, and late spring) to understand the stability and malleability of burnout.
Control condition
During the randomized controlled trials, control group teachers received online information on coping with burnout.
Key measures
Teacher burnout was assessed using the self-report Maslach Burnout Inventory. Additional teacher outcomes included frequency of sick days, absenteeism, and turnover as well as teacher report of intention to leave and job satisfaction. Goal attainment scaling was also used to determine teacher progress toward achieving individualized goals related to stress and burnout reduction. Observational measures of teacher instructional quality, classroom climate, and student engagement were also collected. Student outcomes included social/emotional/behavioral functioning as measured by the Behavioral Assessment System for Children Second Edition and progress toward meeting IEP objectives (including academic outcomes) using goal attainment scaling. Teachers provided information on the feasibility, acceptability, and usability of the intervention through surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Researcher-developed fidelity of implementation measures were used to assess fidelity of the training and teacher knowledge and use of the skills taught in the intervention.
Data analytic strategy
During development of the intervention, focus group data were transcribed and coded using content analysis. For the pre-post studies, paired t-tests were used to examine whether there were significant pre-post differences in outcomes for teachers who received the intervention. For the randomized controlled trial, multivariate Gaussian linear models were used to examine whether there were significant group differences in the teacher outcomes over time. Moderation analyses were also conducted to better understand how baseline levels of burnout influenced the impact of the intervention on teacher outcomes. Multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to examine associations between changes in teacher outcomes as a function of the intervention and subsequent changes in student outcomes. For the longitudinal, nationwide survey, descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, regression analyses, and moderation analyses were conducted.
Key outcomes
The main findings of this project, as reported by the principal investigator, are as follows:
- According to a nationwide longitudinal survey, burnout is highly stable over the course of the year and the strongest predictor of special education teacher burnout at the end of the school year is burnout at the start of the school year.
- The pandemic had a moderate to extreme impact on special education teachers’ mental health and emotional exhaustion based on a national survey. More than 60% of special education teachers reported burnout at the dangerous level and about 40% met diagnostic criteria of anxiety or depression at rates 5 to 12 times higher than a normative adult sample according to a national survey conducted in fall of 2020. Psychosocial variables—such as social support, coping, and stress appraisal—accounted for the most variance in depression and anxiety, while school and occupational factors accounted for the most variance in burnout.
- Results of the randomized controlled trial of BREATHE-EASE indicated that there was no significant impact of the intervention on burnout; however, there was a moderate, but nonsignificant, effect on emotional exhaustion, a component of burnout.
- Results of the pre-post tests of BREATHE-EASE goals, which included a personalized goal setting enhancement, showed that the intervention significantly reduced emotional exhaustion and improved teachers’ mindfulness skill of describing and coping self-efficacy. These results suggest that goal setting may be an important component to include in teacher burnout interventions.
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