ECPN Student Poster Contestant: The Quality of Teacher-Student Relationships As a Target for Preventing Teachers’ Burnout

Introduction: High-quality teacher-student relationships are associated with students’ academic and socio-emotional outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Unfortunately, teachers’ show high levels of stress and burnout that undermine their ability to develop these relationships with their students (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jones et al., 2013). As such, prevention that boosts teachers’ psychological well-being may benefit both teachers’ mental-health and students’ learning. The present study is unique as it conceptualizes the quality of teacher-student relationships as a source of teachers’ psychological well-being (Spilt et al., 2011). To that end, we examine the extent to which class-wide teacher-student relationships, as reported by teachers, lead to changes in aspects of teachers’ burnout during the school year.

Methods: Data for this study comes from year one of a large-scale evaluation of the 4Rs+MTP program, which pairs a social-emotional reading programs and teacher coaching model. All data were collected in the fall and spring of the academic year. The sample includes 146 teachers and 2,047 students spanning 3^rd-4^th grade. Most (96%) of the teachers were female and reported an average of 11 years of experience. Outcomes included the two subscales of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-ES: emotional exhaustion (EE) and personal accomplishment (PA) at spring. Independent variables consisted of teacher-student relational closeness and conflict (aggregated to the classroom level). Covariates included teachers’ gender, years of experience, number of students in the classroom, number of students in each classroom identified as limited English proficient or as having an individualized education program, and treatment status. Two identical linear regression models were estimated, one per outcome, controlling for fall scores to predict changes in the outcomes.

Results:

Preliminary linear regression results indicated that classroom-level aspects of quality teacher-student relationships were differentially associated with teachers’ spring EE and PA controlling for fall EE and PA. Specifically, change in teachers’ EE over the academic year was positively predicted by relational conflict (β=.62, p<.01) and not closeness (β=.04, p=.88). Conversely, change in teachers’ PA was positively predicted by relational closeness (β=.40, p<.01) and not conflict (β= -.11, p=.37).

Conclusions:

Findings from this study highlight an overlooked source of teachers’ well-being: the quality of their relationships with students. Prevention of teachers’ mental health problems and an early exit from teaching might include fostering these relationships.