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Empowering Teachers: Exploring Early to Mid-Career Elementary School Teachers’ Relationships Between Wellness and Self-Efficacy

Home > 2024, Vol. 12 No. 1 (2024) > Empowering Teachers: Exploring Early to Mid-Career Elementary School Teachers’ Relationships Between Wellness and Self-Efficacy

Published: September 4, 2023

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Authors

Anna O’Dell and Laura Ainsworth

DOI Number
https://doi.org/10.15415/iie.2024.121001

Keywords
Elementary teacher(s), Teacher wellness, K-12 Educators, Teacher self-efficacy

Abstract

Background: A cyclical relationship has been documented among a teacher’s self-efficacy, stress, and segments of their professional wellness (i.e., psychological, financial). Despite the recognized importance of teacher wellness and self-efficacy, research pertaining to public school elementary teachers specifically regarding these constructs is sparse.

Purpose: The current exploratory study aimed to discover the relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy and teacher wellness, controlling for factors such as time spent teaching, and potential site-based differences in the relationship.

Methods: The sample was comprised of 33 elementary school teachers across two elementary schools (K-5^th grades), in two geographically different states, who completed the standardized Teacher Sense of Self-Efficacy Scale Short Form and the Five Factor Wellness Inventory.

Results: Results from a Spearman’s rho indicated that, for both schools, there was a moderate, statistically significant, positive correlation between teachers’ self-efficacy and wellness with higher self-efficacy related to higher wellness.

Conclusions: Given the results, the new insights into the relationship between teacher wellness and self-efficacy, regardless of location, indicates that preservice higher education training programs must emphasize the critical priority of building, supporting, and creating sustainable practices for teacher wellness and self-efficacy. As these practices begin prior to entering the profession, teachers can implement their coping skills to maintain higher wellness and self-efficacy levels, providing healthy modeling to others and potentially increasing effectiveness of instruction and retention levels.

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Anna O’Dell and Laura Ainsworth. Empowering Teachers: Exploring Early to Mid-Career Elementary School Teachers’ Relationships Between Wellness and Self-Efficacy. Issues Ideas Educ.. 2024, 12, 1–11

Empowering Teachers: Exploring Early to Mid-Career Elementary School Teachers’ Relationships Between Wellness and Self-Efficacy

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