Emerson et al, 2017

Source:   RESEARCH ARTICLE

APA Citation:

Emerson, L.M., Leyland, A., Hudson, K., Rowse, G., Hanley, P. & Hugh-Jones, S. (2017). Teaching mindfulness to teachers: A systematic review and narrative synthesis. Mindfulness, 8, 1136-1149.

Author bio:

Emerson,  Leyland, & Rowse – Clinical Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield (UK)

Hudson – School of Psychology, University of Leeds, UK

Hugh-Jones – School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield, UK

Notes:

School teachers report high levels of stress which impact on their engagement with pupils and effectiveness as a teacher. Early intervention or prevention approaches may support teachers to develop positive coping and reduce the experience and impact of stress [abstract] 1136

Teacher social and emotional competence has implications for pupil wellbeing through teacher-pupil relationships and effective management of the classroom 1136

Mindfulness programs: MBSR and/or MBCT, modified MBSR programmes included the Stress Management and Relaxation Training in Education (SMART), Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE)

This review has examined the current evidence for the effects of MBIs on stress, emotion regulation, and self-efficacy 1145

From the evidence reported across the 13 eligible studies, it is possible to conclude that MBIs for teachers show most promise for the proposed intermediary effect of emotion regulation 1145

Across studies, there was nascent promise for application of MBIs for reducing physical and psychological symptoms of stress, including burnout 1145

Quantitative and qualitative data reported across studies suggest an improvement in teachers’ ability to be mindful, which indicates successful manipulation effects of the MBIs 1146

Limitations: small sample sizes, insufficient statistical power, and the absence of active controls … only 3 studies reported fidelity checks [checks of fidelity can be helpful for ensuring that reported effects result from the application of specific interventions and not other extraneous variables 1146

Search strategy may have introduced bias in study selection … search was based on electronic sources … some relevant studies [may have been] missed 1146

There are a number of potential barriers to introducing mindfulness to teachers

1.      Potential participants and their senior leadership team need to be confident that a MBI has good potential to be helpful to teachers 1147

2.      It may be too exposing or uncomfortable for staff from any one school to talk about their workplace stress together, given that some stress originates from work relationships and leadership decisions 1147

a.       Ref. trust + mindfulness

3.      Offering an individual level approach to stress management removes responsibility from organizations to protect employees from stress via workload management; offering a MBI as a way to support teachers may be appropriate, alongside a continued responsibility of employers to support a healthy work environment for their staff 1147

4.      The cost of delivering MBIs may be prohibitive for some schools … we do not yet understand the return on investment in school settings 1147

The current lack of convincing evidence of the positive effects of teacher MBIs on teaching and pupil outcomes may reduce the attraction of MBIs to schools. School priorities are academic performance, and as yet, there have been no large-scale, rigorous studies that show a strong relationship between mindfulness training for either teachers or pupils and attainment outcomes. However, there is increasing interest in how mindfulness might be delivered as a whole school approach to support a school climate that is conducive to staff and pupil self-awareness, other-awareness, and wellbeing, with a view that these changes would indirectly facilitate faculty engagement and performance 1147