Improving Early Care and Education Professionals' Teaching Self-Efficacy and Well-Being: A Mixed Methods Exploratory Study

Research Findings: Early care and education (ECE) professionals experience a myriad of challenges that adversely impact their well-being as well as their ability to have the greatest teaching impact on the children they serve. There is general agreement that Professional Development (PD) can improve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEarly education and development Vol. 31; no. 7; pp. 1089 - 1111
Main Authors Rombaoa Tanaka, Naomi, Boyce, Lisa K., Chinn, Chuan C., Murphy, Kristin N.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Routledge 02.10.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Beliefs
Classroom Techniques
Communities of Practice
Early Childhood Education
Early Childhood Teachers
Educational Facilities Improvement
Faculty Development
Instructional Improvement
Mixed methods research
Occupational psychology
Professional development
Professionals
Self Efficacy
Teacher education
Teacher Improvement
Teaching
Teaching Conditions
Teaching Methods
Technical Education
Well Being
Hawaii
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Summary:Research Findings: Early care and education (ECE) professionals experience a myriad of challenges that adversely impact their well-being as well as their ability to have the greatest teaching impact on the children they serve. There is general agreement that Professional Development (PD) can improve teaching practices. The current study examined the impact of a PD experience that included both adaptive work (e.g., addressing educators' existing strengths, challenges, belief systems, stress levels, and self-care) and technical training (e.g., strategies for addressing children's challenging behavior). This PD experience was implemented with 62 ECE professionals living on the islands of Hawai'i over 10 weeks and consisted of in-person sessions, web-based sessions, and a community of practice. Findings from this study suggest high ratings of effectiveness of the PD experience and positive improvements in ECE professionals' ratings of their teaching self-efficacy and well-being. Practice or Policy: The results from this study suggest that PD incorporating adaptive work can improve teaching self-efficacy and could be implemented as part of every PD session. PD that incorporates an emphasis on teachers' well-being and actively strives to promote their well-being may be as important to ECE professionals as some other strategies targeted to improve work environments and classroom quality.
ISSN:1040-9289
1556-6935
DOI:10.1080/10409289.2020.1794246