Investigating a brief intervention to instill a self-compassionate perspective in teaching: A randomized field experiment with first-year classroom teachers

This study tests the impacts of a brief intervention designed to impart self-compassionate ideas to beginning teachers as they enter into teaching. The brief intervention uses wise intervention techniques to help teachers interpret professional stressors from a more self-compassionate perspective. The study employed a pre-registered, double-blind randomized field experiment with first-year K-12 classroom teachers [N = 119] from three graduate teacher education programs. Both immediately after the intervention and 6 months later, participants answered questions about holding a self-compassionate perspective in teaching, a resilient mindset for teaching, and a growth orientation toward teaching. At 6-month follow-up they also answered questions about self-efficacy in teaching, occupational well-being, and commitment to teaching. Findings showed no main effects of the intervention. However, exploratory analyses revealed significant subgroup effects of the intervention based on participants' baseline commitment to teaching. Highly committed teachers who underwent the intervention were more likely to hold a resilient mindset, a growth orientation toward teaching, and have greater self-efficacy 6 months following the intervention compared to highly committed teachers in the control group. This same group of teachers were lower in terms of burnout (lack of personal accomplishment) and higher in terms of job satisfaction compared to highly committed control group teachers – differences that were marginally significant. Implications for future research are discussed. This study tested a novel, easy to implement, online intervention for beginning teachers, administered during their first year of teaching – a time that typically does not include a focus on the development of teachers’ social and emotional competencies (SECs) and adaptive mindsets/orientations toward teaching. As such, this study contributes an initial exploration of an innovative approach for equipping teachers early on with the requisite SECs and mindsets that support thriving and continuation in teaching. The findings of this study are likely of interest and relevance for teacher preparation and induction programs that seek brief and easily integrated trainings and interventions.