Interventions That Promote Teachers’ Occupational Well-Being: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Their Effectiveness

Due to the growing stress experienced by teachers in an ever-changing educational environment, there is a rising focus on improving their overall occupational well-being. The objective of this meta-analysis is twofold: (1) to examine the effectiveness of current interventions in enhancing teachers’ overall occupational well-being, along with specific dimensions of well-being, and (2) to identify factors that may influence the effectiveness of these interventions. To guide the analysis of this review, we used an adjusted four-dimensional occupational well-being framework encompassing subjective, cognitive, social, and psychosomatic dimensions. The final analysis included 34 studies representing 4,403 in-service teachers. The results suggested that existing interventions had a significant positive and medium effect on improving teachers’ overall occupational well-being. Upon examining the specific dimensions, the interventions exert the greatest effect on teachers’ subjective well-being and relatively lower effects on their cognitive and social well-being. However, the results of the moderator analysis and meta-regression analysis showed that the investigated factors (i.e., delivery mode, the presence of instructors, intervention scale, intervention length in hours, program duration in months, and the intensity of intervention) exhibited no significant relations with the intervention effectiveness across the four dimensions of occupational well-being. Based on the findings, we recommend the development of future interventions to address teachers’ cognitive and social well-being more effectively. Schools could also provide structural support to ensure the relevance and effectiveness of teacher well-being interventions. Additionally, schools could consider the intervention benefits and costs for teachers and provide intervention in an appropriate mode, scale, length, intensity, and duration.