Teachers bear a high responsibility for the development of students and their work performance, in terms of instructional quality, is highly relevant for students’ outcomes (Kunter et al., 2013). At the same time, empirical evidence has shown that teachers are at risk of stress and burnout (García-Carmona et al., 2019). Following the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers' well-being has declined, and burnout symptoms have increased (Voss, Klusmann et al., in press).

The symposium will focus on teacher well-being and address two key questions: (1) What do we know about the work-related consequences of teacher well-being? Moreover, (2) Are current internet-based approaches effective in promoting well-being? Here, we focus on programs for students and beginning teachers because they bear the potential for prevention at an early career stage.

The first study by Aldrup et al. investigates the assumption that teachers’ burnout is linked to student outcomes because the symptoms change teachers’ interpersonal behavior. Including data from 80 teachers and their classes, the results supported the assumption that students perceived the interpersonal behavior of teachers with more burnout symptoms as less supportive and, in turn, reported less positive affect and lower behavioral engagement. The second study by Wartenberg et al. describes two research syntheses of the correlates of teachers’ burnout and job satisfaction with regard to the quality of teacher-student interactions and students’ educational development. Overall, meta-analytic findings indicate negative relationships for teachers’ burnout, while job satisfaction was positively related to instructional quality and student development.

The third study by Heckendorf & Lehr investigated if an internet-based stress management intervention for beginning, complemented by classroom management skills training, effectively promotes well-being. The results from a randomized control trial with 200 beginning teachers suggested a substantial reduction of stress and burnout symptoms and improved adaptive coping strategies. Similarly, the forth study by Bellingrath et al. aimed at promoting well-being with a mindfulness-based intervention. Based on an internet-based intervention with over 200 teacher students, the results showed positive effects on work engagement as a positive aspect of teacher well-being,

Patricia Jennings agreed to discuss the four presentations.

In conclusion, this symposium will comprehensively discuss teacher well-being, its impact on student outcomes, and the latest research on interventions to promote well-being. The symposium will highlight further avenues for research and practical implications in times of teacher shortage.

Theoretical background. According to theoretical models (e.g., Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Maslach & Leiter, 1999), teacher burnout goes along with less encouraging and more critical interactions with students and is hypothesized to reduce teachers’ involvement and effort resulting in trouble taking the lead and rather punitive, controlling strategies when managing student behavior and classroom activities. Thus, burnout might impair communion (i.e., teacher friendliness) and interpersonal agency (i.e., social influence) as the two central dimensions of interpersonal teacher behavior (Wubbels et al., 1993). Perceiving these behavioral changes might then impair students’ outcomes (e.g., Kunter et al., 2013; Mainhard et al., 2018). However, empirical research testing the entire assumed process from teacher burnout to noticeable changes in interpersonal teacher behavior, and student outcomes is still rare.

Research questions. Therefore, the present study examined whether teacher burnout is associated with the quality of observed and student-rated interpersonal teacher behavior and with student-reported outcomes, namely, their learning-related emotions and engagement. We hypothesized that burnout is associated with less communion and agency and that these burnout-related changes are in turn related with adverse affective-motivational student outcomes.

Method. We drew on data from the Dynamics of Emotional Processes in Teachers project (DEPTh; Donker, 2020) where secondary school teachers (N = 80) reported on burnout symptoms, external coders rated teacher agency and communion based on one video-taped lesson, and students (N = 1,748) rated teachers’ interpersonal behavior, their own emotions, and behavioral engagement related to that specific lesson. We set up multilevel mediation models in Mplus 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012) to test our research questions.

Results. Teachers reported high feelings of personal accomplishment and low depersonalization, whereas emotional exhaustion was somewhat more frequent. Emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment came along with less student-reported communion, which was in turn associated with more negative and less positive affect and lower engagement among students.

Discussion. This study suggests that students notice burnout-related changes in teachers’ interpersonal behavior, which was in turn associated with more negative affect, less positive affect, and lower behavioral engagement. Even though longitudinal and intervention research is needed to allow for causal conclusions, these results give a first hint that burnout prevention and intervention are relevant not only for the teachers’ own well-being but also for their professional performance.

Burnout and job satisfaction represent two important aspects of teachers’ occupational well-being (Diener et al., 1999). The generally low well-being reported by teachers (Iriarte Redín & Erro-Garcés, 2020) is of great relevance with regard to increasing teacher shortage worldwide (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2016) and frequent incapacity to work due to mental and physical illness (Seibt et al., 2009). However, teachers’ occupational well-being is not only associated with teacher attrition and teachers’ mental and physical health (Madigan & Kim, 2021; Simone et al., 2016). Theoretical models suggest that teachers’ occupational well-being is also related to the quality of teacher-student interactions and students’ development (Fredrickson, 2001; Hobfoll, 1989; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Maslach & Leiter, 1999).

Therefore, we aimed to provide two research syntheses of the correlates of teachers’ burnout and job satisfaction integrating a comprehensive set of variables (i.e., emotional support, classroom management, instructional support, student’ motivation and achievement). The literature search yielded a total of 1,444 records for teachers’ burnout and 1,137 records for teachers’ job satisfaction of which 62 and 42 were included in the respective research syntheses. The inter-rater reliability was good with Cohens Kappa ranging between .79 and .92.

Meta-analyses using random-effects models yielded significant negative correlations for all three burnout symptoms with emotional support (r = −.14 to r = −.37), classroom management (r = −.23 to r = −.27), instructional support (r = −.12 to r = −.39), and student motivation (r = −.19), while we found no evidence for an association with student achievement. In contrast, results demonstrated small to moderate positive correlations between teachers’ job satisfaction and teacher-student interactions (rES = .14, rCM = .18, rIS = .10), student motivation (r = .29), and achievement (r = .10). Due to substantial heterogeneity in effect sizes across studies, we examined moderating study characteristics using meta-regressions. This revealed stronger negative relationship for both, teacher’s burnout and job satisfaction, with the quality of teacher-student interaction, and students’ motivation for the teacher-report of the respective outcomes. However, results for external reports were still significant.

Based on the meta-analytic summary of different correlates of both teachers’ burnout and job satisfaction, we aim to identify areas where empirical findings are lacking, inform about the relevance of both positive and negative aspects of teachers’ occupational well-being, set an agenda for future research (e.g., motivate research on the interplay between those variables), and discuss implications for facilitating teachers’ professional well-being.

Background: The university-to-work transition is associated with insecurities and increased stress for many career starters. While meta-analytical evidence shows the efficacy of internet-based stress management interventions (iSMIs) for experienced employees as well as for university students, there is a gap in research on the efficacy of iSMIs tailored to career starters. The teaching profession and the career start as a teacher was shown to be highly stressful which has consequences for teachers’ mental health, their occupational well-being and work performance.

Aim: We investigated whether an iSMI that was developed according to transactional stress theory, tailored to beginning teachers and complemented by a classroom management (CRM) skills training is effective in reducing perceived stress (German Clinical Trials Registry (reference number: DRKS00013880).

Methods: Participants were 200 beginning teachers experiencing high levels of stress during German teacher induction that were randomized to intervention group or a wait-list control group. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, 3- and 6-month follow-up.

Results: In the intention-to-treat analysis, the intervention group reported significant, practical meaningful (Delta 3.1 points, d = 0.52, 95%-CI 0.24 - 0.80) and sustained improvements in perceived stress as well as in secondary outcomes e.g. symptoms of depression, anxiety, insomnia, emotional exhaustion and work-related rumination (d = 0.49 – 0.68). We also found significant improvements in emotional coping, problem-focused coping and CRM self-efficacy. Furthermore, in a parallel mediation analysis we could show that the iSMI exerted its effect on reduced perceived stress via both improved problem- and emotional-focused coping.

Discussion and implications: Results suggested that the present guided iSMI complemented with a CRM intervention is effective in reducing perceived stress in career starters. Combining the iSMI with CRM training was feasible and furthermore accepted by beginning teachers. Nevertheless, beginning teachers still experienced still high levels of stress indicating that individual-focused interventions may not be enough and further organizational interventions are needed. There was evidence that problem- and emotional focused coping are mechanisms that work in concert to produce the beneficial effect on stress as predicted by the transactional stress theory. Such results suggest that interventions should comprise several coping strategies and promote coping flexibility. Neither interventions focusing solely on actively changing stressors nor trainings highlighting only mindfulness facets such as acceptance, observing, non-judging or non-reactivity might enfold their full stress-reducing potential.

Theoretical Background: Teaching is a highly demanding occupation with increased risk for chronic stress and burnout. In light of the fact that teachers´ level of exhaustion has been linked to reduced academic achievement of their students, it should be an essential part of teacher training to help student teachers to stay motivated and engaged already at an early stage. Work engagement is a positive work-related state of mind characterized by vigor, absorption and dedication. Teachers´ work engagement was shown to be associated with increased job satisfaction and lower levels of burnout.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was shown to reduce perceived stress and improve work engagement. However, MBSR based programs require discipline and an extensive time commitment, both scarce resources for teacher students experiencing an already high workload.

Study Question: This study therefore examined whether the daily practice of short self-initiated mindfulness based breathing exercises also affects students´ work engagement. It was hypothesized that higher daily work engagement would be predicted by a) low baseline exhaustion, b) better sleep quality and c) the number of practiced breathing exercises over a work week.

Methods: A group of advanced teacher students (N = 224) was taught a mindfulness based breathing exercise within a university course on educator stress and coping. A baseline questionnaire assessed sociodemographic variables and the level of vital exhaustion (VE). During five workdays students were instructed to initiate at least one breathing exercise a day and to answer a short questionnaire in the evening assessing work engagement and sleep quality (SQ). Data was analyzed with multilevel modeling using R statistics.

Results: The hypotheses were mostly supported. Vigor was predicted by VE (ß = -0.06, t(222) = -5.67, p < .001) and SQ (ß = 0.41, t(890) = 6.85, p < .001). Dedication was predicted by VE (ß = -0.05, t(222) =-3.75, p < .001), number of breathing exercises (ß = 0.17, t(890) = 3.47, p < .001) and SQ (ß = 0.23,t(890) = 3.95, p < .001). Absorption was predicted by VE (ß = -0.04, t(222) = -3.49, p < .001), number of breathing exercises (ß = 0.21, t(890) = 4.19, p < .001) and SQ (ß = 0.21, t(890) = 3.57, p < .001).

Discussion and Implications for Theory and Practice: One can conclude that a significant increase in work engagement can be achieved even with minimal effort of performing short mindfulness based breathing exercises.