Professional well-being
Professional well-being is of great importance for the health of teachers and their ability to remain in the profession.
Psychological Characteristics of Successful Teachers
Teaching presents teachers with complex tasks and challenges. They are expected to design cognitively demanding tasks, create a productive and undisturbed learning environment and build a constructive, emotionally supportive relationship with their students.
Yet what knowledge, skills or characteristics must teachers have to design a learning environment in which students can develop optimally?
The SEMO research group at the IPN aimed to answer this question. This page is intended to provide information about the focus of the research and its findings.
»In summary, good teaching is essential for the academic and psychosocial development of students.«
Research
Our research group at the IPN and collaborating partners investigate a range of individual characteristics of teachers and their interplay with their professional well-being and the psychosocial and academic development of students. The core objectives of our research are the identification of relevant psychological characteristics, the analysis of short- and long-term developmental processes, and the development and implementation of interventions.
The SEMO research group focuses on social-emotional characteristics of successful teachers. But what exactly is meant by “successful” teachers?
Successful teachers foster…
- the academic development of students: The learning growth of students is an important and obvious target criterion. However, it is equally important that teachers generate interest in the learning content and strengthen students' confidence in their subject-related abilities.
- the psychosocial development of students, for example their well-being or self-esteem.
Designing good lessons plays a key role here. This means teachers…
- design cognitively challenging tasks, convey content clearly and provide constructive feedback (= instructional support),
- create a productive, low-disruption learning environment (= classroom management) and
- build a positive, emotionally supportive relationship with their students (= emotional support).
Figure 1: Theoretical model of the roles of teachers' social-emotional competence, personality and well-being in their professional behavior and students' development (adapted from Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Kunter et al., 2011; Maslach & Leiter, 1999).
Key Questions
In summary, good teaching is essential for students' academic and psychosocial development (see Figure 1).
- But what characteristics must teachers have to design good instruction and thus support students?
- What factors determine the short and long-term development processes of these characteristics?
- How can we develop and implement sustainable interventions to strengthen relevant characteristics?
Research Focus
In answering these questions, the psychologists from the SEMO team focus on the social-emotional characteristics of teachers. Why this focus? Teachers' subject knowledge and their ability to prepare material for teaching are undoubtedly important. However, teachers also have to cope with complex social and emotional demands: Subject-related knowledge is not enough to support students with test anxiety, to act calmly but firmly when lessons are disrupted and to find solutions to conflicts in the classroom. Hence, professional well-being, social-emotional skills and personality are also believed strongly linked to the quality of teaching and student development (see Figure 1).
Research approach
Combining a variety of research approaches is necessary to test our ideas. For example, we analyze representative data from large student assessment studies and panels in which the professional development of teachers is followed for up to 10 years. We conduct so-called experience sampling studies in which teachers report daily on their experiences in the profession and use meta-analyses to summarize the research on our topics. We also develop interventions to foster a favorable development of social-emotional characteristics and evaluate the effectiveness of our programs.
Sources
Recent Publications
Questions?
Are there topics, such as dealing with classroom disruptions, bullying or exam anxiety, that you would like to know more about? Are you concerned about a specific “case” from your everyday work at school? Take a look at our FAQs, where you will find answers to frequently asked questions. Perhaps your question has already been covered there. Otherwise, we look forward to receiving your questions, concerns and suggestions.
