Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education Professional Development (CARE PD) on health outcomes.
- The study used an interrupted time series design to compare outcomes before and after participation in CARE PD. Using pre- and post-intervention surveys, the author conducted statistical tests to compare differences in outcomes.
- The study found a significant relationship between participation in CARE PD and higher depersonalization scores (a symptom of burnout) indicating a lack of connection or feelings toward others.
- This study receives a low evidence rating. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to CARE PD; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education Professional Development (CARE PD)
Features of the Intervention
Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education Professional Development (CARE PD) is a mindfulness-based professional development program created by teachers for teachers. The program focuses on teaching skills and practices to enhance social-emotional competence, well-being, and resilience in the classroom. CARE PD has three main components. The first component is emotion skill instruction to understand the role that emotions play in the classroom (40 percent of the program). The second component teaches mindfulness and stress reduction practices (40 percent). The last component teaches caring and listening techniques (20 percent).
Features of the Study
The author used an interrupted time series design to examine the impact of CARE PD on general well-being, emotion regulation, and self-efficacy. The study was conducted at one university in the Northeast and targeted undergraduate and graduate students seeking teacher certification who had fieldwork experience in general and special education. A total of 29 students participated in the study, including 24 undergraduate students and 5 graduate students. Most participants were female (92%), White (96%), and worked in a K-5 elementary school for their field placement (90%). Over half of the sample had mindfulness or mediation experience prior to CARE PD (56%). The primary data source was a survey comprised of various scales to measure mindfulness, self-efficacy, emotion regulation, self-compassion, perceived stress, and burnout. The pre-intervention survey was administered in September 2019 and the post-intervention survey was administered in January 2020. The author used statistical tests to compare outcomes before and after participation in CARE PD.
Findings
Health and safety
The study found a significant negative relationship between CARE PD and burnout, where the mean score for depersonalization (a lack of connection or feelings toward others) significantly increased. No other significant relationships were found.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The author compared the outcomes of participants measured before and after they participated in the intervention. However, the study included only one data collection point prior to the intervention and after the intervention ended. For these types of designs, the author must observe outcomes for multiple periods before the intervention to rule out the possibility that participants had increasing or decreasing trends in the outcomes examined before enrollment in the program. Without knowing the trends before program enrollment, we cannot rule this out.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this study is low because the author did not account for trends in outcomes before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to CARE PD; other factors are likely to have contributed.