How are Early Head Start teachers’ professional development experiences associated with their work-related stress and qualities of teacher-child interactions?

Abstract

Professional development is a necessary support for both teachers’ well-being, and high-quality teacher-child interactions, which are the central mediators of the effects of early care and education on children’s development. Among teachers of older children, effective professional preparation is associated with lower work-related stress and higher classroom quality, but these associations have not been established for infant/toddler teachers generally, nor Early Head Start teachers specifically. Further, professional development opportunities for infant/toddler teachers are typically provided unsystematically, and little is known about what teachers experience, what is most helpful, and how it is associated with their work-related stress and quality teaching. The current study examines the content, format, and helpfulness of professional development experiences for 457 Early Head Start (EHS) teachers in four regions of the United States to describe the variation in professional development and to test how professional development experiences are associated with job stress and the quality of teacher-child interaction. Results indicate that most trainings were provided as one-time workshops, followed by multi-session workshops, and training rarely involved coaching or mentoring. Teachers reported most trainings to be helpful, regardless of content or format, yet most content was not associated with lower stress or teacher-child interactions. Only the helpfulness of training with content related to teacher-child interactions was associated with lower job stress and higher job satisfaction. Teachers’ perceptions of the helpfulness of these trainings were associated with lower teacher-child interaction quality, while attending a training on guidance and discipline was related to higher teacher-child interaction quality. These results call for a far more systematic approach to the preparation and ongoing support of the infant/toddler workforce, including EHS teachers, with training on child guidance as foundational content.