What do we know about interventions to improve educator wellbeing? A systematic literature review

Abstract This systematic literature review summarises the research into interventions intended to improve the wellbeing of educators in the early childhood to secondary sectors. A search of articles published between 2000 and 2020 yielded 23 articles that met our inclusion criteria. Studies were included if they collected quantitative or qualitative data about educator wellbeing pre-intervention and post-intervention from the same group(s) of educators. We classified articles into five categories based on their content: multi-foci (several content areas included in a program), mindfulness, gratitude, professional development (classroom practice oriented), and physical environment. The articles revealed wide variations in: wellbeing theories underpinning interventions, the phenomena measured, and the effectiveness of the interventions. In some studies wellbeing was conceptualised as the absence of negative states (such as stress), in other studies to the presence of positive states (such as satisfaction), and in a few studies as the combination of both these approaches. Some of the gaps noted across the research include the lack of attention to the role of the school climate in determining the success of an intervention, and the lack of analysis to explore whether interventions work better for some individuals than others (for example, a lack of reporting of the characteristics of participants who drop out of the interventions). Overall, the multi-foci interventions show the most promise for improving educator wellbeing.