Examining Individual and Group Well-Being in Elementary School Settings

Abstract

Whether you are a teacher, work in education, or work in another human service profession, chances are at some point in your career, you may have experienced aspects of burnout. Burnout has been a growing phenomenon in the field of education and linked to a variety of negative outcomes for both teachers and students. Burnout is both a social and organizational issue that progresses from specific individual and organizational factors demonstrating that the individual and the organization both have a responsibility in the improvement of the workplace condition and individual performance. However, despite this research has primarily focused on individual factors and has been very person-centered, leaving the responsibility on the individual teacher to take care of finding resources for reducing their own burnout, which assumes finding resources should be conducted through personal time and at personal expense. An emerging change method, known as Prosocial, may be a potentially viable solution to incorporating both individual and organizational aspects into an intervention that focuses on coping skills, values, and individual and organizational components. This exploratory study explored whether a Prosocial workshop would increase individual and group well-being in two elementary school settings. Findings from this study suggest that following a Prosocial workshop, changes in pre- to posttest scores were observed across each of the individual and group well-being measures. However, only one significant finding (i.e., basic psychological needs) was observed. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, additional questions were analyzed to further understand the extent of the intervention. These additional results along with the implications for the field of education and the Prosocial movement are discussed.