JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Teaching is often characterized as a stressful profession, with a significant proportion of teachers experiencing chronic stress and burnout. Research indicates that teachers’ stress commonly originates upon their entry into workforce, leading to negative effects on their health, occupational well-being and work performance and also impacting students’ outcomes. While meta-analytical evidence shows the efficacy of internet-based stress management interventions (iSMIs) for both experienced employees and university students, there is a gap in research on the efficacy of iSMIs tailored to teachers as well as career starters. We investigated whether an iSMI that was tailored to beginning teachers is effective in reducing their perceived stress. Additionally, this iSMI, developed according to transactional stress theory, explored problem-solving ability and emotion-regulation skills as potential mechanisms of change for the first time.

Methods:

Participants were 200 highly stressed beginning teachers undergoing German teacher induction, randomized to either an intervention group or a wait-list control group. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, 3- and an extended 6-month follow-up.

Results:

In the intention-to-treat analysis, the intervention group reported significant, practically meaningful and sustained improvements in perceived stress (d = 0.52) as well as in secondary outcomes. Furthermore, a parallel mediation analysis showed that the iSMI exerted its effect on reduced perceived stress via both improved problem-solving ability and emotion-regulation skills.

Conclusions:

The present study contributes to the growing evidence on iSMIs for early career teachers during a highly demanding transition phase and advocates for their integration into beginning teachers’ training programs. Furthermore, the results of the mediation analysis highlight the importance of teaching both coping strategies in stress management interventions and strengthening the interventions program theory that is based on transactional stress theory. These results help in further approaching to understand how iSMIs work and lay the groundwork for further exploration of conditions affecting change. Trial registration: This trial was registered in the German Clinical Trials Registry on 23/02/2018 (DRKS00013880).