The Effectiveness of the ACHIEVER Adult Resilience Curriculum in Promoting Teacher Wellbeing

Abstract

Teaching is a multifaceted profession, capturing a range of experiences that are exciting, rewarding, challenging, frustrating, and exhausting. Research has shown that teachers are at high risk of chronic stress and burnout which impacts teacher health, wellbeing, and effectiveness in the classroom. In the present study, the effectiveness of a theoretically based professional development program—the ACHIEVER Resilience Curriculum (ARC)—to increase teacher wellbeing and decrease symptoms of burnout was examined. The ARC training integrates several wellness promotion practices into one comprehensive program. To evaluate the effectiveness of the ARC, a randomized block controlled study with pre-post data collection was performed. The sample included 67 teachers from six schools in one large urban school district. Analyses showed that teachers who received ARC training experienced increased feelings of efficacy, overall subjective wellbeing, and reduced emotional exhaustion compared to an attention control group. In addition, increased feelings of wellbeing and reduced emotional exhaustion were correlated with higher quality teacher-student interactions. Evidence from this study also suggests that demographic variables such as grade level taught or number of years of teaching experience may moderate the effects of the ARC, indicating a need for continued research on the function and effectiveness of this program. Finally, teachers who received the ARC training indicated they found it to be feasible and acceptable for use in schools to promote teachers’ wellbeing. The implications of these findings for teacher training and practice, suggestions for future research, and the limitations of this study are discussed.