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Exploring How Positive Psychology Characteristics Nfluence Bilingual

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17 views15 pages

Exploring How Positive Psychology Characteristics Nfluence Bilingual

Uploaded by

Korn ST
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Exploring how Positive

Psychology Characteristics
Influence Bilingual/ESL Teacher
Candidates’ Mental Health
Javier Cavazos Vela, Zulmaris Diaz, and Federico Guerra
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Project Summary
• Teachers report more significant levels of poor mental health, stress, and anxiety
(Zarate et al., 2019), which can negatively affect their students’ academic
achievement. As a result, K-12 schools and teacher preparation programs have
been challenged to reflect and serve students’ current needs, including social,
emotional, and cognitive development (Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2020). In this
study, we will explore how bilingual/ESL teacher candidates’ hope, grit, resilience,
and life satisfaction influence their wellbeing and depressive symptoms. Based
on this study’s findings, there will be several potential contributions to the field.
First, we will identify relationships among positive psychology characteristics and
teacher candidates’ wellbeing and mental health. If we identify relationships, such
as hope and depressive symptoms, there will be implications for teacher
education programs to design professional development or integrate class
activities to improve candidates’ hope.
• Before the COVID-19
Teachers’ pandemic, researchers found
that teachers’ mental health,
stress, and symptoms of
Mental Health burnout were high (Richards et
al., 2018; Zarate et al., 2019).
Teachers’
Mental Health • When teachers experience challenges with mental
health, there is potential to negatively influence
on Student student learning, the classroom learning
environment, relationships with students (McClean &
Learning Connor, 2019), students’ classroom experiences
(Hamre & Pianta, 2004), self-regulatory development
(Ursache et al., 2012), and student behavior patterns
(Jeon et al., 2014).
• Although some researchers have
examined practicing teachers’ mental

Teacher health as well as the impact on


student learning, less attention has
focused on teacher candidates’ mental
Candidates health, particularly culturally diverse
teacher candidates who might have
experienced greater challenges with
COVID-19 (Digital Promise, 2019)
• When researchers use a positive
psychology framework (Seligman, 2002)
Theoretical to understand predictive factors of
important outcomes such as subjective
Framework well-being, practitioners can identify
interventions to target those factors that
contribute to mental health
Meaning in life
Theoretical
Framework: Grit
Positive Hope
Psychology
Resilience
• A dual-factor model of mental health with
indicators of subjective well-being (e.g.,
Outcome happiness) and psychopathology (e.g.,
Variables depressive symptoms) allows
researchers to understand complete
mental health (Suldo & Shaffer, 2008).
Utilizing positive psychology as a framework to
understand teacher candidates’ mental
health during COVID-19
(Seligman, 2002) would be useful and beneficial
to teacher preparation programs.

Purpose of
Study When researchers use a positive psychology
framework to understand the predictive factors
of essential outcomes, teacher educators can
identify interventions to target those factors that
contribute to teacher candidates’ mental health.
Outcomes

https://www.softofficepro.com/online-survey-2/
Next Steps

https://www.medaille.edu/my-medaille/lp/institutional-
review-board
Potential
Implications
Potential Implications
References
• Darling-Hammond, L., & Hyler, M. E. (2020). Preparing educators for the time of COVID … and
beyond. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(4), 457–
465. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1816961
• McLean, L., & Connor, C. (2015). Depressive symptoms in third-grade teachers: Relations to
classroom quality and student achievement. Child Development, 86, 945-954.
• Seligman, M. E. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your
potential for lasting fulfillment. New York, NY: Free Press.
• Zarate, K., Maggin, D. M., & Passmore, A. (2019). Meta-analysis of mindfulness training on teacher
well-being. Psychology in Schools, 56, 1700-1715.

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