Feeling Good About Wellness? A Qualitative Case Study of SBAE Teacher Wellness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5032/jae.v67i2.3280Keywords:
Teacher Wellness, Teacher Health, Work/Life Balance, Teacher RetentionAbstract
While teacher wellness has been explored related to broad, general education settings, no such studies exist within SBAE literature. Studying teacher wellness is important because this is a population with higher rates of mental illness (anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders). The aim of this study was to address this gap and understand how SBAE teachers conceptualize and manifest wellness in their lives through their lived experiences. A part of a larger explanatory mixed-method sequential design, this research focuses primarily on the qualitative methods and findings. Our qualitative study design identified participants through extreme scores on a quantitative wellness assessment. Ten teachers who participated created their own models of wellness in addition to explaining these conceptualizations through their day-to-day experiences. It was found that the participants experienced the categories of wellness: the self, the world, and the interface and nine different “elements” of wellness which fell under the difference categories. This study concludes with a proposed model of holistic wellness which outlines how the categories and elements interact through manageable and controllable connections. It is recommended that teachers use the proposed model to gauge how different elements interact to influence their overall wellness and further research should continue to explore holistic definitions of wellness and the ways in which SBAE teachers experience wellness.
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