Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0587-4677
Document Type
Article
Rights
Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence
Disciplines
5.1 PSYCHOLOGY
Abstract
Educators’ attitudes toward Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and health and wellbeing promotion can significantly influence the success (or otherwise) of such policies and practices. While numerous studies exist, from which a broad understanding of such attitudes can be garnered, there is currently no attendant measurement which quantifies educators attitudes regarding the promotion of student wellbeing. The aim of this study was to address this gap in knowledge by quantifying the degree to which educators are positively or negatively disposed to the promotion of student wellbeing. The Attitudes Toward Wellbeing Promotion (ATWP) scale was administered to a diverse participant sample (n = 324), which was opportunistically recruited from the population of post-primary educators in Ireland. Analyses using General Linear Modelling (GLM) identified several statistically significant differences in attitude. Main effects included position held in school and the presence/absence of practices such as streaming and vertical education, while Interactions included educator gender*age and educator gender*single-sex/co-educational school status. The results of this study suggest that, overall, educators appear to be positively disposed toward the promotion of student wellbeing. The highest levels of positivity were observed among female educators, particularly those working in all-girls schools. The lowest levels of positivity were observed among older male educators and educators working in schools that adopt streaming and vertical education practices. This study provides the first baseline data pertaining to the degree to which post-primary educators may be positively or negatively disposed to the promotion of students’ social and emotional wellbeing.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273522
Recommended Citation
Byrne D, McGuinness C, Carthy A (2022) Do educators value the promotion of students’ wellbeing? Quantifying educators’ attitudes toward wellbeing promotion. PLoS ONE 17(8): e0273522. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273522
Funder
TU Dublin
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Details
Open access
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0273522