🔗 linkedin.com/in/dr-grace-guarino-34b02265

Research Focus: Teacher Well-Being • Self-Determination Theory • Professional Learning Communities

“Supporting Teachers’ Basic Psychological Needs for Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence to Minimize Teacher Stress and Burnout and to Nurture Teacher Joy”

What challenge did your research address?

Teacher stress and burnout continue to pervade education despite decades of research, and the demands of the job can crowd out the joys that drew teachers to the profession in the first place. My research looked for ways to address the core, controllable factors driving that stress and burnout, and to make more room for the joy of teaching.

What inspired you to pursue this research?

Despite loving my work as an educator, I’ve been plagued with stress and burnout for much of my career, and I’ve watched colleagues leave the profession because of it. Little seemed to be done about it that didn’t put the burden of self-care back on teachers, so I wanted to validate, honor, and center teachers’ own voices in any effort to address it.

What did your research find, and what is its impact?

Using self-determination theory, I found that teachers experienced stress and burnout when their basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence were thwarted, and joy when those needs were supported. In response, my colleagues and I co-created an online, asynchronous professional learning community designed to support those needs directly. Teachers reported that the PLC promoted their sense of agency, belonging, and professional growth, offering accessible resources, peer support, and student-centered planning that has the potential to minimize stress and burnout and nurture real joy in teaching.

“Teachers experienced stress and burnout when their basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence were thwarted, and joy when those needs were supported.”

Grace Guarino

Full dissertation: https://northeastern.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01NEU_INST/3dbigu/cdi_proquest_journals_3322391402