A conceptual model for teacher trainee well-being: challenges and resources in an ecological system

This poster will outline the development of a conceptual framework based on the findings from initial data collection investigating well-being in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) (Thompson et al., 2020; Quickfall, Clarke and Thompson, 2021). In England pupil numbers are growing and there are sustained and significant issues in both teacher recruitment and retention (DfE, 2018; 2019; Perryman and Calvert, 2020), making this research pertinent.

Studies on teachers’ well-being are growing but tend to focus on factors which lead to stress and poor well-being, rather than those that support or promote it (Roffey, 2012). Studies have highlighted how teacher well-being affects teaching, student motivation and retention, and that issues related to well-being being are one of the most commonly cited factors for leaving the profession (Collie, Shapka, Perry and Martin, 2015; Ofsted, 2019). Research on supporting and developing well-being for children in schools is growing, and government policies and publications have more recently highlighted this as an area of focus (DfE, 2018;019). However there remains a paucity of research into well-being for trainee teachers.

The aim of our poster is to answer this question: To what degree does our conceptual model aid in representing the complexity of well-being for trainee teachers, and how does it develop on the work of previous qualitative models of well-being?

Conceptual model

One of the key hurdles in explicitly defining the ‘elusive’ (Ortega-Alcázar and Dyck, 2012) concept of well-being is that it is not a discrete entity but rather multi-factorial and multi-dimensional (Dodge et al., 2012; Masters, 2004). The number of well-being scales and indices are growing, providing tools to monitor and evaluate well-being but much research draws on quantitative data (for example; Grossi and Compare, 2014; OECD, 2015; Tennant et al., 2007). As there a remains a paucity of research into well-being in ITT we were conscious that existing quantitative data collection methods may be reductive and narrow responses from our participants.