The teaching-learning process and academic achievements in schools are significantly shaped by the relationship quality between teachers and students and therefore by teachers’ relational competence (Juul & Jensen, 2017). Furthermore, relationships among teachers, other pedagogical staff and school leaders are important for the social environment at a school (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Research has shown that good relationships are positively associated with various health outcomes and promotes mental health and well-being (Chernyshenko et al., 2018; Durlak et al., 2011). Conducive elements for positive relationships are interpersonal competencies such as empathy and compassion as well as self-regulating skills helping to deal with challenging situations (Flook et al. 2015; Singer & Klimecki, 2014). 

These competencies can be enhanced through professional development programs preferable whole school interventions (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). It is assumed that teachers who increase their own social-emotional competencies as a result of participating in training will thus not only positively influence the interpersonal atmosphere and the way of relating to each other, but this will – directly and indirectly – also benefit the social-emotional development of the students (e.g. Jennings et al. 2017).

To date, social emotional interventions have mostly been investigated in quantitative experimental studies. However, due to the complexity of these interventions’ implementation, it has been argued that a mixed-methods approach is feasible and enables tracking more closely the multi-level changes (Nielsen et al. 2019).  Hence, this study included interviews with school staff and leaders to investigate their lived experience of their relationships at school during the program implementation.

This study focuses on the “Empathie macht Schule“ project – a whole-school approach targeting all educators and other school staff, including leaders. The program bases on the work of Juul and Jensen (2017) aiming at the cultivation of educators’ empathy, mindfulness, compassion, and relational competence at three elementary schools in Berlin, Germany. Central features of this program have previously been carried out in various European countries, including a Danish teacher training (Jensen, E., Skibsted, & Christensen, 2015, Lund Nielsen, 2016) and an ERASMUS project (Nielsen at al., 2019). The training comprises six modules focusing on topics of wellbeing and mindfulness, relational competence and empathy, self-regulation and working with conflicts, challenging relationships, and children with special needs, bereavement and loss, collaboration with parents, and collegial reflection practices.

Although there are some important indications from the research to date, it remains rather unclear how qualitative and quantitative data sources analyzing the process and various outcomes are able to depict the overall picture of a social-emotional intervention effect and careful implementation practices in elementary schools.

Research question

In this presentation, we aim to relate the findings from the qualitative interviews to the individual quantitative data and finally embed them on a quantitative level in the dataset of sample of Cohort 1 collected to date, focusing on aspects relevant for relationship quality on the one hand and on self-regulating skills and distress on the other.

• How do teachers experience their relationships in their professional context, especially important change moments following the training?
• How does the perceived relationship quality change as a result of the training?
• How is this related to various aspects influencing the interpersonal self-efficacy – such as mindfulness and self-compassion as well as perceived stress?
• To what extent can the qualitative data be used to inform the understanding/interpretation for the quantitatively collected data and vice versa?

In our five-year longitudinal project, “Empathie macht Schule” (Empathy in Schools), elementary school staff, including leadership, are trained to increase social-emotional competencies –including mindfulness and self-compassion – and strengthen both self- and collective efficacy as part of an 18-day training offered over the course of 1.5 years. Completion of the training is followed by a one-year supervision phase and a transfer phase into self-organized continuation of the implementation process. In a non-randomized control group design, the school staff, including the school administrators/leaders, of a total of six elementary schools are and will be studied (3 intervention IG and 3 control CG schools - this in each case in two cohorts that are offered the intervention with a time lag). Qualitatively, the school administrators and individual teachers of the intervention schools have been interviewed about their experiences with the training and about the process of implementation, and at the same time various constructs such as relationship quality, self-efficacy aspects, mindfulness, self-compassion, and stress, among others, have been collected via standardized questionnaires at different measurement points (before/after the training, after supervision, two one-year follow-ups each, in IG and CG schools). Qualitative interview data was analyzed by multiple researchers adopting a reflexive thematic analysis approach (Terry & Hayfield, 2020). On the quantitative level, we preformed ANOVAs focusing on group*time interactions effects. The students of the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades have also been surveyed via standardized questionnaires at the beginning and end of each school year, and group interviews have been used to qualitatively collect their experiences, while the student data will not be presented.

In this presentation, we focus on the first training cohort of school staff (N = 69) and on the measurement time points before and after the training. Results from the qualitative interviews of N = 14 indicate perceived improvements at the level of relationship quality, stress regulation, mindfulness, self-compassion, and self-efficacy. More specifically, educators reflect on the changes in their interactions with students and parents in terms of shifts in how they perceive situational affordances as opportunities to enact change, accompanied by an embodied awareness of their somatic and affective sensations evoked by the relational affordances, the capacity to regulate their own emotions and suspend habitual action tendencies, and a more intentional way of attuning to students and parents as well as communicating own needs and goals more productively. These results are not reflected in the preliminary results of the quantitative data of this subsample – we do not find significant group*time interaction effects in any of the aforementioned variables (all p > .05). When directly comparing the qualitative and quantitative data, the results suggest a stronger experience of change than would also be apparent at the descriptive level of the quantitative data points of the interviewed individuals. We discuss the data in the light of the mixed-method approach and what conclusions can be drawn for these different sources of knowledge. Further, we weigh on the one hand the Corona pandemic as an important constraint for implementation and data collection, but also the statistically low power of the small sample against these preliminary findings and consider how further guided implementation can positively influence the change process we are aiming for.

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