Christelle Devos

Types of Professional and Emotional Coping Among Beginning Teachers

Teaching is increasingly recognised as a complex, demanding career. Teachers experience higher levels of stress and burnout than other professionals. The career is subject to heightened levels of public scrutiny and yet offers only modest rewards in the form of social status and income. Drawing on a typological model of coping styles among a diverse sample of German health professionals, we identified six types of emotional coping (Good health, Sparing, (healthy) Ambitious, (path to) Burnout, Diligent, and Wornout) among a longitudinal sample of 612 Australian primary and secondary teachers. A significant outcome of our study was the empirical differentiation between burned out and wornout teachers. This extends the literature on teacher burnout and offers new directions to the study of ‘at risk’ beginning teachers.

Doctoral supervision in the light of the three types of support promoted in self-determination theory

The purpose of the present study was twofold. First, we used the three types of support depicted in Self-Determination Theory (SDT) (structure, involvement and autonomy support) to examine supervision practices in the doctoral context. Conversely, we used this material to discuss the theory and suggest new developments to it. To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 former PhD students (8 completers and 13 non-completers). The data were analyzed using deductive content analysis. The first aim led us to illustrate how supervisors offer structure, involvement, and autonomy support to the doctoral students, and to support the relevance of this theoretical framework in this particular context. The second aim led us to provide three avenues for reflection on SDT. First, a set of practices belongs both to structure and involvement and are therefore at risk of being overlooked in research. Second, there is a thin line between structure and control (and between autonomy support and chaos) and intentions to offer the first may easily turn into providing the second in practice. Finally, we developed the hypothesis that a necessary condition for supervisors to be able to offer positive support to their doctoral students is to consider them as trustworthy.

Effects of support on stress and burnout in school principals

Abstract Background: More than ever before, school principals are dealing with stress and burnout, resulting from increasing role demands and decreasing decision latitude and autonomy. Following the Demand–Support–Constraints model, reasons for stress and burnout can be found in the lack of social support in the environment. Purpose: This longitudinal study investigates whether changes in social support from colleagues, supervisors and/or the broader community affect levels of principal stress and burnout. Sample: Approximately 26% of Australia’s school principals took part (N = 3572): primary (n = 2660) and secondary (n = 912) spread across all Australian states and territories. Age ranged between 46 and 55 years, and mean leadership experience was 12 years. Design and methods: Since stress and burnout are psychological phenomena that develop over time, a longitudinal approach was adopted. Data were collected across four waves, spread over four years, from 2011 to 2014. Results: It was found that social support predicts decreased stress and in turn burnout in school principals, however differences were found according to the type of social support. The data provide strong evidence for a positive effect of stress on burnout (e.g. the more stress at time 2, the more burnout in principals at time 3) and partial support for indirect negative effects of social support on burnout (e.g. the more support from colleagues at time 2, the less burnout in principals at time 3). However, we also found two instances of positive effects of social support from the broader community on burnout. This suggests that the more support principals receive from the broader community, the more likely they are to show burnout symptoms. This might be explained as the ‘the downside of empathy’, where principals who are strongly supported by their community might also feel more connected to that community. When their community is struggling, they are probably struggling as well. Conclusions: The findings highlight the positive impact the wider school community can play in providing supplementary professional support to the principal. Unbundling or repackaging the job responsibilities with an administrative team that shares the leadership of the school, could be part of the solution.

Misfits between doctoral students and their supervisors: (How) are they regulated?

The purpose of the present study is to explore the “misfits” occurring between doctoral students and their supervisors. More precisely, we investigate the types of incongruences that occur, whether and how they are regulated and their consequences on students’ outcomes. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 former PhD students (8 completers and 13 non-completers). Results show that, when facing a misfit, PhD students either (1) learn to live with it and/or turn to alternate resources, (2) suffer from it without being able to address the problem with their super-visor, (3) address the issue with their supervisor and try to solve it in various ways, or (4) are unable to address the issue because it reached a point of no return. Further, types of misfit regulation are likely to have an influence on students’ motivation and engagement. These results are discussed in the light of person-environment fit, coping, emotional regu- lation, and conflict management frameworks.

Devastated or Feeling Fine? The Moderating Role of Self-aspect Importance on the Emotional Reaction to a Valenced Event

Two people can have very different emotional reactions to the same event. In this study, we make the hypothesis that the relationship between a self-relevant event and feelings of depression is moderated by the importance given to the congruent self-aspect (i.e., the self-aspect related to the event). We develop a measure of self-aspect importance and test its amplifying moderating role in an experimental study. Results show that, whereas the mere importance of the congruent self-aspect has a marginal moderating effect, indicators of its relative importance (i.e., compared with other self-aspects) strongly moderate the emotional reaction to the event. These findings are discussed in the light of broader research on the self.