As part of the course experience, participants may opt in to respond to a short survey study to inform the scientific and practitioner communities about emotional experiences, impacts, and opportunities for cultivating resilience in both educators and students during this time of crisis. Participants report on their experiences of emotions, regulation strategies, sources of stress and joy, recommendations for support, and key demographics through open-ended and closed-response questions. To support the real-time transmission of findings of the emotional health and well-being of school personnel, our team will be preparing and sharing White Papers drawn from course data as they are available.

White Paper 1: Supporting Connecticut Educators with SEL During Times of Uncertainty and Stress: Findings from Fall 2020 

Principal Investigator: Christina Cipriano, Ph.D.

Co-Principal Investigators: Rachel Baumsteiger, Ph.D. and Marc Brackett, Ph.D.

Research Team: Morgan Mannweiler, Jennifer Seibyl, Violet Tan, Linda Torv, Almut Zieher, Ph.D.

Release Date: January 19, 2021

This initial report shares baseline survey results from over 2,500 school personnel in Connecticut who registered for the free course, Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress. Key findings include (1) differences between school personnel responses, now and before the pandemic, on standardized measures of affective experiences and what they shared in their open response questions regarding their feelings of inclusion, personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, intentions to quit, and perceived principal emotional intelligence, (2) sources of joy grounded in school personnel experiences with their students, colleagues, and families; and sources of stress including “everything else” related to the practice of teaching, and (3) a substantial lack of support for school personnel social-emotional needs and their request for resources and skill development.

This report shares baseline survey results from over 400 school personnel in Rhode Island who registered for the free course, Managing Emotions in Times of Uncertainty and Stress, developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and funded by Dalio Education so that it could be offered at no charge to school staff. As part of the course experience, participants could participate in a short survey study to inform the scientific and practitioner communities about emotional experiences, impacts, and opportunities for cultivating resilience in both educators and students during this time of crisis. Participants reported on their emotional experiences, sources of stress and joy, recommendations for support, and key demographics through open-ended and closed-response questions.