PROMOTING TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS THROUGH A HOLISTIC WELLNESS MODEL

Abstract

Research was conducted to determine if a holistic wellness model could promote teacher effectiveness with 54 teacher interns at a Mississippi campus. The purpose of this research was to determine whether holistic wellness as defined by creative self, coping self, social self, essential self, and physical self as measured by the 5F-Wel can be used to predict teacher effectiveness as measured by the STAI. The research question proposed for this study was: Is there a relationship between wellness as measured by the Five Factor Wellness Inventory and effective teaching as measured by the STAI? The research design was correlational. A convenience sample of voluntary participants among the 54 teacher interns was used. The predictor variables were the second order factor scores on the 5F-Wel. These factors are creative self, coping self, social self, essential self, and physical self. The dependent variable was the overall formative score on the Student Teacher Assessment Instrument (STAI). Effective teacher research supported the Student Teacher Assessment Instrument as a viable measure of teacher effectiveness. The results obtained show the predictor variables included in the multiple linear regression analysis did not predict teacher effectiveness as measured by the STAI at an accuracy greater than chance. A statistically significant relationship between the predictor variables and dependent variable was not found. Specifically, wellness as measured by the second order factors on the 5F-Wel did not predict teacher effectiveness as measured by the STAI in this study. Recommendations were to replicate this study using similar methodology in other geographical locations. Being that guidelines of state universities are of unison, it can be assumed that dissimilarities exist among the individual programs. Therefore, replicating this study at another university could provide dissimilar results or possibly indentify a specific characteristic from an intern population that would benefit from a holistic wellness model. Key words: teacher efficacy, teacher wellness, holistic wellness, student teacher.