Stressed Teachers Don’t Make Good Implementers: Examining the Interplay Between Stress Reduction and Intervention Fidelity

Abstract

Correlational research indicates that stress due to work overload may represent an alterable factor that impacts certain teachers’ willingness and ability to implement innovative practices. The purpose of this study was to experimentally examine the impact of a well-being-promoting intervention (ACHIEVER Resilience Curriculum [ACHIEVER]) delivered via coaches to reduce teachers’ stress and concomitantly improve their delivery of evidence-based classroom management practices with fidelity. Four teachers from an urban elementary school located in an economically disadvantaged area of the city were nominated by their administrators as experiencing high amounts of work-related stress to participate in this study. A multiple baseline design was used to demonstrate the interplay between teacher stress reduction and improved fidelity of evidence-based classroom management practices implementation. Results indicated that the ACHIEVER reduced teacher ratings of stress due to work overload across all four participants. In addition, all teachers displayed improvements in implementing evidence-based practices with fidelity following application of ACHIEVER. Findings from this study suggest that attending to implementer stress due to work overload represents a promising avenue to translate evidence-based practices to school settings. Moreover, this study contributes to the limited number of individually focused implementation support strategies.