First Advisor

Michelle Athanasiou

First Committee Member

Kathrine Hak

Second Committee Member

Heather Helm

Third Committee Member

Lewis Jackson

Document Type

Dissertation

Date Created

5-2011

Abstract

When preschool teachers are presented with challenging student behavior, they may experience negative outcomes such as lowered efficacy and burnout. An early childhood approach that provides teachers with preventative strategies using a multi-tiered model is the Teaching Pyramid. The current study was aimed to establish the effectiveness of the Teaching Pyramid on teaching efficacy (e.g., general teaching efficacy, personal teaching efficacy, and classroom management efficacy) and burnout (e.g., reduced personal accomplishment, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization). Study participants included 128 preschool teachers from the Midwest. Teachers received an e-mail invitation to an online survey tool which included the Teacher Efficacy Scale (Gibson & Dembo, 1984), Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), and Maslach Burnout Inventory-Third Edition, Educators Version (Maslach, Jackson, & Leitner, 1996). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed no significant differences between implementation and control groups. However, a univariate analysis comparing teachers within different years of implementation indicated that emotional exhaustion decreased with each additional year of implementation. A confound of the current study was that program size was positively correlated with year of implementation. Larger programs adopted the Teaching Pyramid earlier on than smaller programs, and control group participants tended to be from smaller programs. Participants from the smaller programs reported less personal teaching efficacy and more depersonalization. While the Teaching Pyramid appears to be a promising program, other ways to support its effectiveness are recommended.

Abstract Format

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Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

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