Investigator(s): Caitlin Ryan, MA
Study Title: The Impact of Teacher Empowerment on Compassion Fatigue in Early Childhood Educators: Lessons Learned from Montessori Educational Communities
I am a student at The Chicago School. This study is being conducted as a part of my dissertation requirement for the International Psychology PhD Doctoral Program.
I am asking you to participate in a research study about factors impacting teacher well-being in the early childhood workplace. You will be asked to complete a survey about empowerment in the early childhood workplace and burnout and secondary trauma exposure. This will take 15-25 minutes to complete. This may cause frustration if you have encountered challenges in the workplace and there is also a possible loss of confidentiality. Although you may not benefit, it will help to understand challenges in the early childhood education workplace and propose solutions to support teachers’ mental health and well-being.
Please take your time to read the entire document and feel free to ask any questions before agreeing to participate.
Purpose: The purpose of the study is to study explore the relationship between empowerment in the early childhood education workplace, burnout, and secondary trauma.
Procedures: During this study, you will be asked 68 questions, which should take between 15-25 minutes to complete. This survey will help us understand how empowered you feel in the Montessori school environment. They will also ask about your experiences with compassion fatigue and burnout at work. This will take 15-25 minutes to complete on the SurveyMonkey platform.
Risks to Participants: The risks to participating in the study include experiencing frustration and or discomfort in recalling past experiences in the workplace. However, these risks will be minimized by including educational and mental health resources with strategies to help manage stress in the workplace.
Benefits to Participants: You may not benefit from this study. However, we hope the information learned from this study may benefit the early childhood education field in the U.S. by increasing our understanding of how Montessori work environment impacts its teacher well-being.
Alternatives to Participation: Participation in this study is voluntary. You may withdraw from study participation at any time without any penalty.
Confidentiality: During this study, information will be collected for the purpose of this research. This includes personal opinions to the survey’s questions and demographic information age range, gender, location (urban vs rural), years of teaching, Montessori training level, and the type of school teaching position is based in (public vs private Montessori school). Risks include loss of confidentiality. To minimize this risk, the data will be only viewed by the principal investigator and dissertation chair, will be password encrypted, password protected and stored in in the primary researcher’s home in a locked cabinet only accessible by the researcher.
Per American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines, research materials will be kept for at least five years after publication.
Files containing electronic data are password-protected and it is possible that your data may be used for future research or distributed to another researcher without your consent. However, information that could identify you will be removed.
Your research records may be reviewed by federal agencies whose responsibility is to protect human subjects participating in research, including the Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) and by representatives from The Chicago School Institutional Review Board, a committee that oversees research.
