Owen, R. (2015). The immediate and sustained effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) for further education teachers [Unpublished Master’s thesis]. Alef Trust & Middlesex University.

Recent statistics have shown that stress is having a hugely negative impact upon the psychological health and retention of teachers within the current educational system. Despite this however, teacher training does not currently involve any form of psychological preparation to help teachers cope with the demands of the nation’s most stressful occupation. With this in mind an 8-week MBSR programme was delivered to a group of nine teachers at The Sixth Form College Birkenhead, with participants being assessed at pre, mid and post-intervention as well as at three month follow up in terms of their self-reported stress, depression and anxiety levels, emotional regulation, mindfulness and overall attention. Findings showed significant reductions in both immediate and sustained levels of anxiety, as well as significant improvements in both immediate and sustained levels of mindfulness, and emotional regulation, in comparison to a wait-list control group of nine teachers who did not receive the intervention. Although no significance was found for any of the other assessed quantitative measures in the study, small incremental effects could still be observed at each of the four time intervals for some measures in the intervention compared to the control group, therefore suggesting that MBSR may be one intervention modality that has the potential for systematic implementation as part of teachers professional development so as to provide them with the psychological preparation and training to manage the pressures that their day to day job as educators requires of them.