Mental Disorders and Treatment

Behavioural Modification and Classroom Management Skills as Protective Factors against Mental Health Problems in Teachers: A Synthesis of Research

Abstract

Lauth-Lebens M and Gerhard W. Lauth

Teaching schoolchildren is almost uniformly regarded as a particularly stressful occupation characterized by a range of mental health hazards. Consequently, clinical psychological research and practice has made intense efforts towards proliferating understanding, treatment and prevention of teacher burnout. Compared to other parameters, lack of classroom control is a major source of mental health problems in secondary school teachers. While the available literature on the relationship between classroom management and teacher burnout is intriguing, there is a need for a summary of the available findings. To encourage the progression of this research and the development of mental health intervention for teachers, the present review seeks to synthesize the relevant literature. As previous findings indicate, behaviour modification and classroom management skills enable teachers to prevent and modify student misbehavior and therefore contribute to both stress reduction and self-efficacy. Teachers without sufficient resources such as classroom management and behaviour modification skills are particularly vulnerable to experience stress when exposed to prolonged discipline problems. In an attempt to compensate their skill deficit, they are inclined to draw on punitive and coersive practices that exacerbate student misbehavior and maladaptive selfefficacy beliefs. Teachers might then experience severe emotional strain that again occupies information processing resources and impedes successful classroom management; the mental health risks originate from an escalating and self-perpetuating cycle of skill deficit, student misbehavior and ineffective control strategies. A threshold model is forwarded to account for the specific vulnerability towards mental health problems conferred by skill deficits. Overall, burnout interventions should address classroom management deficits and equip teachers with behavior modification skills.