ABSTRACT

Positive psychology interventions, such as the application of character strengths, can improve job performance and satisfaction across industries, but little of this research has been applied to the early childhood education profession. A qualitative study of in-service early childhood educators (n = 17) completing a character strength application training during professional development was completed in a large city in the northeastern United States. Participants explored the application of character strengths to workplace challenges by referring to the Values in Action classification of strengths. This study analyzed the challenges that educators reported (e.g. children needing to learn social emotional skills; coworkers not completing responsibilities), the difficulty level of those challenges, and the character strengths applied to address them. Workplace challenges followed a normal distribution across low, moderate and high difficulty levels. Children's behavioral needs were the most prevalent type of workplace challenge reported, followed by challenges working with coworkers. Early childhood educators most frequently used kindness, leadership, fairness, hope, love, self-regulation, perseverance, forgiveness and humility to address workplace challenges related to working with children, coworkers, parents and themselves. These strengths appear to be appropriate targets for future professional development seeking to improve teacher well-being in early childhood settings and to prepare teachers to model character strengths for children.

摘要

积极心理学干预，例如性格优势的应用，可以提高跨行业的工作绩效和满意度，但这项研究很少应用于幼儿教育行业。在职幼儿教育工作者的定性研究 ( n = 17）在美国东北部的一个大城市完成了职业发展期间的性格力量应用培训。参与者通过参考价值观在行动中的优势分类，探索了性格优势在工作场所挑战中的应用。本研究分析了教育工作者报告的挑战（例如，儿童需要学习社交情感技能；同事未完成职责）、这些挑战的难度级别以及用于应对这些挑战的品格优势。工作场所挑战遵循低、中和高难度级别的正态分布。儿童的行为需求是报告的最普遍的工作场所挑战类型，其次是与同事一起工作的挑战。幼儿教育者最常使用的善意，领导力、公平、希望、爱、自我调节、毅力、宽恕和谦逊，以应对与孩子、同事、父母和他们自己工作相关的工作场所挑战。这些优势似乎是未来专业发展的适当目标，旨在改善幼儿环境中教师的福祉，并使教师为塑造儿童的品格优势做好准备。