The Effect of Online Mindfulness Training and Integrative Training of Emotional Competencies on Psychological Well-being of Teachers

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of the virtual training of mindfulness and integrative training of emotional competencies intervention on psychological well-being with the moderating role of job engagement. Research population comprised all teachers working in Education Office in Khorasan Razavi Province who were also undergraduate students at Islamic Azad University. Of the study population, 353 consented to participate in the study, and 90 individuals who scored the highest in UWES-9 were purposively selected and allocated into experimental and control groups. Experimental groups received twelve 90-minute sessions via video conference training. The data were collected through Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being (2006) and UWES–9S (2002). The results showed that both educational methods led to a significant improvement in psychological well-being in experimental groups (P ˂ 0.05). Also, the dimensions of job engagement played a moderating role in this research.IntroductionTeachers are constantly anxious and stressed due to the intense activities and problems they encounter at school with the principal, parents, and coworkers. Therefore, it is necessary to consider their health from a positive perspective and to address issues such as psychological well-being (PW) that can determine mental health (Alzina & Paniello, 2017). One of the factors affecting PW is job engagement (JE). JE is a concept that is often used in contrast to job stress. Some researchers, including Schaufeli et al. (2006), have divided JE into three dimensions: Vigor (high levels of energy and mental flexibility while working), absorption (full focus, and immersion at work), and dedication (experience of a sense of importance, desire, intuition, honor, and challenge at work). All such training tries to control stress, but at present, what has attracted experts in the field of occupational health is the use of cognitive-behavioral interventions with a preventive approach. As such, workplace mindfulness training (WMT) (Kersemaekers et al., 2018) and emotional competence training (ECT) (Housman et al., 2018) are among the most effective preventive methods. Rahimi Klor and Kazemzadeh (2015) found a significant negative relationship of JE scores with burnout and job stress. The present study focuses on the theoretical foundations, research background, and research gaps on the effectiveness of virtual training of WMT and ECT on psychological well-being as well as the moderating role of JE, seeking to answer the question of whether virtual training ECT and WMT techniques are effective on teachers' PW due to the moderating effects of JE on teachers. This study aimed to compare the effect of the virtual training of WMT and ECT intervention on PW with the moderating role of JE.Methods and MaterialsThe present study was a semi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and a control group. Study population comprised all teachers working in the Education Office in Khorasan Razavi Province, who were also undergraduate students at Islamic Azad University. Of the study population, 353 consented to participate in the study, and 90 individuals who scored the highest in Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) were purposively selected and allocated into two experimental groups and a control group. That is, 10 individuals from each dimension were randomly assigned to WMT, ECT, and control groups (Table 1). For each of the experimental groups, twelve 90-minute sessions were provided via video conference training. The control group received only regular medical care in this period.  Before and after the training, Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being (2006) was administered to experimental and control groups (Figure 2).The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES–9S) This questionnaire was prepared by Schaufeli et al. (2006) and has 17 items. Schaufeli et al. (2006) reported the validity and reliability of UWEA-9S as 0.66 and 0.85, respectively.Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-BeingThis questionnaire consists of 54 items with an overall score (Ryff and Singer, 2006). Internal consistency of this questionnaire confirmed with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.94 for the whole scale and between 0.62 and 0.92 for its subscales (Ryff and Singer, 2006).ResultsAs seen in Table 2, participants in both groups have the same mean level in the PW pre-test based on different dimensions of JE, but participants in the experimental groups had higher mean scores than those of the control group in the post-test PW based on different dimensions of JE.The results of ANCOVA in Table 2 show that the effect of each main group was significant, but the effect of subgroups and the effect of interaction between the group and subgroup on PW was not significant. Therefore, by considering pre-test scores as a variable (auxiliary), ECT and WMT techniques have led to a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the PW variable by JE dimensions. This effect was 81%, 57.5%, and 87.1% in the ECT group and 82.1%, 71.9%, and 88.1% in the WMT group respectively for vigor, absorption, and dedication. Statistical power 1 also indicates the adequacy of sample size and acceptable statistical accuracy for this conclusion.Bonferroni test (Table 3) revealed a statistically significant difference between ECT and WMT (P ˂ 0.05) in all three dimensions of vigor, absorption, and dedication. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant difference between WMT and the control group and between ECT and the control group in all three dimensions of JE (P ˂ 0.05). The results showed that both ECT and WMT techniques led to a significant improvement in the experimental groups compared to the control group in PW by dimensions of JE (P ˂ 0.05). However, according to the mean difference, the significance level was higher in the WMT experimental group compared to that in the ECT experimental group. Also, there was a statistically significant difference between the mean PW of the experimental groups and the control group in the JE dimensions (vigor, absorption, and dedication); dimensions of JE moderated the effect of teaching ECT and WMT on teachers' PW. Also, according to eta coefficients and test power (Table 2), it can be suggested that in both experimental groups (ECT and WMT), the dedication subgroup had a greater adjustment effect than the vigor and absorption subgroups. The vigor subgroup had a greater moderating effect than the absorption subgroup on PW.Conclusions and DiscussionThe results showed that the training of WMT and ECT techniques led to a significant improvement in PW of the experimental groups compared to the control group. Also, training WMT technique was more effective than training ECT technique. All three dimensions of JE (vigor, absorption, and dedication) had a moderating role in the effectiveness of training WMT and ECT techniques on participants’ PW. Also, the dedication subgroup had a greater adjustment effect than the vigor and absorption subgroups. The vigor subgroup had a greater moderating effect compared to the absorption subgroup on PW. Given that this research was conducted among primary school teachers, care should be taken in generalizing the results to other groups. The innovative aspects of this study include reporting the moderating role of JE between WMT and ECT with PW for the first time, as well as providing WMT and ECT training.