Faculty of Education - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Meaningful work for teachers within a trauma-informed positive education model
    Brunzell, Thomas Duc ( 2019)
    Finding meaning in work has been shown to be an effective buffer when facing workplace adversity, and those who believe that their work is meaningful are more motivated, satisfied, and report increases in their personal and professional wellbeing. However, prior investigation has not explored meaningful work (MW) with teachers who educate trauma-affected students. Teachers can be impacted by trauma’s secondary harmful effects and can suffer burnout from job demands. Situated within positive organisational behaviour (POB) and positive education paradigms, this study is the first to explore MW and trauma-affected teachers. Primary and secondary school teachers (N = 18) selected for teaching cohorts of trauma-affected students participated in an 11-month qualitative study using appreciative inquiry participatory action research design. Results suggest a practice pedagogy intervention and yielded the creation of a new practice pedagogy model of trauma-informed positive education (TIPE). The results propose that by working within a model of TIPE, teachers can positively shift beliefs and perceptions that their work is more meaningful by first increasing their own psychological resources of wellbeing, and then increasing their practice pedagogy to meet the complex unmet needs of their students. Overall, this PhD thesis offers unique contributions by providing a new model of practice pedagogy and a new conceptual model to describe a pathway for increasing MW.