None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
When children have high levels of anxiety (fear or worry), this can prevent the student from learning or engaging in class. Many primary school teachers report not receiving enough training to help their students with anxiety effectively. We have developed a teacher training program designed to improve educators’ understanding of childhood anxiety and how to support students. Initial testing of the program showed promising results, and we now aim to test this program with more teachers nationwide using quantitative and qualitative research methodologies through surveys for primary school teachers in Australia. We hypothesise that the teacher training program will increase teachers' knowledge, confidence, and behavioural practices when identifying and supporting students with anxiety, and reduce anxiety-related stigma (attitudes towards anxiety disorders).
Interventions
This is a randomised controlled trial with two arms: Arm 1 will receive a training program and Arm 2 will be a training-as-usual control group, who will receive the training program following the Arm 1 group completing their assessments.
The training program is an online educational program for primary school teachers. The training program aims to improve teachers' knowledge, confidence, and behavioural practices with their students who exhibit symptoms of anxiety. The training program compris
This is a randomised controlled trial with two arms: Arm 1 will receive a training program and Arm 2 will be a training-as-usual control group, who will receive the training program following the Arm 1 group completing their assessments. The training program is an online educational program for primary school teachers. The training program aims to improve teachers' knowledge, confidence, and behavioural practices with their students who exhibit symptoms of anxiety. The training program comprises two self-paced online modules (approximately 1 hour each) and two group workshops (approximately 2.5 hours each) facilitated by trained psychologists. The content of the online modules contains psychoeducation on child anxiety, strategies to identify and support student anxiety, role plays on talking to students and parents about anxiety, and psychoeducation on the teachers' own mental health. The mode of training used in the online modules includes online videos, text, and graphics. The time to complete the entire training program is likely to span 2-3 months or 1 school term, depending on participants' availability for the group workshops. The training program is standardised and will not be adapted to individuals or groups of individuals in the Arm 1 group. Training program adherence will be assessed through completion data collected through the training program, e.g. timestamps of starting and completing the two self-paced online modules (including timestamps and length of time in minutes spent on each page/section of the module), and attendance at the two group workshops.
Sponsors
University of New South Wales
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
A current primary school teacher in Australia (or, if teaching in a K-12 school, currently teaching primary school ages i.e., years K-6)
Exclusion criteria
• Participated in the pilot study for this teacher training program • Provided lived experience advice on the teacher training program
Outcome results
None listed