Abstract:

The teaching profession is complex, and professional identity is made up of multiple factors (Berger & Lê Van, 2019) and demands both hard and soft skills (Ngang et al., 2015). Teachers are also at risk of developing stress and burnout (Castelli et al., 2017). Research in this field has focused mainly on the negative aspects (Acton & Glasgow, 2015) and on the treatment of teachers' difficulties (Hastings & Bham, 2003) in a reparative perspective. However, it has been shown that working from a preventive perspective leads to a greater awareness of personal resources and helps to improve individuals' well-being and involvement in the work context (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).

This paper grew up from a positive psychology perspective. The idea was to develop, implement and monitor an intervention for in-service teachers Swiss teachers based on the psychological capital construct. The definition of PsyCap is “an individual’s positive psychological state of development, characterized by self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience” (Luthans et al., 2007, p. 3).

The aim was to test the effectiveness of this intervention on the four dimensions of psychological capital. A first phase of the project involved an application of the model on a sample of trainee teachers. Subsequently, the model was applied to a group of in-service teachers as part of an in-service training course.
The course comprised four individual and three group meetings. The first meeting was a group meeting and served to present the construct and the course, during this first meeting the questionnaire was administered. In a first individual meeting, a self-development plan was co-planned with the participants. The other two group meetings were aimed at theoretical and practical activities on the four dimensions of psychological capital (2 dimensions for each meeting). Examples of activities conducted will be presented in the talk. In the last group meeting the questionnaire was newly administered.

During the speech, the quantitative data will be presented that shows the development of personal resources in participants and the qualitative results collected via interview. The training project has been positively evaluated and some spin offs are currently in progress. Our results show that it is possible to work on personal resource development even in a short time, improving people's well-being and quality off life in the work place.

References:
[1] Berger, J. L., & Lê Van, K. (2019). Teacher professional identity as multidimensional: mapping its components and examining their associations with general pedagogical beliefs. Educational Studies, 45(2), 163-181.
[2] Castelli, L., Crescentini, A. & Marcionetti, J. (2017). Lavorare a scuola. Condizioni di benessere per gli insegnanti. Centro innovazione e ricerca sui sistemi educativi.
[3] Luthans, F., Youssef, C. M., & Avolio, B. J. (2007). Psychological capital: Developing the human competitive edge. Oxford University Press.
[4] Ngang, T. K., Hashim, N. H., & Yunus, H. M. (2015). Novice teacher perceptions of the soft skills needed in today’s workplace. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 177, 284-288.
[5] Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive psychology: An introduction. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology (pp. 279-298). Springer.

Keywords:

Psychological Capital, Positive Psychology, Life Long Learning.