The Research Files Episode 112: Teacher wellbeing with Dr Rebecca Collie – disruptions to learning and the role of social support and job demands

Thanks for tuning in to this podcast from Teacher Magazine, the resource for K-12 educators published by ACER, the Australian Council for Educational Research. I'm Dominique Beech. 

Today I am joined by Dr Rebecca Collie, Professor of Learning Sciences at Monash University and Adjunct Professor in Educational Psychology at UNSW. One focus area of her research over the years has been teacher wellbeing, and in today’s episode, Rebecca is going to share findings from a new study of hers that captured annual snapshots of teachers’ wellbeing over 6 years since COVID-19, as well as some of her prior research that explores teachers’ job control, demands and resources. She also shares some practical tips for school leaders supporting teachers through future disruptions in education. It’s a really interesting discussion and will leave you plenty to reflect on. Let’s jump in. 

Dominique Beech: Dr Rebecca Collie, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of The Research Files. Some of our listeners will, of course, be familiar with your name already because you've published a number of articles on Teacher magazine's website over the years. But this is your first time on our podcast. So could you introduce yourself for our listeners?

Dr Rebecca Collie: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on the podcast. So, I've recently joined Monash University as a Professor of Learning Sciences. I also hold an Adjunct Professorship in Educational Psychology at UNSW in Sydney, where I was based for the past decade or so. And so it's an exciting time and I'm looking forward to extending the work that I do with schools into Victoria while also keeping my New South Wales collaborations going. And my research focuses on motivation, wellbeing, and both academic and social and emotional development. And I look at both teachers and students. And so I guess the aim of my work generally revolves around helping students, teachers, schools, to be better supported to attain their goals.

DB: And so today we're going to be talking about a recent publication from you and your colleagues (Collie et al., 2026) that outlines annual snapshots of teachers' wellbeing over the 6 years now that it's been since COVID-19. It's hard to believe it's been that long. We are also in our conversation going to touch on some of your prior research into teacher wellbeing, as you mentioned there, it's a key area for you and your work. So before we get into the details of some of this new research that you've done, I'd love to hear from you about why teacher wellbeing is an area of particular interest and importance to you as a researcher?

RC: That's a great question. So, I think one reason is that teachers deserve to feel well and to function well at work. I think in any profession we want employees to be thriving at work and teachers are no different. Added to that, we're dealing with teacher shortages in Australia. And we're also dealing with job demands on the profession that have grown much faster than the support on offer. And so it's an important topic in its own right. 

Also, though, with teachers, their wellbeing isn't only an end point. When teachers are not faring well at work, it shows up in how they teach, in their instructional approaches and how they interact with students. So there are many downstream consequences of teacher wellbeing. 

And I guess another reason of this particular focus is about timing. So there's a large volume of research on the start of the pandemic from 2020, with that shift to remote learning, but relatively little about what came afterwards. And so that's the gap that we wanted to fill. And we suggest that it does matter beyond COVID because major disruptions do tend to follow a similar shape. They have this acute crisis in the emergency (the beginning) and then they have this long recovery. So floods, bushfires – whatever comes next – understanding what teachers need at each stage is useful well beyond this particular event.

DB: Yeah, I'm really excited to hear more from you about what your findings were in terms of those long-term impacts, because when I was reading the paper, it was so, so interesting to me. Nearly 2,500 teachers took part in this study. You surveyed 6 separate groups, one each year from 2020 to 2025. Before we get into what they told you, I'd love to know actually what kind of questions you asked them.
RC: Yeah, so in this particular study – which was co-authored with Tina Hascher and Manuela Haldimann at the University of Bern [Switzerland] and Andrew Martin at UNSW – we asked teachers about everyday working life. And so this included a focus on emotional exhaustion, which we anticipated might be relevant to teachers’ changing experiences through COVID and its aftermath. And so emotional exhaustion is that feeling of being emotionally and physically drained by work. And for researchers, it's the core component of burnout. So when teachers think about burnout, they're probably thinking about emotional exhaustion. 

Now, as listeners will remember, the COVID pandemic began in 2020. And so we split the 6 years from then into 2 phases. So in the study, we looked at the acute phase, which was the first 2 years, that was 2020 and 2021. And that was a time when infections were accelerating, there were large-scale lockdowns, schools were closed for weeks or months at a time. So that's why we called it the acute phase. And then from 2022 onwards, we called it the post-acute phase. So most of the population was vaccinated, there were no more large-scale lockdowns, and schooling was gradually returning to normal, or something like a new normal. The virus was still circulating, but conditions were far more predictable. And so that's the shift we were interested in from emergency response to longer-term recovery.

DB: And so in the paper, you present your main findings across 2 workplace factors of job resources and job demands. Can you explain to listeners how you defined job resources and job demands and then share what you found in these 2 areas?

RC: Absolutely. So job resources are features of work that help teachers to do their job well and to reach their goals. And so in this study, we looked at 2 very well-recognised job resources: relationships with colleagues and relationships with students. And they are whether teachers feel a sense of connection, a sense of caring, for their colleagues and for their students, and whether they also feel cared for in that working environment as well. So that was the job resources. 

Now, the converse to job resources are job demands. And so they're features of work that carry a psychological or a physical cost and get in the way of doing work. And so they're things that make it harder to successfully achieve one's work aims. And in this study, one of them that we looked at was time pressure. And so this is a very common demand for teachers. It's that sense that there's just not enough time to get everything done that you need to be doing for your job. And so that, you know, that was some of the factors we looked at. 

And I want to focus on 2 key findings from this study. So what we saw is that teachers' reports of relationships increased significantly during that acute phase (those first 2 years). And we think this is because there was a ‘we're in this together’ kind of quality in 2020 and 2021. And that showed up really clearly in the data. And then these, you know, relationships stayed relatively high throughout the following years, though we did see them ease off again by 2025. And so one explanation for the importance of these relationships is that when people face a major challenge, they draw on the resources that they have access to. And social support is a really key resource that we have access to. So teachers leaned on their colleagues, and they leaned on their students and that showed up as stronger relationships. 

Now, a second interesting set of findings was that involving time pressure and emotional exhaustion. And so what we saw is that they climbed significantly in the first 2 years during that acute phase. This is not unexpected. We would, you know, with all of those changes that were thrown on teachers, we would expect that time pressure was going to go up and that emotional exhaustion was going to go up. What was interesting, though, was that we didn't see these levels start to drop at the end of the acute phase. Actually, they continued to climb all the way through to 2023. And so we suspect that this occurred because teachers were asked to return to full pre-pandemic functioning or very close to it before they had any real chance to recover from the upheaval of the pandemic start. So many of those administrative tasks that had been put on pause were resumed. Students were also readjusting to being back in the classrooms.

And so, when the pandemic hit, teachers were able to draw down on their reserves to navigate it. So we saw you know, the time pressure and emotional exhaustion in 2020 were at similar levels to what they'd been the years before. But they rose greatly up, you know, in 2021. And then when the post-acute phase began, teachers' reserves were already depleted, and they hadn't had a chance to recover before these new expectations were being added to their plates again. So a really interesting finding about these elongated, heightened levels of time pressure and emotional exhaustion.

DB: Absolutely. And towards the end of the episode, we're going to talk a little bit about what the implications of these findings are for school leaders and teachers listening to this episode, you know, when we're starting to think about any future disruptions education may face, because who knows what the future holds. But at the top of the episode, we mentioned that you've contributed a lot of research in the area of teacher wellbeing and that you've shared a lot of this research through Teacher magazine. I wanted to pick up on just a couple of select studies of yours that could be relevant to our conversation today. So all the way back in 2020, you wrote an article for us with your colleague, Andrew Martin, that was about supporting teacher wellbeing during COVID-19 (Collie & Martin, 2020). And in that piece, you shared some evidence-backed strategies and also some relevant prior research of yours for this area. It was a little while ago now, so could you remind us of what you shared in that piece?

RC: Yes, so that 2020 piece was written on the basis of our pre-pandemic understanding and the evidence that we had. So it was essentially a best guess about what would help. And we shared 3 strategies. So the first strategy we talked about was adaptability. So adaptability is teachers' capacity to manage and adjust to changes and novelty and uncertainty that occurs. Teaching always demands adaptability, but 2020 demanded it constantly. The switch to online, to hybrid, back in person, back to online or hybrid was a huge requirement for teachers to adapt. And so our research had linked adaptability to greater wellbeing. And so that's why we talked about that capacity. 

Another one we talked about is relevant for school leaders, and that's autonomy supportive leadership. And these involve practices that are things like listening to teachers' needs, really trying to understand issues from their perspectives and explaining the rationales for tasks that are assigned to teachers. And we'd found in our prior research that teachers who felt their school leaders were more autonomy-supportive reported greater wellbeing and lower emotional exhaustion. So that was the second one. 

And then the third strategy we talked about was social support. So our earlier work had shown that teachers with more positive relationships with both colleagues and students reported greater wellbeing at work and also in life more generally. And so we talked about some practical suggestions about how to maintain that despite physical distancing, for example, or being in isolation, things like video check-ins and, you know, help seek, deliberate help seeking from peers and mentors.

And what was really nice to see is that the social support finding has really held up. So that 2020 piece was, as I said, a best guess. And 6 years on, relationships turned out to be one of the most consistent findings in our study. In fact, we saw that it mattered for teachers' work commitment in every single year of the study, which I didn't go into, but that was another interesting finding.

DB: And we've also spoken today, obviously, about job demands and resources. And that made me think that listeners might be interested in a 2023 study of yours, where you examined 400 Australian teachers' experiences of workload and job control at the beginning and then at the end of school term. You shared those findings in an article on Teacher at the time (Collie & Carroll, 2023). What were your main findings from this work in relation to job control and workload stress?

RC: So that study was published with my co-author Annemaree Carroll, who's at the University of Queensland. And we surveyed Australian teachers at the beginning and end of a school term, looking at workload stress, which is another name for time pressure. So as mentioned, that's teachers sense that there's not enough time to get their work done. 

And we also looked at job control. So that's teachers' sense that they have a say over what they do and how they do it. And so we wanted to see if there are particular combinations or profiles of these 2 experiences to teachers, you know, do teachers tend to have high levels of one and high of the other? Or high levels of one and low levels of the other? And then we wanted to see whether teachers in particular groups or profiles at the beginning of the term stay in the same profile or move to another one by the end of the term. 

And so we found that there were 5 distinct profiles. There were 2 maladaptive profiles, that's what we called them. And these were teachers who experienced high time pressure and low job control. So a lot of stress about all the work that needs to be done, but not feeling that they have control over what they do and how they do it. We also found that there were 2 adaptive profiles, and so these were the reverse. They had low time pressure and high job control. So they were faring, you know, more positively. And then what was interesting is we found this midway group that had high time pressure, but around average job control. 

And so, what we saw when we looked at the changes over time is that teachers who started the term in a maladaptive profile tended to end it there, but teachers who started the term in an adaptive profile also tended to end there. So these profiles were kind of sticky over the course of a term. Now, the midway group was the one to watch because these teachers did shift. And so this is the teachers who started with high time pressure but reasonable job control, and they tended to switch into the maladaptive profiles by the end of the term. So reasonable levels of job control didn't seem to protect them from a heavy start of the term. And what we also saw is that the maladaptive profiles in that midway group reported more emotional exhaustion and also stronger intentions to quit their jobs. Whereas adaptive teachers or teachers in those adaptive profiles had the lowest exhaustion and were least likely to want to leave their jobs. 

So the implications of this are, you know, the importance of streamlining the work, particularly at the beginning of the term when things can be a little lighter, so fewer administrative tasks if possible, and you know, shared workloads through genuine collaboration is another strategy. But also building in job control by involving teachers in decisions and giving them choice over when and how they work. And so once again, this study, you know, played out in our most recent work, the role of that time pressure and how detrimental it is for teachers.

DB: And so for school leaders listening to this episode, how should they be reflecting on all of these findings? We've heard how interconnected they all are over the years. How should they be reflecting on all of these findings in relation to supporting staff in their own settings right now, but also what should they be keeping in mind for any future disruptions schools might face?

RC: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think for right now, the picture in 2025, sorry, 2020, well, the data was from 2025, so last year, but the picture is encouraging. Time pressure and exhaustion seemed to be back to 2020 levels, which was really good to see. Arguably, there is still room to improve on those because they're still quite elevated. Relationships remain a very consistent and powerful lever. So harnessing that and building those relationships within a school community is important. And I think in terms of some concrete strategies, protecting the time in which staff and staff relationships and teacher-student relationships actually happen rather than treating this collegiality and this student interaction as something that occurs in the gaps. I think that's really important. 

Now in terms of future disruptions, for the acute phase, I do think deliberately protecting interpersonal connections among staff and in classrooms is really important. So schools can lean on their existing social and emotional learning programs or any whole-school relational approaches that they do to help maintain those strong relationships that do appear to be critical during these times of disruption. For the post-acute phase, I'd say the most important thing is to avoid reinstating everything at once. Our data suggests that the recovery years hit harder than the crisis years in many ways. And I think that's largely because those administrative and instructional demands came back in full before teachers had recovered. So holding some of that back a little longer is an intervention that will likely have a real payoff.

DB: Looking ahead then, it's clear you've done so much work in this area, but I'd love to know if you see room for further research in this area? I'm sure your answer will be yes! 

RC: My answer is yes. So I think, you know, we looked at a handful of job resources and job demands. Others clearly matter. So we've talked about a few today. So leadership support is really important. But what we haven't talked about is parent and community relations and interactions. And that's really important for teacher wellbeing. We also talked about adaptability and I think things, those personal capacities that teachers can develop are also worth considering. 

And then another area that we absolutely need more research in is that downstream effect on students. So some work that we've done led by [Dr] Helena Granziera at UNSW, looked at teachers’ emotional exhaustion. And we found that when teachers are more emotionally exhausted, their students tend to achieve less highly. And so teacher wellbeing really does matter for the classroom, for teachers themselves, but also for students. And I think it's really important that we get more research to understand that and what can help to have these positive downstream effects rather than these negative downstream effects.

DB: You've certainly given our listeners a lot to reflect on from our conversation today. Is there anything that you'd like to mention before we wrap up?

RC: Yeah, look, I think if there's one thing to take away, when the emergency period of a disruption ends, it's important to note that it doesn't mean that things can return to business as usual immediately. Our data show that the end of the acute phase was actually only the start of the recovery. And so building in a recovery period is something to be mindful of.

DB: A great final message to leave us with. Thank you so much, Dr Rebecca Collie, for joining us.

That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to visit our website to access the transcript for this podcast, where we've included all the links to the research we spoke about. If you enjoyed this chat, please take a moment to follow our show on your podcast app if you haven't already, and leave us a review. Both of those things help more people like you to find our podcast, and they're a really big help to our team. We'll be back with a new episode very soon. 

Teacher magazine is published by the Australian Council for Educational Research.

References

Collie, R. J. & Carroll, A. (2023). Autonomy-pressure profiles among teachers: Changes over a school term, leadership predictors, and workplace outcomes. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0742051X22003730?via%3Dihub 

Collie, R. J., Hascher, T., Haldimann, M. & Martin, A. J. (2026). From crisis towards recovery: Annual snapshots of teachers’ well-being over six years since COVID-19. Teaching and Teacher Education. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X26003008?via%3Dihub  

Collie, R. J. & Martin, A. (2020). Teacher wellbeing during COVID-19. Teacher magazine. https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/teacher-wellbeing-during-covid-19 

Collie, R. J. & Carroll, A. (2023). Research news: Teacher wellbeing, workloads and job control. Teacher magazine. https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/research-news-teacher-wellbeing-workloads-and-job-control