Do Teachers Thrive or Survive? Examining a Workday Exercise–Based Wellness Intervention Through Participatory Action Research
Researcher: MacKenzie Firus
Project Description: Teachers across Saskatchewan and Canada are experiencing high levels of stress, burnout, and declining well-being, contributing to growing teacher shortages and affecting the quality of teaching and learning in schools (Syson, 2023). This research project aims to co-develop and evaluate a participatory workday exercise intervention in collaboration with elementary school teachers, to support teacher well-being, explore their perceived health benefits, and assess the intervention’s feasibility and potential for implementation across multiple schools.
The study’s main objective is to collaborate with elementary school teachers using participatory action research to expand a previous workday exercise study by co-developing an intervention that is feasible, acceptable, and responsive to teachers’ classroom schedules, while examining the feasibility of implementation and teachers’ perceived health and well-being benefits. In 2023, my previous exercise study for teachers identified that teachers need support from school and district-level administrators to reduce barriers to workday exercise. The suggested strategies included providing ways to make exercise more accessible and incorporating it into the workday or staff meeting time.
Teachers will serve as active partners and wellness advocates in this participatory action research, co-designing and implementing workday exercise breaks for their colleagues in multiple elementary schools in Saskatoon. Teacher wellness advocates will also be participants in the exercise intervention. The pilot will evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and adaptability of integrating exercise breaks into the school day and explore practical strategies for scaling the intervention across schools. The goal of this project is to identify how embedded exercise breaks can be sustainably implemented to support teachers, based on findings and suggestions from the previous study. By working collaboratively with teachers to lead peer-based wellness initiatives, this research aims to support educator well-being and contribute to positive classroom environments and sustained high-quality teaching.