Holistic measurement of early childhood educators’ well-being: A protocol

Early childhood educators are key to delivering early childhood education and care(ECEC) for the benefit of children, their families and society alike. For the benefits ofECEC to be realised, however, the educators who deliver these services need to bewell. Despite growing attention to attracting and retaining a high-quality early childhoodworkforce, little is known about the work-related psychological and physiological wellbeingof early childhood educators. This paper contributes an example of an holistic ofstudy of early childhood educators’ well-being. It describes the research protocol of astudy that drew on objective methods for measuring educators’ physiological wellbeing,as well as standardised subjective self-assessments of their psychological wellbeing,and work environment quality. For the 73 Australian early childhood educatorswho participated in this study, there were both positive and troubling findings. Theparticipants had favourable physical functioning and reasonably high levels of selfesteem.However, the study revealed a reasonably low level of physical activity, and ahigh percentage of participants had diminished health status, putting them at risk ofmetabolic syndrome. Further, a reasonably high number of participants scored high onlevels of work-related psychological stress, and emotional exhaustion. Learnings areprovided for future studies of educator holistic well-being.