122 Chapter 7 MBSR training could be a valuable contribution to elementary school teachers’ personal and professional functioning, as well as on their classroom climate quality. In this thesis, we formulated a theoretical framework to study the effect of a standard MBSR training on elementary school teachers’ mental health with perceived stress as primary outcome and well-being as secondary outcome. We hypothesized that the intervention‘s impact on reducing perceived stress would be brought about by enhancements in mindfulness skills, emotion regulation and self-compassion and bring forward an increase in self-efficacy, pupil-teacher relationship and classroom climate quality . How do the results relate to the theoretical model The underlying theoretical model, as described in the introduction and in chapter 4, guided our exploration of the effects of MBSR training. The uncontrolled pilot study reported significant reductions in perceived stress and increases in well-being, mindfulness skills, and self-compassion post-training, aligning closely with the theory’s first step of enhancing proximal outcomes. The pilot study informed the design of the RCT. The RCT confirms the efficacy of MBSR training in reducing perceived stress and improving secondary outcomes. These secondary outcomes include well-being, as well as the proximal outcomes: mindfulness skills, self-compassion, and emotion regulation. Our findings are in line with previous work in predominantly mixed teacher populations (e.g., de Carvalho et al., 2021; Emerson et al., 2017; Hwang et al., 2017; Klingbeil & Renshaw, 2018). Regarding distal outcomes it demonstrates significant improvements in teacher self-efficacy. Previous research on elementary school teachers, utilizing adapted versions of the teacher MBI, presents conflicting results. Jennings et al. (2017) found no effects in teacher self-efficacy, contrasting with the significant findings of de Carvalho et al. (2021). In contrast, systematic reviews in mixed teacher populations reported minimal effects in teacher self-efficacy (Emerson et al.; Hwang et al.). Although further replication is needed, standard MBSR training appears particularly beneficial for enhancing elementary school teachers’ self-efficacy. Furthermore, notable effects on pupil-teacher relationships were not observed. It is worth noting that previous research, as synthesized in the meta-analysis by Klingbeil and Renshaw (2018), generally reported small effects on pupil-teacher relationships. However, this often involved research in mixed teacher populations combined with mostly MBIs adapted to the educational field. Additionally, a study by de Carvalho et al. (2021), focused solely on elementary school teachers, also indicated promising effects on classroom climate quality through observational data. It could suggest that MBSR might have a greater positive impact on classroom climate quality among elementary school teachers compared to other teacher populations. Teachers in elementary schools consistently engage with the same group of pupils on a daily basis throughout the school year, which may contribute to the greater effect. The lack of effects on teachers’ perceived pupil-teacher relationships and the greater
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