The Development of the Objective Awareness and Mindfulness Measure for Teachers (OAMM-T)

We are recruiting 432 diverse teachers to participate in our study to develop the Objective Awareness and Mindfulness Measure for Teachers (OAMM-T). To participate you must be a full time K-12 classroom teacher, teaching in a U.S. school. We are particularly interested in recruiting teachers with gender and race identities that are typically under-represented in the teaching profession.

We are also recruiting 8 diverse contemplative experts with past K-12 classroom experience to develop the coding system with us and to code the teacher data. We will select a panel that is diverse in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, and type of contemplative practice from a pool of interested experts Spring 2023. Not every interested expert will be included in the panel.

All participation will be remote.

Teachers will complete two online surveys during the school year:

• The intake survey that can be completed at any time of day and includes information about the study and collects information about the teacher and the classroom

• The classroom recall survey that must be completed at the end of a school day.

If you are currently teaching, you can go to the intake survey to participate.

If you are currently on break, you can provide your contact information and we will send you an email in early September to remind you to complete the intake survey.

We are continuing to recruit select contemplative experts who will meet remotely throughout beginning summer 2023 through the 2023-24 school year. Prospective contemplative experts please e-mail OAMM@yale.edu.

Interested teachers will follow a link to the electronic intake survey. In the intake survey, the teacher will learn more about the study; consent to participate in the study; respond to items about themselves, their classroom, and their school; and schedule a day to complete the subsequent recall survey. The teacher will receive a link to the recall survey via email to complete after school on their scheduled day. They will then describe in detail three interactions they had that day with students. We will also ask teachers to share the opportunity to participate in this study with other teachers they know.

Interested experts will provide information about their K-12 classroom experience, their contemplative practice, and their racial/cultural and gender identities so that the research team can compose a diverse panel. This selection process will decrease bias in the final measure. Once selected, the experts will be oriented to the coding process and software (late Spring, early Summer 2023). Throughout the Summer 2023, the experts will meet as a panel and in pairs to code and score the teacher recall data.

Teachers can start participating in the study Spring 2023. The surveys will remain open for data collection after we have gathered enough for our measure development.

Experts will be selected in Spring 2023 and will participate in coding and scoring Summer 2023. After this any additional participation (for example, reviewing or contributing to publications) by experts will be voluntary.

All of the data we collect will be held in confidence. Only the researchers involved in this study will have access to information that could identify you. We will share identifiable information with others only if U.S. or State law requires it. We will only use your contact information to send you study related information. When we publish the results of the research or talk about it in conferences, we will not use your name or make it possible for you to be identified, unless you give us additional permission to do so.

Teachers may not benefit directly from taking part in this study, though reflecting on classroom interactions may be insightful to you. However, we hope that our research will add to the knowledge about teachers’ subjective experiences in the classroom and help the field to better understand how teacher interventions work to support teacher well-being and responsive teaching.

We will give up to 432 teachers a $50 gift card for participating in our study. As a teacher, you will have the opportunity to give your gift card to another teacher to ensure we have a diverse group of teachers in our sample. This will ensure the measure represents all US school teachers.

We will compensate 8 contemplative experts $3500 each for coding and scoring the OAMM-T. This will involve approximately 70 hours of collaborative work throughout the late Spring and Summer 2023. We will adjust the compensation and number of experts if experts are selected but cannot commit to the number of hours.

We are happy to meet with you if you have further questions about the project. Please email OAMM@yale.edu to schedule a time to meet with members of the OAMM team.