Learning to self-regulate the professional work outside the classroom: A resource for novice teachers?

Workload stress is a significant challenge for many novice teachers, often resulting in increased turnover intentions. This longitudinal quasi-experiment, involving 189 novice teachers, investigates whether brief cognitive self-regulation training (two 4-h training sessions) can improve coping with workload stress (indicated by reduced emotional exhaustion and increased leisure satisfaction, assessed by questionnaire). Results from latent true change models show that improved cognitive self-regulation strategy use can positively affect emotional exhaustion (at follow-up) and leisure satisfaction (at post-test and follow-up). The study results should encourage teacher educators to include such interventions in teacher induction to mitigate teacher attrition. • Self-regulating professional work outside the classroom can be a resource for workload stress. • Novice teachers can acquire cognitive self-regulation strategies in an 8-h training program during teacher induction. • The effects of the self-regulation training program remain stable for two months after the intervention. • Self-regulation training appears to have additional positive effects on emotional exhaustion and leisure satisfaction. • Brief self-regulation interventions during induction programs could promote teacher retention.