Links Between Early Educator Psychological Well-Being and Time Spent on Academic Activities in Child-Care Settings

Early educators are essential to the creation of effective learning environments for children, through both their everyday interactions and their planning and delivering of specific, developmentally appropriate instruction in language, literacy, and mathematics. In the United States, however, early educators working in child-care settings earn very low wages and often struggle with well-being. This study uses data from early educators working in child-care settings in Louisiana to explore the relationship between psychological well-being—defined in terms of depressive symptoms and perceived job stressors—and time spent in academic activities. Research Findings: We find that although Louisiana child-care teachers regularly engage in academic activities, psychological well-being is negatively related to time spent in many of these activities. This relationship holds in both standard OLS models and center fixed effects models, which compare teachers working at the same sites but with differing levels of well-being. Practice or Policy: Findings indicate that early educators’ well-being likely matters for children’s learning opportunities and suggest that additional research considering how psychological well-being impacts the types of activities children are offered is warranted.