Project: Using Innovative Technology to Uncover the Impact of Teacher Stress on Talk and Outcomes of Racially & Ethnically Diverse Preschoolers

By leveraging technology, new knowledge will be gained on the linkage between teacher stress, teacher talk, teacher-student relationships, and pre-academic and social-emotional outcomes in Black and Latine students, paving the way for more efficacious interventions to reduce teacher stress. We anticipate our advanced speech processing measurement system will be an accessible, much-needed tool for objectively monitoring (on a near real-time basis) teacher stress as well as unhealthy teacher talk that produces negative learning experiences for young children. Additionally, the proposed study will result in a better understanding of the relationship between teacher stress and teacher-child interactions and how the link between the two affects pre-academic and social-emotional outcomes in Black and Latine preschoolers. Thus, it will provide the understanding needed to develop an intervention (Development and Innovation Project) that is comprised of training on implicit bias, awareness, mindfulness, and teacher talk that fosters positive teacher-student relationships as well as children’s pre-academic and social-emotional outcomes.