Is it Too Optimistic to Assume Light Touch Interventions can Improve Educational Workers’ Wellbeing - Insights from a Field Randomized Control Trial in Canada

Oct 15, 2026

Educator wellbeing has broad implications for students and schools, yet most current remedies are resource-intensive. This trial tested light-touch nudges intended to raise wellbeing and reduce burnout among educators and other school-based faculty. A large three-arm field randomized controlled trial compared control, evidence-based weekly wellbeing text messages, and the same texts plus leadership endorsement emails across K-12 schools in multiple Canadian provinces.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages25

Reading Time1 h 3 min

AccessFree to download

Author’s Note

Abstract

Keywords

Operational Definitions

Positive Benefits of Faculty Wellbeing

Implications of Low Educator Wellbeing

Is it Too Optimistic to Assume Light Touch Interventions can Improve Educational Workers’Wellbeing? Insights from a Field Randomized Control Trial in Canada Emily E. Larson1, Yihan Xu2, Philip Oreopoulous3, & Sasha Tregebov4 1 Behavioral Insights Team (USA), 2 Behavioral Insights Team (UK), 3 University of Toronto, 4 Behavioral Insights Team (Canada) Author’s Note This project was funded by the McConnell Foundation, a private family foundation that supports Canadians in building a more inclusive, innovative, sustainable, and resilient society. McConnell Foundation faculty played a role in all phases of the project, advising on and approving both intervention and research design, as well as facilitating qualitative research with Canadian educators. Competing interests: The author(s) declare none. Abstract Educator wellbeing has broad implications for students and schools. Current approaches to address this problem are generally resource-intensive. This trial used novel nudges to increase wellbeing and decrease burnout among educators and other school-based faculty. We designed a light touch intervention where T1 received evidence-based wellbeing weekly text messages and T2 received weekly messages plus leadership endorsement emails. We evaluated this intervention in a large-scale three-arm RCT with participants (n=1,155) from K-12 schools in Manitoba, Alberta, and British Columbia. When compared to the control group, we saw no significant difference between the control group and T1 and T2 groups on burnout or wellbeing. The failure of these evidence-based text messages in increasing educators’wellbeing and reducing their burnout highlights both the difficulty of addressing this problem and the importance of learning lessons from trials with null results to contribute to our knowledge base of improving educators’ wellbeing. Keywords: wellbeing, burnout, education, nudges, randomized controlled trial, schools Operational Definitions A variety of terms are used to refer to those working in the education system. To provide clarity to our readers throughout this article, we have operationally defined the following terms: • Principals/administrators will be referred to as Administrators. These individuals worked either at the leadership level of the school or to support the leadership staff. • Educator, teaching, and non-teaching staff will be referred to as Faculty. This includes teachers in the classroom and their assistant teachers (or support staff for those students who require more time and attention). • Staff: This group refers to all other workers who do not sit at the administration level, nordo they play a significant role in the classroom. For example, these individuals might be bus drivers, janitors, or cafeteria staff. • Participants: this refers to all individuals (regardless of their sub-group above) who consented to being a part of this trial. Positive Benefits of Faculty Wellbeing Positive school faculty wellbeing has been strongly associated with higher student wellbeing and lower levels of student psychological distress (Harding et al., 2019). A study of 24,100 faculty in UK schools found that faculty wellbeing accounted for 8% of the variance in student standardized test scores (Briner & Dewberry, 2007). Research suggests this relationship might be mediated by teacher ‘presenteeism (working while sick)’ and quality of teacher-student relationships (Sisask et al., 2014). Implications of Low Educator Wellbeing Findings from the Wellbeing in Secondary Education (WISE) pilot study found that, among a sample of 555 secondary school teachers, scores on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale were approximately four points below the average of the general working population. Poor wellbeing amongst teachers has a variety of implications for the school, faculty, and students such as increased absenteeism, presenteeism, and health-related workplace retirement (Bowers & Melver, 2000; Hend

FAQs

What light touch interventions were tested in the trial?

T1 received evidence-based weekly wellbeing text messages. T2 received those weekly messages plus leadership endorsement emails.

How did the intervention perform compared with the control group?

Compared with the control group, there were no significant differences between the control, T1, or T2 groups on burnout or wellbeing.

Why do the authors emphasize trials with null results?

The failure of the evidence-based texts to improve educators’ wellbeing highlights the difficulty of the problem and the value of learning from null findings to expand knowledge.

Oct 15, 2026

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