RENO – Student achievement. Program cuts. Class size increases. Staff reorganization. Layoffs.

It’s no secret budget cuts are placing a seemingly insurmountable challenge on the shoulders of Nevada’s educators, whose passion is to help children succeed. But how effective are they when their very livelihood is threatened, resources are becoming limited and their own level of stress and burnout imperils their ability to teach?

University of Nevada, Reno researchers want to help teachers recognize thoughts and feelings that indicate stress or burnout and how to take control so they can remain effective and satisfied in their field. Dr. Steven Hayes, professor of clinical psychology and Doug Long, a graduate student, are seeking K-12 faculty and staff throughout Nevada to participate in their research. Those participating will use a self-help book and a series of assessments to promote healthier living under demanding conditions for educators.

“Teachers, especially K-12, face a lot of stress and are stepping up to the challenges of a work environment where they’re asked to do more with less,” Hayes said. “I don’t think it’s necessarily different from what a lot of people have faced in a lot of work environments, but (teaching) does have some unique characteristics … like they’re working with a lot of things beyond their control.”

The study, called WALRUS, or Working And Living Resiliently Under Stress, aims to draw attention to the external demands teachers face, which can create internal stressors that are often irrational, and find out what methods are best to cope with underlying emotions, thoughts, memories and sensations related to stress.

Whether subjects are teachers, staff or administrators, education seemed to be an excellent field for analyzing the impacts of layoffs or other critical changes to the classroom.

“Teachers are chronically underpaid and overworked,” he said. “We look to the schools so much and they don’t get the resources they need.”

Long said he could relate because he comes from a family of educators, which include his mother, brother and aunt.

“I can really imagine the impact this has to be having on families as far as the economy goes,” he said. “There’s so much uncertainty with job security.”

The study focuses on two different psychological models of coping with stress that determine how people process their own thoughts and feelings, or what is called emotional intelligence.

“With psychological flexibility, let’s say someone has a stressful thought and they think, ‘I’m not good enough for my job,’ ” Long said. “One way of responding to that situation is thinking about more balanced or alternative thoughts that are more accurate. ‘Well, you’re not a bad person for your job, so let’s think about other things. Everyone’s stressed out and the economy is making you feel that way.’ If you take a different perspective, that (negative thought) isn’t true.”

Emotional intelligence, Hayes said, can be considered a coping mechanism, though coping, as psychologists know it, doesn’t encourage taking control of one’s thoughts and feelings very well.

“Coping has a quality of passivity,” Hayes said. “It means you adjust and it’s not quite as active as it needs to be. It needs to be a manner of how to take charge of your life and do it in a way that deals wisely with stepping up.”

Tami Jeffcoat, a UNR graduate student in clinical psychology who is helping conduct the study and is a former middle and high school teacher, said the study has personal meaning for her as one who used to be in the classroom.

“You want to do the best you can for massive amounts of young people with the resources that you have and some of those resources include personal health and emotional energy,” said Jeffcoat, a former Dilworth Middle School teacher.

The current study is a follow-up to a study conducted in 2007 with about 250 participants that focused solely on Washoe County educators and compared the use of a workbook Hayes wrote called “Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life” to having subjects complete a questionnaire from which they didn’t receive any information about coping. Jeffcoat said the 2007 study was a simpler version of what Long and Hayes are conducting now.

“We began to wonder if the processes tested inside Steve Hayes’ workbook are the processes that help us get those outcomes (of professional efficacy and fulfillment) or if there are some other therapeutic processes with WALRUS to compare really two different therapeutic training approaches in self-help manuals that will help more with emotional acceptance or if trying to change thoughts and feelings is more useful,” Jeffcoat said.

Using the workbooks seemed to generate the best results, Jeffcoat and Hayes agreed.

“Over time, it led to higher levels of work-related satisfaction, engagement and lower levels of burnout,” Hayes said. “There’s so much need out there. You can’t take them and put them in a mental health building. That’s an unrealistic way of reaching people.”

The study will continue on for about nine or 10 months, Long said, and some volunteers will be told to wait before receiving a workbook in the mail. They will be placed on a certain schedule and given chapters to read per week and will later be quizzed to ensure they’re understanding the material, Long said. Teachers will receive 1.5 in-service credits, which Long said some teachers will find appealing.

Though the study can apply to virtually any worker in any field, teachers were chosen because of their connection with children. They were also chosen because they can help their students handle stress factors in addition to handling their own, the researchers said.

“We think that teachers are just exemplary people who are very important role models and who are under massive amounts of stress and are serving our children,” Jeffcoat said. “So we care about teachers because we have to care about teachers if we’re going to care about our world. We have to care about our educators and if we care about our educators then we in the psychology field have to care about the kinds of psychological and behavioral processes that help them be healthy people while they’re trying to educate our children.”

Hayes and Long are seeking about 600 participants in Nevada.

For more information about the study or to sign up, contact Long at unr.walrus@gmail.com. The cost is $10 to participate.