Running head: MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Pedagogical Practices Among Public School Health and Physical Education Teachers
Implementing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to Adolescents: A Phenomenological Study

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Graduate Studies and Research of California
University of Pennsylvania in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Health Science (DHSc) in Health Science and Exercise Leadership

by
Kaman Christopher Hung

Research Adviser, Dr. Carol M. Biddington
California, Pennsylvania
2018
CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA
CALIFORNIA, PA

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DISSERTATION APPROVAL

Health Science and Exercise Leadership

We hereby approve the Dissertation of

Kaman C. Hung
Candidate for the degree of Doctor of Health Science (DHSc)

Date

Faculty

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Acknowledgements

Many have been a part of this journey towards earning this prestigious accomplishment. Among
them are the faculty at California University of Pennsylvania who encouraged me and pushed me
to do better along the way. It is truly an honor to be a part of your inaugural cohort—I hope to
represent you as a Vulcan in the best possible way with Integrity, Civility, and Responsibility.
I want to recognize the Hunterdon Central Regional School District for providing me the
resources, both financial and human needed to complete this study. Thank you to all of the
teachers who participated, my supervisor, the principal, and the superintendent for your patience
and help.
Thank you to Dr. Marc Federico without whom this opportunity would not have been possible.
I’ve heard that you can’t make an omelet without first breaking a few eggs. You are truly a
“disruptive innovator” and nobody holds the Cal U Mace like you do.
I want to thank my committee members: Dr. Roh, Dr. Hess, and Prof. Lombardo—you forced
me out of my comfort zone and asked the questions I had never thought needed an answer.
Thank you to Dr. Melissa Sovak for your help with study design and data analysis.
A very big thank you to my Dissertation Chair: Dr. Carol Biddington, without you—I would
have been truly lost. Your guidance, professionalism, and empathy are what make you a truly
spectacular educator. I someday hope to be half the educator you are.
My parents: Mum (Barbara) and Dad (Wan) for instilling a love of learning, discipline, and pride
in everything I do. You’ve given up opportunities so ...
And my brothers

(Mark) and

(Jason), you can do it too…

A special thank you to my wife: Mandy—who supported me throughout this journey. I did this
for you but I couldn’t have done it without you. You make me a better person everyday…


~Wo oi lei.~

“If You Are Working On Something That You Really Care About,
You Don’t Have To Be Pushed. The Vision Pulls You.”
~ Steve Jobs

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Abstract

Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to enhance well-being through a reduction in
stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. They have also been shown to enhance working
memory capacity, empathy and compassion among practitioners. The purpose of this study was
to examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based interventions and mindfulness-based
stress reduction practices into teacher pedagogy and gain insight into a teacher’s lived
experiences. Participants were 13 teachers (7 female, 6 male) ranging from 2-to-35 years of
experience. Three serial semi-structured interviews along with an observation of a lesson
between the second and third interviews were conducted between a three-month period. Findings
from a qualitative analysis of interview transcripts and observational notes revealed eight themes
present among mindful educators: (1) teachers select content mindfully basing decisions on class
climate and make-up, (2) personal history and personal practice influence ability and perceived
support, (3) implementation experience varies and directly affects perceived outcomes, (4)
modeling behavior for students and other staff, (5) intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain
relevant factors to implementation, (6) challenges become motivators, (7) various levels of
perceived organizational support, and (8) teachers developed higher levels of empathy from
teaching mindfulness. In conclusion, teachers’ experiences are a result of their ability to provide
quality social and emotional instruction as a coping mechanism critical in their students’
transition to adulthood.
Keywords: Mindfulness, mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness-based
interventions, teacher experiences, mindfulness phenomenology.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...........................................................................................................................................iv
Table of Contents............................................................................................................................. v
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................ix
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................... x
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Methods ........................................................................................................................................... 7
Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 7
The Case for Transcendental Phenomenology .......................................................................... 8
Participants .............................................................................................................................. 10
Procedures ............................................................................................................................... 13
Interviews .......................................................................................................................... 14
Interview #1 ................................................................................................................. 14
Interview #2 ................................................................................................................. 15
Observations. ............................................................................................................... 15
Interview #3 ................................................................................................................. 15
Research Limitations. ........................................................................................................ 19
Formulating questions ....................................................................................................... 20
Observations ...................................................................................................................... 21
Timeframe ......................................................................................................................... 22
Research Questions.................................................................................................................. 26
Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 26
Epoché. .............................................................................................................................. 27
Phenomenological reduction ............................................................................................. 27

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Imagination variation ......................................................................................................... 29
Essence .............................................................................................................................. 29
Data Visualization ................................................................................................................... 31
Ethical Assurances ................................................................................................................... 32
Credibility .......................................................................................................................... 34
Transferability ................................................................................................................... 34
Confirmability ................................................................................................................... 34
Dependability..................................................................................................................... 35
Results ..................................................................................................................................... 37
Demographic Information ................................................................................................. 37
Analysis of Interviews ....................................................................................................... 40
Thematic Results of Study ................................................................................................. 71
*Note: Themes in table directly relate to the three research questions. .................................. 72
Theme 1: Teachers select content mindfully ............................................................... 72
Theme 2: Personal history and personal practice influence ability and support ......... 77
Theme 3: Implementation experience varies ............................................................... 81
Theme 4: Modeling behavior for students and other staff........................................... 85
Theme 5: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain relevant factors .......................... 89
Theme 6: Challenges become motivators .................................................................... 95
Theme 7: Various levels of perceived organizational support .................................. 100
Theme 8: Teachers developed higher levels of empathy .......................................... 102
Additional Findings ......................................................................................................... 107
Building reflective practices ...................................................................................... 107
Experience garners challenges and resources ............................................................ 109

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Religion and non-secular concerns were not mentioned by teachers ........................ 109
Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 112
Theme 1: The Mindful Selection of Content and Pedagogy ........................................... 113
Theme 2: Fostering a Personal Mindfulness Practice ..................................................... 114
Theme 3: A Wide Spectrum of Experiences ................................................................... 117
Theme 4: Modeling Behavior .......................................................................................... 119
Theme 5: The Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivational Connection ............................................ 120
Theme 6: Building Resilient Teachers ............................................................................ 123
Theme 7: Examining Organizational Support ................................................................. 125
Theme 8: Developing Empathy ....................................................................................... 129
Essence of Mindfulness in Education .............................................................................. 131
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 133
Future Directions for Research (Recommendations) ............................................................ 137
Appendix A Review of the Literature ......................................................................................... 160
Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 161
Phenomenology ..................................................................................................................... 162
Transcendental Phenomenology ...................................................................................... 162
Hermeneutical Phenomenology ....................................................................................... 163
Questions in Phenomenology .......................................................................................... 166
Phenomenology Research in Education .......................................................................... 166
Phenomenology and Teachers ......................................................................................... 171
Mindfulness ........................................................................................................................... 173
Mindfulness and Learning ............................................................................................... 175
Mindfulness in Education ................................................................................................ 177

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Mindfulness and Teachers ............................................................................................... 182
Issues with Mindfulness in Education ............................................................................. 184
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 188
References ............................................................................................................................. 191
Appendix B Problem Statement .................................................................................................. 206
Appendix C Additional Methods ................................................................................................. 209
Appendix C1 Letter of Approval from the Superintendent ................................................... 210
Appendix C2 IRB Review Request ....................................................................................... 212
Appendix C3 Certificates of IRB Training............................................................................ 229
Appendix C4 Recruitment Email for Study Participants....................................................... 235
Appendix C5 Informed Consent Form .................................................................................. 238
Appendix C6 Interview #1 Script and Questions .................................................................. 244
Appendix C7 Interview #2 Script and Questions .................................................................. 249
Appendix C8 Observation Log/Field Note Guide ................................................................. 253
Appendix C9 Interview #3 Script and Questions .................................................................. 255

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Flow Diagram Detailing the Overall Design of the Study ............................................. 25
Figure 2: Process Stages of the Descriptive Phenomenological Analysis..................................... 30
Figure 3: Word Cloud Research Question #1 ................................................................................ 49
Figure 4: Word Cloud Research Question #2 ................................................................................ 50
Figure 5:Word Cloud Research Question #3 ................................................................................. 51
Figure 6: Word Cloud Observations .............................................................................................. 52
Figure 7: Matrix: Research Question Analysis.............................................................................. 53
Figure 8: Matrix: Motivators of Mindfulness ................................................................................ 55
Figure 9: Matrix: Training and Support ........................................................................................ 57
Figure 10: Matrix: Feelings ........................................................................................................... 59
Figure 11:Matrix: Length/Time of Session ................................................................................... 61
Figure 12: Matrix: Frequency & Duration of Program ................................................................. 63
Figure 13: Matrix: Delivery ........................................................................................................... 65
Figure 14: Matrix: Challenges ....................................................................................................... 67
Figure 15: Matrix: Content & Practices ........................................................................................ 70
Figure 16: Continuum of the who of teaching mindfulness as a professional ............................ 117
Figure 17: The essence of a mindful educator ............................................................................. 132

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List of Tables

Table 1: Demographics of Study Participants ............................................................................... 38
Table 2: Code Book ....................................................................................................................... 41
Table 3: Thematic Results of Study .............................................................................................. 71
Table 4: Comparisons Between Transcendental and Hermeneutic Phenomenology .................. 165
Table 5: Available Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI) ...................................................... 176
Table 6: Available Mindfulness-Based Curricula For K-12 Education ...................................... 177

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Have you ever taken the opportunity to examine your surroundings? Much of what we
pass by on a day-to-day basis is largely seen but not noticed; this explains the difficulty we have
of retracing our path when we drive because we tend to focus on the road rather than street
names. Think about the space you are in right now as you have this document in your hand or if
it is lit up on your screen. Where are you in relation to the space itself? What sounds do you
hear? Is the air warm or brisk? Are you breathing heavy? Noticing one or any of these elements
constitutes a feeling of being mindful. There are many forms of mindfulness, and as this research
examines the many forms of activity (or non-activity) these perspectives bring about, continue to
be awake and aware of your body as you read. You have just taken the first steps to becoming a
mindful individual.
Students are the primary stakeholders in any institution of learning. Much of the focus of
the educational curriculum has predominantly centered on the perspectives of the learner.
Helping adolescents become aware of one’s vulnerabilities and developing protective factors
against stress, depression, and anxiety are critical to promote not only student achievement, but
also personal and social health. Royuela-Colomer and Calvete (2016) suggest that mindfulness
may play a protective role in limiting the risk of depression in adolescents.
Whitesman and Mash (2016) argue that for students in a secular society to fully benefit
from the positive effects of mindfulness, well-trained and competent teachers must be able to
provide stress-based reduction programs. Bellamy, Crawford, Marshall, and Coulter (2005)
examined high-reliability organizations (HROs) and recommended several tenets to create “failsafe” schools such as teacher autonomy, lack of standardization, and decentralization in schools.
However, standardization in mindfulness-based education has been challenging to research
because teacher skill levels vary by age group, i.e. primary vs. secondary education, and teacher
skills are essential to providing uniform instruction to validate training practices (Lamothe,

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Rondeau, Malboeuf-Hurtubiseb, Duval, & Sultan, 2016). Programs that can be implemented with
all staff across the entire school are considered more effective than programs specifically
targeting at-risk students (Broderick & Metz, 2009; Raes, Griffith, Van der Gucht, & Williams,
2013). Since not all public and private institutions can afford to train staff in mindfulness-based
stress reduction (MBSR), researchers have experimented with delivering MBSR through
technology and compared it with face-to-face programming (Tunney, Cooney, Coyle, &
O’Reilly, 2017).
Teaching mindfulness in schools is both challenging and interesting to facilitators
because while adolescents portray vulnerability and a need for psychosocial assistance, these
initiatives must also be appealing to young people so that they remain in programs that provide
the support they need (Langer, Ulloa, Cangas, Rojas, & Krause, 2015). To add to that, educators
teaching mindfulness are not only required to have foundational pedagogical experience, but also
need a “range of competencies including working to and within the curriculum, relational skills,
guiding mindfulness practices, conveying the teaching themes through both the process and the
content of the teaching and holding the ‘container’ or group context of teaching.” (Crane et al.,
2012, p. 80).
There is an exigency to produce teachers who can implement mindfulness-based
interventions (MBI) in the classrooms (Crane & Reid, 2016) as mindfulness education may be
one way in which schools may thwart depressive symptoms experienced by both at-risk and
regular education students brought on by stress (Collins, Best, Stritzke, & Page, 2016). However,
with the rush to get teachers trained, administrators should ensure that the training the teachers
receive assists them with becoming knowledgeable and responsible mindfulness practitioners.
According to Crane et al. (2012) teachers incorporating mindfulness into their lessons fell into
one of six stages: (1) incompetent, (2) beginner, (3) advanced beginner, (4) competent, (5)

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proficient, or (6) advanced which were adapted from Dreyfus and Dreyfus’ (1986) Five-Stage
Model of Adult Skill Acquisition. The five-stage model has been used to demonstrate skill
acquisition in a wide range of professions such as airplane pilots, chess masters, car drivers, and
adult learners. Furthermore, it is also stated that often transitioning from one stage to the next
takes considerable time and in some cases these lifelong changes could take a lifetime to master
(Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). The process of evaluating mindfulness-based practitioners becomes
a challenge for three main reasons: (1) assessment criteria is not clearly stated, nor are there
competencies agreed upon by professional organizations which makes this difficult for traineepractitioners to view their assessment as a transparent process; (2) there are no national-level or
state-level competencies which these mindfulness-based training organizations must adhere to,
which also makes it difficult for employers and the general public to determine qualified
mindfulness-based instructors from each other; and (3) mindfulness-based instruction at the
research institutions have no formal methods to judge the adequacies of mindfulness-based
interventions (Crane et al., 2012). Lau and Hue (2011) recommend that a teacher’s manual
should be supplemented with a training program designed to promote mindfulness skills in
various curricula.
In most professions, particularly medicine, counseling, and education, there is a necessity
to maintain certifications and/or licensures that ensure current, qualified practice, however, as a
mindfulness instructor, a responsibility that crosses all three of those aforementioned
professions, there is no competency-based assessment which may lead to further stress (Crane et
al., 2012). Very little research has been conducted correlating job strain and psychological
wellness in teachers (Borrelli, Benevene, Fiorilli, D’Amelio, & Pozzi, 2014). Since teachers
already have a lot of expectations placed upon them, additional MBSR training should not add to
those demands without proper and effective (the recommended) training. Crane, Kuyken,

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Hastings, Rothwell and Williams (2010) provide a model for teacher training that begins with
foundational mindfulness training; followed by basic teacher training, assisting teachers with the
familiarity of an 8-week course paired with learning Buddhist psychology and mindfulness
learning theories; and finally with advanced teacher training, encompassing several mindfulnessbased methods, the experience of going on a 7-day retreat, and refining existing facilitations
skills. Crane et al.’s (2010) model adds continuing professional development as part of an
ongoing commitment to daily formal and informal practice.
Organizational change can be challenging and is a must if for ensuring proper
organizational health (Hoşgörür, 2016). Educational change is often the result of complex
relationships between politics, change management and/or leadership, curricular modifications,
instructional methods, evaluation processes, classroom management, educational technology or
other areas related to various educational initiatives (Towndrow, Silver & Albright, 2010). When
change is initiated in an organization, perceptions may be either positive or negative (Armenakis,
Harris & Moosholder, 1993). In other industry sectors such as private business or technology,
often being the first to roll out new initiatives connotes innovation and can often be an
advantage. In entrepreneurship, this is called a First Mover Advantage—these are the
mechanisms that enable firms to gain positive results by being the first to implement a strategy
(Lieberman & Montgomery, 1988). Implementing new initiatives without proper data and
execution may do more harm than good because without supporting data and execution,
programming may fail. Baglibel, Samancioglu, Ozmantar, and Hall (2014) agree that “In
educational organizations, teachers are the most important factor determining the quality and
effectiveness of education. Most change experts and politicians argue that teachers must be the
centerpiece of changes to be initiated at a school.” (p.56).

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Numerous practitioners have asked how mindfulness practices taught in the traditional
sense (i.e., meditation) can be professionally conveyed in public settings and brought to the
masses (Kabat-Zinn, 2013; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2013). Infusing mindfulness into
professional development is one way that teachers may get the training they need, however,
merely offering professional development is not enough to guarantee the sustainability of such
programs when support needs to come from the leadership within schools (Taggart, 2015). To
sustain mindfulness programs and increase mindfulness teaching effectiveness teachers must
remain active participants that “keep the learning alive” (Crane et al., 2010, p. 81). In most
school districts teachers are evaluated once per year, often by an administrator. One element of
the evaluation process is self-reflection. Danielson (2007) states that distinguished teachers are
often reflective in their practices. However, sometimes with little to no training in an area, it can
cause a teacher to believe that he or she is incompetent.
Mindfulness-based practices are becoming more commonplace in education, especially
with many school districts opting to include them as part of the character education curriculum
or social and emotional learning (SEL) strategies (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger & Davidson, 2015;
Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015). Mindfulness programming is now a required component in many
schools and teachers may be the ones required to carry out the mission. With the numerous
programs, curricula, and professional development interventions available, it is difficult to
understand which strategies have worked best and why teachers choose to implement them in
their own teaching practice. There are also varying experiences and approaches depending on the
mindfulness practitioner and the setting (Bazarko, Cate, Azocar, & Kreitzer, 2013; Wahbeh,
Lane, Goodrich, Miller, & Oken, 2014).
While several studies have reported the benefits of performing mindfulness on schoolaged children in the context of an educational environment (Quach, Jastrowski Mano, &

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Alexander, 2016; Shoshami, Steinmetz, & Kanat-Maymon, 2016; Sibinga, Webb, Ghazarian, &
Ellen, 2016; Toomey, & Anhalt, 2016; Viafora, Mathiesen, & Unsworth, 2015; Waters, Barsky,
Ridd, & Allen, 2015), there is little research that examines the experiences of teachers who
implement mindfulness-based interventions as part of their instruction. To understand the
experiences of the teachers who choose to implement mindfulness, educational and wellness
practitioners may gain a deeper understanding of what teachers perceive to be best practices that
may lead to the discovery of new knowledge in mindfulness-based education. The results will
elucidate what to expect when choosing to infuse mindfulness-based practices into lesson
planning. In summary, this body of research will be able to add to the field of applied wellness
education. Therefore, administrators or non-profit leaders need to fulfill the need to not only
provide safe environments, but also provide turnkey applicable mechanisms that enable highly
productive workforces. “Developing and testing new Approaches designed to help teachers
manage the stresses of teaching and improve the quality of classroom interactions that promote
student learning is critical to effectively supporting and maintaining the teaching workforce.”
(Jennings et al., 2017, p.1011).
This study has better informed educational, wellness, and psychosocial practitioners on
implementing mindfulness-based interventions in public school settings. The problem
addressed in this study was the lack of clear information on teacher training and strategies used
to effectively teach MBSR. This problem was important to address because without proper
implementation of a mindfulness curriculum, all stakeholders cannot reap the benefits of the
content. Since 2005 a range of studies have been compiled on mindfulness adaptations for
teachers, but none of the studies examined the phenomenon that teachers experience when they
were planning or instructing mindfulness-based interventions. The purpose of this research was
to examine this phenomenon.

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Methods

To examine the various strategies used to implement mindfulness-based interventions
(MBIs) in a classroom environment a qualitative research design was used. Research generally
falls into two categories: basic and applied. Researchers engage in basic research design because
of motivation and thirst of knowledge or because of interest in a phenomenon and intellectual
curiosity. By contrast, those engaged in applied research hope to change the way things are done
by improving the practice in various fields (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Qualitative research is
critical to the health sciences profession because it “explores the meaning of human experiences
and creates the possibilities of change through raised awareness and purposeful action” (Taylor
& Francis, 2013, p.3).
Often professions in health, education, social work, administration and other social
sectors work with individuals to improve lives; thus, researchers are interested in elements which
may be studied and enriched. A qualitative research design serves these disciplines well and
provides researchers the insight and understanding to make a difference (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). The information presented in the methods section includes: research design, the case for
transcendental phenomenology, participants, procedures, research questions, data analysis,
validity and reliability, data visualization, and limitations.

Research Design
The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based
interventions and MBSR practices into teachers’ pedagogy and gain an insight into their lived
experiences. This qualitative study took the form of a transcendental (descriptive)
phenomenological study and identified major themes that influenced how teachers choose to
implement mindfulness-based curriculum and identified the implementation styles that had the

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greatest positive influences on teachers’ pedagogy and experiences in the classroom. The design
engaged teachers professionally in a process that allowed them to have a voice in the field of
educational research. The study used multiple interviews to explore teacher impressions of
mindfulness, accessibility to facilitation and barriers to practice, familiarity with curriculum,
methods of infusion into current curricula, evaluation and support of mindfulness programming,
frequencies of instruction, teacher feelings and experiences when conducting sessions, and levels
of success and impact of MBIs in the classroom and gymnasiums. The interviews concluded
with understanding the personal impressions that teachers had when implementing a mindfulness
practice in their own lives.
While the study invited the voices of 13 educators from a rural/suburban school district
which required regular mindfulness pedagogical practice, the qualitative research did “not seek
to generalize to the whole population but to provide a precise (or valid) description of what
people said or did in a particular research location” (Davidson & Tolich, 2003, p.34). Using a
transcendental phenomenological framework by Moustaksas (1994), the researcher was able to
analyze the various elements of data into an epoché, reduction, imagination variation, and
synthesis.

The Case for Transcendental Phenomenology
Phenomenology is both a philosophy and a method. However, researchers tend to be
more “concerned with first hand descriptions of a phenomenon than they are in resolving why
participants experience life the way they do” (Eddles-Hirsch, 2015, p. 251). There are two main
approaches to phenomenology: descriptive (transcendental also known as psychological;
Moustakas, 1994) and interpretive (hermeneutical also known as existential; van Manen, 1990).
According to Sloan and Bowe (2014) both transcendental and hermeneutical phenomenology

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have similar roots, however, there are some critical differences. Hermeneutical tends to be more
complex since time, space, and the intricacies of relationships play a part in how subjects view
themselves and the world around them. Transcendental is objective while hermeneutic is
subjective. Mindfulness strategies, content, methods of delivery, and frequency of delivery are
objective measures, as a result, a transcendental phenomenological approach was ideal.
The differentiation between the phenomenological methods depended upon the research
questions that were being asked. If the researcher had an interest in the experiential features of
mindfulness, then the researcher would ask: “What are the main experiential features of being
mindful?” and the research would take the form of a transcendental phenomenological study.
However, if the researcher had an interest in how people who have undertaken a course in
mindfulness made sense of being mindful, then the researcher would ask: “How do people who
have completed a mindfulness course make sense of being mindful?” and the research would
take the form of a hermeneutical phenomenological study (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2012).
Transcendental phenomenology required the researcher to get to the essence of the
phenomenon and with its epistemological principles, the understanding of why things are the
way they are (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Furthermore, the researcher was the primary instrument
for the analysis and participants were co-researchers because they were included as part of the
meaning of the phenomenon (Moustaskas, 1994; Smith, Osborn, & Jarman, 1999).
Transcendental phenomenology requires that researchers bracket their own beliefs to
prevent interference with the data collection and analysis, however, Martin Heidigger (18891976) the father of hermeneutic phenomenology, argued that it was impossible to separate one’s
experiences from the phenomenon being studied (Reiners, 2012). Moustakas (1994) refers to
these separated personal experiences as epochés; “a Greek word meaning to refrain from
judgement… In the epoché, the everyday understandings, judgements, and knowings are set

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aside, and the phenomena are revisited” (p. 33). Therefore, this study took the transcendental
approach to phenomenology. Advocates of transcendental phenomenology (Colaizzi, 1978;
Moustakas, 1994) find that these methods provide step-by-step procedures which may be simpler
for beginning researchers. By combining mindfulness, phenomenology, and educational research
this enabled the researcher to gather relevant information to understand the lived experiences of
educators in a high school physical education and health program which required regular
mindfulness-based instruction.

Participants
In a review analyzing 11 phenomenological studies in both education and health sciences
conducted by Guetterman (2015), educational sample sizes ranged from eight to 31 with a mean
sample size of 15 participants while health sciences sample sizes ranged from eight to 52 with a
mean sample size of 25. Phenomenologists typically recommend that researchers interview
between five and 25 individuals who have first-hand experiences with the phenomenon
(Polkinghorne, 1989). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) also reviewed several studies and found that
methodology played a role with the number of participants. For example, narrative research
usually included one or two participants, case studies and ethnographies usually examined four
to five cases, phenomenology ranged from three to ten participants, and grounded theory from
20-to-30 participants. The study by Chein (1981) used a purposive sampling of health and
physical education teachers in one rural/suburban school district. The target sample involved in
this study was 13 health and physical education teachers ranging from two to 35 years of
teaching experience, and from 23 to 56 years old. Hence, the sampling method used in this study
was a critical case of teachers in the same discipline asked to volunteer to participate. These
teachers were course instructors for a variety of health and physical education courses beginning

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in 9th grade: human sexuality, drug, alcohol, and nutrition education; 10th grade: driver’s
education and European team sports; 11th grade, junior health and individual sports and fitness;
and 12th grade: senior health and adventure education. Health and physical education teachers
were broken down into teams of five with some teachers teaching across multiple grade levels
and one designated teacher working with the adapted physical education course. Of the 21
physical education teachers, only one was an ethnic minority (African-American), the other 20
were non-Hispanic Caucasians.
Health and physical education teachers had one 6-hour day of professional development
(PD) during the summer of 2017, with bi-monthly 50-minute training sessions during an extra
help (“tutorial block”) planned throughout the school year by experienced trainers in both the
health and physical education and the counseling departments. Various teachers have also taken
it upon themselves to go to additional PD trainings either through online webinars, online
graduate-level courses, or in-person seminars, and some have offered to teach mindfulness PD in
the school district. It was suspected that teachers had differing levels of comfort while teaching
mindfulness in classes based on their choices of activity or the frequency of delivery. Many
teachers were also provided offline resources such as books but may not have had the chance to
read or apply many of the techniques in the classrooms.
The school district itself employs over 430 teachers and for the 2017-2018 school year,
only health and physical education teachers were recommended to infuse some form of
mindfulness trainings into their courses. At the time this study was conducted, the school only
recommended mindfulness as an informal practice and mindfulness sessions which could be
infused as many or as few times as a teacher chose. The only stipulation was that some form of
mindfulness programming was carried out throughout the semester. In the past year, there were
only two professional learning community (PLC) meetings in which teachers were required to

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fill out a form stating a mindfulness practice that they had used that demonstrated positive
results.
The school district supported the implementation of mindfulness-based programming by
allowing the formation of a mindfulness committee on campus. These committee meetings were
held once per month during tutorial (extra help) blocks after school and were voluntary. The
school district also provided PD funding to all disciplines and many teachers have taken
advantage of those funds by going to seminars, signing up for online webinars, or attending
graduate-level courses in social and emotional learning (SEL) with a focus on mindfulness-based
teaching practices. The school ran other in-house PD courses on mindfulness in the classroom.
These courses were held from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Wednesdays once per month for three
months during September 2017, November 2017, and January 2018, for a total of nine hours of
PD; participation was voluntary.
Various literature stated that mindfulness may cause participants (both teachers and
students in this case) to be uncomfortable because of its roots in Buddhist philosophy, thereby
insinuating that mindfulness practices such as meditation constitute religious worship (Crane &
Reid, 2016; Cullen, 2011; Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Activities such as meditation, mindful walking,
and mindful eating are difficult when first practiced, but with more practice, educators become
comfortable enough with those techniques in the classrooms on a regular basis.
Guetterman (2015) mentions that there are two concerns regarding the sampling in the
review of studies performed over the last five years: extensiveness (the size of the sample), and
relevance (appropriateness of the sample). Since this study incorporated the lived experiences of
those involved in teaching mindfulness in a public high school health and/or physical education
course, the current study met the requirements for being both extensive and relevant.

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13

Procedures
Prior to beginning the study, the researcher attained permission from the school district
superintendent to interview and observe other staff members for the purposes of graduate studies
research (Appendix C1). Once the study was approved by the California University of
Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board (Appendix C2), the first step involved soliciting
participants for the study. The participants section of this methodology describes the sampling
procedure (purposive) used for this study. The researcher’s ethical Collaborative Institutional
Training Initiative (CITI) was also obtained (Appendix C3).
The primary researcher had access to the health and physical education staff daily due to
the closeness in the working environment, however, to conform to ethical standards, the
researcher sent an introductory recruitment email (Appendix C4) requesting volunteers for this
study. Participants had the opportunity to participate in interviews and observations. To make the
research valid and reliable, it was necessary to obtain enough data from more than five (n=5)
volunteers. Polkinghorne (1989) recommended this as the minimal number of persons needed for
phenomenological research; similarly, Patton (2001) recommended a minimum sample size
based on the phenomenon of the particular study. Initially 21 teachers were asked to participate
in this study, however, only 13 teachers responded.
Those who agreed to take part in the study either replied via email or in person that they
were interested and were set up for a preliminary interview in which an informed consent letter
(Appendix C5) asking for consent to be interviewed and observed was reviewed and signed. The
letter also explained the goals of the research, the intended purpose of the study, and the
procedures for the process including the primary interview (Appendix C6), the secondary
interview (Appendix C7), the observation (Appendix C8), and the third, final interview
(Appendix C9). The letter also explained how the data would be accessible, but no identifying

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14

data was available to anyone other than the members of California University of Pennsylvania
involved in the study.
Interviews. Interviewing was conducted as a one-on-one, face-to-face process with each
individual. Seidman (2006) stated that “Use of in-depth interviews alone, when done with skill,
can avoid tensions that sometimes arise when a researcher uses multiple methods. That is
especially the case when those methods may be based on different assumptions of what it means
to understand the experience of others.” (p. 6). Since one interview was not sufficient enough to
attain the desired data, three serial interviews were conducted as qualitative researchers have
stated that this number is considered in-depth and appropriate (Hennink, Kaiser & Marconi,
2017; May, 1991; Seidman, 2006). These interviews were conducted with each participant over
the course of a three-month period. Reasons for interviewing participants multiple times
included: (1) the need to attain saturation, Merriam and Tisdell (2016) state that “as you continue
to interview you begin to realize that you are hearing the same things you’ve heard earlier: no
new information is forthcoming, or some tidbit is relatively minor in comparison to the effort
spent collecting the information” (p. 199), (2) the need to allow a participant to explore any
additional feeling of thoughts from the preceding interviews, and (3) to allow participants to feel
safe (May, 1991). Interviewing is an essential skill for researchers using phenomenological data
collection, requiring the skills of: active listening, asking open-ended questions free from bias or
judgment, building rapport, and gaining the trust of the interviewee (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2012).
The following format as recommended by Seidman (2006) took place over the 3-month
period:
Interview #1. Teachers were provided part I and part II of the interview to fill out by
themselves which included contact information, age, and previous academic experience. Part III
of interview #1 asked teachers about their impressions of mindfulness, facilitation barriers, levels

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of support, familiarity with mindfulness programming, infusing of mindfulness into current
lessons, and knowledge of teacher evaluation in the context on MBI (see Appendix C6).
Interview #2. This interview was based on research questions specific to delivery, length,
and frequency, (how the mindfulness-based interventions were implemented and the delivery
methods) and how mindfulness-based practices and planning have influenced the daily practices
of teachers. The teachers were asked to reflect deeper about the classes, the planning process and
the current experiences with implementation (see Appendix C7).
Observations. The researcher observed one class in which mindfulness was implemented.
Observational data collection took the form of field notes (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The
researcher sat either at the back of the classroom if teachers were in a health course, or the back
of the gymnasium if the teacher was in a physical education course with a laptop and began
typing into the Observation Log/Field Note Guide (Appendix C8) recording only observed
teacher behavior (speech and actions).
Interview #3. The third interview combined both the first and second interview and the
observation. Seidman (2006) stated this third interview was to describe the individual essential
experience with the phenomenon. This final interview gave the researcher an opportunity to ask
questions that may have been left unanswered after examining the transcripts of the first and
second interviews and may have had questions about the observation. This final interview
permitted the researcher to attain saturation in data analysis (see Appendix C9). In-depth
interviews which may repeatedly ask similar questions are critical to the research process as
Seidman (2006) mentions: “the method of in-depth, phenomenological interviewing applied to a
sample of participants who all experience similar structural and social conditions give enormous
power to the stories of a relatively few participants.” (p. 55).
There are three main types of interviews: highly structured, which take the form of an

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oral survey; unstructured/informal, which involves open-ended questions that are more
conversational and usually used when the researcher does not know enough about a
phenomenon; and semi-structured, in which an interviewer uses a guided list of questions used
with flexibly (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). For the purpose of this research study, semi-structured
interviews were utilized. Semi-structured interviews involved the use of open-ended questions
which were pre-set by the interviewer to explore a topic; these types of interviews are also
widely used in healthcare research (Jamshed, 2014). To gain valid knowledge from educators
utilizing mindfulness in daily teaching practices, several interview questions and scripts
(Appendix C6, C7, & C9) were prepared to better understand the phenomena that took place in
the classrooms.
Interviews with teachers were guided by a set of prompts and encouraged a further
exploration of the educators’ roles, mindsets, prior knowledge, and views regarding pedagogical
methods and experiences in the area of mindfulness practice. Interviews were recorded via audio
recorder then transcribed verbatim later in the day. Smith and Osborn (2013) recommended
creating an interview schedule to allow the researcher to think explicitly about outcomes:
Although an investigator conducting a semi-structured interview is likely to see it as a codetermined interaction in its own right, it is still important when working in this way to
produce an interview schedule in advance. Why? Producing a schedule beforehand forces
us to think explicitly about what we think/hope the interview might cover. More
specifically, it enables us to think of difficulties that might be encountered, for example,
in terms of question wording or sensitive areas, and to give some thought to how these
difficulties might be handled. (p.59)
Teachers were asked a series of questions permitting the researcher to gain an
understanding of the current mindfulness practices and how these practices were infused into the

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curriculum. Various teachers employed different techniques from a variety of curricula since the
school district provides flexibility to use whatever methods educators deem acceptable.
Mindfulness experiences however, were different for each teacher, and the goal of this study was
to explore the experiences as mindfulness was taught and utilized from day-to-day throughout
the time period.
For the first interviews, the researcher asked for dates and times in which both parties
would be mutually available for a period of no more 30 minutes. These interviews were to gather
informed consent from the participants, gain some biographical information on each teacher and
ask the first set of questions.
The second interviews lasted between 20 to 30 minutes and featured teacher responses to
mindfulness understanding, the resources that teachers used, and the strategies that were
implemented during a typical mindfulness lesson. The second interview occurred between three
to seven days after the first interview. Seidman (2006) states that the time period between
interviews remains a critical factor so answers between interviews are not subjected to repetition.
This also allows the researcher to examine the transcripts and notes from the previous interview
and permit follow up.
While interviews may be a primary source of data for phenomenological research,
observations were also a critical component in some qualitative studies. Merriam and Tisdell
(2016), remark:
Observations can be distinguished from interviews in two ways. First, observations take
place in the setting where the phenomenon of interest naturally occurs rather than a
location designated for the purpose of interviewing; second, observations data represent a
firsthand encounter with the phenomenon of interest rather than a secondhand account of
the world obtained in an interview. (p. 137).

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The observations occurred between the second and third interviews. Observations were
recorded by laptop in the form of field notes and then later coded. This was an opportunity for
the researcher to gain insight into the actual teaching mindfulness teaching practice of the
teachers. Field notes had to be corrected during post-observational settings to ensure a thorough
review of all activity conducted on-site. Data here was matched with similarities in the
interviews. Observational protocols are addressed in depth in the observations section of this
study.
Prior to the third and final interview, the researcher must have had to interview the
teacher twice and observed a class. The researcher brought only teacher-specific transcriptions,
coded data, and field notes with him to the final interview and asked questions related to the first
and second interviews and the observation to saturate the data. The third and final interview also
lasted no longer than 30 minutes. During the final interview, the researcher asked the teachers
about the mindfulness lesson and attempted to have teachers describe their experiences in detail.
Additionally, the researcher asked questions about the evolution of the teacher from being a nonpractitioner to becoming a mindfulness-based facilitator/instructor.
Teachers were notified that all the interviews and observational records were recorded
and transcribed. The questions were open-ended with guided prompts and inquired about
mindfulness beliefs and current practices as well as how mindfulness may have possibly shaped
daily routines. All participants were provided an identification number and true identities were
not known except by the researcher, dissertation chairperson, dissertation committee, statistical
consultant, and two data analysis coders.
The participants reviewed their individual transcripts to ensure that the interview
transcript was accurate. This process assisted the researcher in triangulation of the data along
with the observational narratives (see observations section). A flowchart has been provided to

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detail the procedures further (Fig. 1). After all data was collected, the researcher ran a
phenomenological analysis.
Research Limitations. Since the researcher is currently employed in the same school
district as the potential participants, the researcher was also required to perform mindfulness
sessions with his own students. The purpose of this research was not so the researcher can exert
his own influences upon fellow colleagues, but it was to gain an understanding of the tools and
methods used and experiences lived. To address researcher bias, van Manen (2016) states that
there are methods which belong to other qualitative research methodologies like validation,
sampling selection criteria, members’ checking, and empirical generalization, however since
these do not appear in phenomenological research—they should be seldom used unless
combining research design strategies. van Manen (2016) argues that the one tool
phenomenologists have at their disposal to quell bias, is the epoché (the bracketing of one’s own
experiences), however, Gadamer (1975) argued that prejudices are necessary and thus
unavoidable provided the researcher is self-reflective. As a practitioner in transcendental
phenomenology, Moustakas (1994) is in line with Husserl’s thinking when he states: “In
phenomenological studies the investigator abstains from making suppositions, focuses on a
specific topic freshly and naively, constructs a question or problem to guide the study, and
derives finding that will provide the basis for further research and reflection.” (p.47).
A qualitative research study posed many limitations given the lack of control the
researcher had with respect to the participants. When data came from interviews, the researcher
had to consider that participants own personal availability may not have met the availability of
the researcher in the amount of time set for the data collection of the study. The number of
planned interviews was not the final amount conducted due to participant scheduling conflicts,
non-responses, or other personal reasons such as maternity leaves. The interviews themselves

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may have also been a limitation. Creswell (2014) cited that interview responses are based on the
view of the interviewee, not all people are articulate or have a wide perspective on issues, and
interviews are often held at a specific and planned site, rather than the natural field setting.
The school is predominantly white, suburban school district, with above average socioeconomic development. The generalizability of this study was therefore limited to those same
school districts with similar demographics. Since only health and physical education teachers
were involved in the new school initiative, generalizing results to other disciplines such as social
studies, mathematics, and the sciences was another limitation.
Despite that a purposeful and criterion-based sampling was used, due to the smaller target
population (of 21 teachers) recruited as volunteers, potential bias in which teachers who were
more concerned about the knowledge of mindfulness practices volunteered may have resulted.
Given the mentioned limitations presented, the researcher included all presented limitations
observed during the study in the final report of findings.
Formulating questions. To ensure that the questions asked extracted the required
experiences, the researcher practiced the interviews with one teacher to ensure that the questions
were not asked mechanically and to get an insight as to how one would respond. Maxwell (2013)
recommended pilot-testing interview guides so that if problems occur, the questions could be
revised prior to administering them to subjects.
Subjects were interviewed during off-school hours so that interviews would not impede
the teaching process, planning time, or student contact time. Interview questions and scripts
(Appendix C6, C7, & C9) were drafted by the researcher with committee approval and the
researcher conducted each interview the same way with the order of questions being identical. If
the researcher needed further clarification, then the researcher was able to probe the interviewees
with additional questions.

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Observations. In addition to interviews with prospective participants, the researcher also
asked that the participants be observed by the researcher to reach a level of saturation. While in
most cases teachers routinely use mindfulness practices with their classes, there were some
teachers who specifically used mindfulness exercises knowing they would be observed by the
researcher. These were teachers who may have had an alternate activity planned, but for research
purposes were kind enough to demonstrate a mindfulness session for the purposes of this study.
Saturation originates from grounded theory (Creswell, 2014). Once the researcher reaches a point
where gathering data yields no new insights, then the researcher has reached saturation
(Charmaz, 2006).
Using this protocol is not uncommon for phenomenology and it helps with the process of
triangulation (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015). Triangulation is the process of collecting information
from a wide range of participants and settings to reduce the impact of systematic bias as
qualitative research is largely subjective (Maxwell, 2013). Observational skills are often used in
qualitative research to address the issue of deception, as participants may not provide accurate
data either from a researcher’s subconscious priming or because of the irregular circumstance of
the study (Creswell, 2013). Observations may be unstructured (no planning) or semi-structured
(some prior planning with participants), thus permitting the researcher to take field-notes on the
activities that are performed at the research site (Creswell, 2014).
Video or audio recording did not take place since the researcher would have had to attain
parental consent from students in the room. However, it was imperative that field notes were
taken as detailed as possible and were converted into a narrative format as soon as possible.
Direct notetaking preserved the memory of the moments according to the researcher’s
perspective (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Taylor and Bogdan (1984) provided the following advice
to assist beginning researchers: pay attention; shift from “wide angle” to “narrow angle” lens (p.

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54), essentially blocking out ancillary moments and only focusing on the core of what is
observed, looking for key words that will match vocabulary that has come up or may come up in
other qualitative methods later; focusing on the beginning and the end of statements, and
mentally play back and visualize sounds and images during intermissions.
Timeframe. Teachers volunteering to be interviewed also agreed to be observed and met
with the researcher during a mutually convenient time either before school, during a free lunch
period, or after school. The researcher framed the interview to the teachers and reiterated that
there was no judgment and administrators and school personnel were not be able to identify
those teachers who volunteered.
Since teachers are normally busy during preparation (prep) times, interviews were
scheduled either before school, during lunch periods, or after school. Since the researcher is an
employee within the school district and not in a supervisory capacity, no conflict of interest
occurred. Teachers were briefed by the researcher and told that identifying information would
not be published and data would not be available to members of the administration until the final
results were recorded.
Interviews and observations were conducted between April 2018 and June 2018. The
researcher had to bracket his own beliefs using an epoché. This was a crucial step towards
ensuring that the study was free from bias. The researcher put aside all preconceived notions of
his own experiences in the classroom with mindfulness instruction and focused on being open to
the experiences of the participants. The assumptions of the researcher “are not seen as biases to
be eliminated but rather as being necessary for making sense of the experiences of other
individuals” (Fade, 2004, p.648).
On the date of the interview, the researcher confirmed via email that the interview was to
take place. The researcher met the teacher in his or her office providing an area that is familiar to

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the teacher and allowed the teacher to be comfortable during the process. For a
phenomenological study to be effective the subjects must feel comfortable, Moustakas (1994)
suggested beginning the interview with casual conversation and easing into the interview. The
researcher started by thanking the teacher and reminded the teacher of the purpose of the study
and reminded the teacher that the information gathered would not be accessible by any entity
other than the researcher, dissertation chairperson, dissertation committee, statistical consultant,
and two data analysis coders. The researcher reminded the participant that the data and nonidentifying information would be published. Prior to asking any questions the researcher
reminded the teachers that the interviews would be recorded via audiotape and transcribed. None
of the interviews would be heard except by the primary researcher and, if necessary, the
dissertation chairperson, dissertation committee, statistical consultant, and two data analysis
coders.
The researcher used an electronic voice recorder (Olympus Digital Voice Recorder,
Model No. VN-8100PC) and placed it on a table. The researcher pressed the record button and
stated: “This interview is now being recorded.” The researcher began by performing a semistructured interview asking the questions in the order on the interview questions and script
(Appendix C6, C7, & C9). If the teacher mentioned an idea or concept related to their
experiences, the researcher asked follow-up questions “off-script” and probed the teachers with
the intent to further understand experiences. Questions asked off-script were added to the final
interview questions and script (Appendix C6, C7, & C9) with notations. Once teachers
completed the interview, the researcher answered any other questions the teacher may have had
and thanked the teacher for participating and turned the recorder off. The interviewer then set up
another appointment with the teacher for a follow-up interview.

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Various issues presented challenges to the study, among them included: a need for
additional follow-up interviews, a need to rephrase certain questions that may have been
ambiguous, limited mindfulness experiences either in the classroom or personal practices from
the teacher, lack of detail in reflective processing, or inadequate allotment of interview time
when an interview exceeded its designated time.
Transcription process. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) recommended that the researcher
transcribe the interviews himself. This enables the researcher to (1) gain valuable experience
listening to recorded audio, and (2) allows the researcher to gain familiarity with his own data.
The process was conducted by placing a headset with the recording and simultaneously using
Dragon NaturallySpeaking software which is user-friendly and provides the best economical
value for the purpose of the research study. As the audio played back, the researcher recited the
conversations word-for-word into the microphone, pausing when necessary to correct
misspellings. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) call this process “parroting”. Please see Figure 1 for a
workflow detailing the overall design of the study. The researcher in this study was the sole data
collector and transcriber. However, the researcher also sought out the assistance of two qualified
coders in an additional effort to ensure that the data analysis demonstrated both validity and
credibility.

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Transcentendal
Phenomenological Design

•Develop a deeper understanding of how MBI/MBSR
is used in the classrom and explore lived experiences
of the teachers.

Participant Selection

•Subjects were (n=13) health and physical education
teachers with some training in MBSR by professional
development or personal practice.
•Participants were required to periodically infuse
MBSR into classroom instruction.

•What questions would help explore the research
question?
Interview Question Structuring •Phenomenological questioning strategies must be
considered.
•Experiential questions were designed and aligned.

Data Collection
Primary Interview

Data Collection
Second Interview

•Sessions occured on the campus of the High School.
•Sessions followed a semi-sturctured format.
•Sessions lasted 20-30 minutes.
•Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed.

•Sessions lasted 20-30 minutes.
•Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed.

Data Collection
Observations

•Continued to gather data through observations of
participant classes.
•Observed one class for each participant in the study.

Data Collection
Final Interview

•Conducted after the class observation.
•Sessions lasted between 20-30 minutes.
•Sessions were audio recorded and transcribed.

Phenomenological Analysis

•See figure 2 for a deeper explaination of
phenomenological analysis involving epoche,
phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation,
and synthesis.

Figure 1: Flow Diagram Detailing the Overall Design of the Study

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At this stage of the research, the implementation of mindfulness-based practices into pedagogy
was defined as mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs).

Research Questions
The three research questions were further broken down into sub-questions (see Appendix
C6, C7, & C9) as Bouma (2000) recommends that researchers answer the large questions by
ensuring that no small questions are left unanswered.
The research was guided by the following questions:
Q1. What content do teachers use when teaching mindfulness?
Q2. What mindfulness methods of delivery, length and frequency of delivery do these
teachers use?
Q3. How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?

Data Analysis
Selecting the most effective and valid questions are challenging to phenomenological
researchers as topics must be chosen that are interesting and have both a social meaning and a
personal significance (Moustakas, 1994). Mindfulness targets all five of the characteristics
Moustakas (1994) describes when he discusses characteristics for investigation: first, research in
human science is similar to mindfulness practice—it is about the human experience and enabling
one to fully appreciate the essence. Second, while mindfulness practice may be quantified with a
number of instruments (Anthony, Bieling, Cox, Enns, & Swinson, 1998; Baer, Smith, Hopkins,
Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006; Cebolla et al., 2012; Chadwick, Hember, Mead, Lilley, & Dagnan,
2005; Taylor & Millear, 2016), mindfulness is still largely phenomenological in nature (Felder,
Aten, Neudeck, Shiomi-Chen, & Robbins, 2014; Hemanth & Fisher, 2015) and thus would

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benefit from qualitative research related to behavior or experience such as Dariotis et al.’s (2016)
study related to behavior modification in an urban classroom environment. Third, teachers are
often encouraged to have mindfulness practices in their own lives (Meiklejohn et al., 2012) and
human science research in phenomenology is engaged in the “total self” of the participant and is
interested in sustaining that personal involvement over time. Fourth, mindfulness is similar to
human science research in that is does not seek to predict or determine causal relationships but
rather just experiencing. And fifth, human science research questions are “illuminated through
careful, comprehensive descriptions, vivid and accurate renderings of the experience, rather than
measurements, ratings, or scores” (Moustakas, 1994, p.105). The data analysis was conducted
using Moustakas’ (1994) approach which followed four phases: epoché, phenomenological
reduction, imagination variation, and essence.
Epoché. Prior to beginning of the study, the researcher had to bracket his own personal
beliefs, prejudgments, and predispositions about the various mindfulness practices to create an
epoché to reduce potential conflict with the data reduction. “The process of [e]poché, of course,
requires unusual, sustained attention, concentration, and presence” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 88). The
epoché process is similar to the mindfulness mantras of letting go and being open-minded as
stated by Moustakas (1994), “another dimension of the [e]poché process that is of reflectivemeditation, letting the preconceptions and prejudgments enter consciousness and leave freely,
being just as receptive to them as I am to the unbiased looking and seeing” (p. 89). Once this
stage occurred, only then did the interviews commence.
Phenomenological reduction. Verbal data needed to be transcribed word-for-word into a
database or spreadsheet document that was easily searchable. This approach required that
responses be electronically recorded and then followed a 7-step order encompassing two phases:
Step 1: Horizontalization and listing all relevant expressions. Moustakas (1994) uses the

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term horizontalize to describe horizons which are ideas, concepts, or expressions that keep
showing up, “Horizons are unlimited. We can never exhaust completely our experience of things
no matter how many times we reconsider them or view them. A new horizon arises each time
that one recedes” (p. 95). Once interviews were transcribed, the primary researcher had to
horizontalize the data and highlight significant statements, sentences, and/or quotes that were
able to provide some insight on mindfulness pedagogy. Yüksel and Yıldırım (2015) suggested
that all information should be treated with equal value. During this stage, the researcher removed
any expressions that were irrelevant to the study.
Step 2: Reduction of experiences. The horizontal statements had to be split into
meaningful units so that each statement only had one identifying theme. Creswell (2013) referred
to meaning units as themes. The idea was to thin the data down so that it became more
manageable.
Step 3: Thematic clustering. The next stage in the data analysis process involved
clustering those statements according to themes to find meaning. This step is defined by
Moustakas (1994) as the “core themes of the experience” (p.121). It is in this step that similar
items were paired with other items for the sake of grouping like-elements together.
Step 4: Comparison of multiple data sources. This stage involved comparing the thematic
clusters with field notes from observations or other data, such as journals, or logs (Yüksel &
Yıldırım, 2015). Since this study used observations, then this stage was relevant to ensure that
data sources were accurate and relevant. This step also assisted with the study’s validity.
Step 5: Crafting individual textural descriptions. Once these themes were produced, the
fifth step involved a summary or textural description of what participants experienced. At this
stage, the researcher wrote a description of what was experienced by the participants in the study
(Creswell, 2013).

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Imagination variation. This phase can also be called a structural description and
involves how participants experienced the phenomenon in terms of the conditions, situations, or
context (Creswell, 2013). The purpose of this stage was to seek meaning through one’s
imagination (Moustakas, 1994).
Step 6: Crafting structural textural descriptions. During this step the researcher provided
a structural description. This included context cues that were taken from the environment that
influenced how participants may have experienced mindfulness in the classrooms, these were
based off the atmosphere of the environment and they were interpreted by the researcher, such as
the lighting, the type of room the students were in, how they were seated, the overall ambiance of
the room, etc. According to Moustakas (1994), this involves examining all possible meanings,
looking at different perspectives, and changing frames of references about the phenomenon.
Essentially, this was a description of how the phenomenon occurred (Creswell, 2013). In the
context of this study, the researcher provided organizational (i.e. relationships) and spatial (i.e.
time, space, relation to self, etc.) descriptors in the form of a word cloud.
Step 7: Construction of composite structural descriptions. During this stage the researcher
combined both the individual and the structural textural descriptions to formulate a composite
description (Creswell, 2013).
Essence. This final phase of data analysis is also called the synthesis stage. During this
stage, the descriptions were synthesized into an expression and distilled all the narratives of the
experiences into a whole (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015). The essence of a phenomenon includes:
epoché or bracketing, significant statements, meaning units, textural descriptions, and structural
descriptions (Creswell, 2013).
While not a requirement of the phenomenological method, Yüksel and Yıldırım (2015)
recommended that the last stage of the analytical process end with member checking to address

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validity. Kvale (1996) believes that not all bracketing presuppositions during the epoché may
occur and by using member checking, “researchers can ask the participants about their interview
transcription to verify the researcher’s understanding. In other words, the researcher can send
verbatim files to the participant to crosscheck their responses" (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015, p. 14).
Figure 2 provides a holistic view of the research using Moustakas’ (1994) method.

Epoché

Horizontalizing

Thematic
clustering

Data reduction

Construction
of individual
structural
descriptions

Construction
of composite
structural
descriptions

Synthesizing
texture and
structure into
an expression

Textural
descriptions

Phenomenological
Reduction

Imagination Variation

Essence

Figure 2: Process Stages of the Descriptive Phenomenological Analysis.
Validity and Reliability
Creswell and Poth (2018) recommend that for reliable data analysis to occur, the
researcher must “[include] others beyond the researcher and those involved in the research” (p.
262). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) state that “Strategies that a qualitative research can use to
ensure consistent and dependability or reliability are triangulation, peer examination,
investigators position, and the audit trail.” (p. 252). Creswell and Poth (2018) explain that an
audit trail is the ability of the researcher to enable an external audit by a general consultant or
auditor that has no connection to the study. The general consultant or auditor would provide

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

31

feedback on whether the methods and the data support the conclusion of the study (Creswell &
Poth, 2018).
This study utilized Creswell and Poth’s (2018) four steps, “reliability and perspectives
procedures” (p. 264-266). First, the researcher had to establish a common platform for coding
and develop a preliminary code list. Next, the researcher included additional support with a
codebook and shared the codebook among coders. For the third step, the researcher applied the
codebook across additional transcripts, and compared coding across multiple researchers. The
fourth step the researcher was involved to assess and report the intercoder agreement among
researchers. Because of the ongoing nature and evolution of the data analysis, it was important to
revise and finalize the codebook to inform further coding. Triangulation is the process of using
multiple sources of data to allow for cross-checking. This study incorporated multiple interviews
from various participants and an observation, thus leading to triangulation as the preferred
method..

Data Visualization
Many researchers use computer programs to support qualitative analysis as it helps with
reliability (Silverman, 2013). The researcher used MAXQDA Standard
(https://www.maxqda.com/products/maxqda-standard). This is a comprehensive qualitative data
analysis for researchers which permitted the detailed coding and synthesis of working with a
range of various data sets. MAXQDA Standard has tools for advanced coding, retrieval,
transcription and visualization, and was a simple program to learn with various tutorials available
online. The software program was cost-effective, and allowed the researcher to import data from
interviews, audio and visual files, and other sources. The software also allowed the researcher to
compare notes with other members of the study (dissertation chairperson, coders, etc.) and

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

32

provided a systematic way of updating codes so the study continued to remain fluid. The
software was also useful during various stages of the data analysis process allowing the
researcher to create memos that were easily retrievable during audit trials or paraphrasing
sentences into clusters.
An additional benefit to using MAXQDA Standard was the ability to automatically
generate visualizations of data from collected sources. The data represented of this study took the
form of word clouds that demonstrated which words and themes were more prevalent in the
cleaned data.

Ethical Assurances
Ensuring that research is ethical is paramount to the validity of any study. In quantitative
research, statistical methods are used to determine relationships between variables (Creswell,
2014) while qualitative research is intended to find meaning from experiences (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). The California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board (IRB) was
provided a description of the study and certain requirements were to be followed when
conducting this phenomenological study within a public school system. “The California
University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a standing committee,
constituted according to federal regulations, that is responsible for ensuring that the rights and
welfare of human research participants are protected.” (Cal U IRB, 2018). The Cal U IRB
adheres to the ethical principles of The Nuremberg Code, The Belmont Report: Ethical
Principles and Guidelines for the Human Subjects of Research, and the Report of the National
Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. This
study was approved by the Cal U IRB and data collection did not commence until this study was
sanctioned by the Cal U IRB.

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

33

Studies involving human research participants are required to attain informed consent,
voluntary participation, and provide measures to ensure that participant data remains confidential
and secure. Individual participant names were replaced with identification numbers. The true
identity of participants was held in a data file which was stored online and required two-step
verification through a six-digit code or a USB security key when linking new devices. The
Dropbox folder was password protected and only accessible by the researcher and the
dissertation chairperson. The online service mitigates data loss through hardware failure or theft
by providing backups in the form of data redundancy.
The relationship of the researcher to Regional School District is professional in nature.
The researcher retains full-time, tenured employment at the school district as a teacher and was
granted approval of this study by the superintendent of the school district, the director of
curriculum, and the department supervisor. The school district remains vested in this study for
the purposes of improving its wellness offerings for both staff and students, helping staff and
administration understand the experiences of pedagogical implementation of mindfulness, to be
able to get an insight of what is being implemented from current efforts to limit distractions and
increase mental well-being in the classrooms, and is hopeful that the school district may serve as
a model to other school districts planning to implement MBSR to its student population.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) recommend that an ethical advisor be assigned to the study;
in this case, the researcher’s dissertation chairperson served in an ethical advisory role. Maxwell
(2013) states that researcher bias is the greatest threat to external validity. In this case, the
researcher may have had internal bias that was more positive to mindfulness programming
stemming from Asian ancestry and combined Christian/Buddhist religious upbringing. However,
the use of bracketing (Moustakas, 1994) for transcendental phenomenology was instrumental as
the researcher became aware of any biases and interpretations which may have presented

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

34

themselves during the interview and observational process and was able to self-reflect,
acknowledge their existence, and bracket those feelings. During this point, the researcher became
self-aware of pre-existing beliefs about mindfulness and became mindful about mindfulness.
Lincoln and Guba (1985) claim that trustworthiness must be applied to all research if it is
to be valued by those seeking to examine its worth. Trustworthiness is the result of four elements
involving: credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability.
Credibility. Both open-ended semi-structured interviews and observations were datagathering methods used for this study. Once interviews were completed, the researcher
transcribed the interview data and sent the Microsoft Word document back to the interviewee as
a form of member checking. The observations were also documented and provided to the
teachers prior to their final interviews. The initial two interviews, the observation, and the final
interview were all various data points used to triangulate the unfolding phenomenon. To limit
researcher bias, the researcher was able to document personal thoughts and experiences during
observations as a form of self-reflection.
Transferability. In a qualitative study, this is synonymous with generalizability. In order
to attain transferability, the researcher employed using Patton’s (2001) technique of supplying
the reader with rich descriptions of the setting and supply detail in the selection of participants.
By providing rich descriptions, researchers permit the audience to make determinations of the
transferability of the study (Creswell, 2007), similarly Lincoln and Guba (1985) state: “It is, in
summary, not the naturalist’s task to provide an index of transferability, it is his or her
responsibility to provide the data base that makes transferability judgements possible on the part
of potential appliers” (p. 316.)
Confirmability. The relationships inherent in qualitative research make confirmability
challenging as researchers must be able to separate personal relationships and professional

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

35

relationships. "A researcher's background and position will affect what they choose to
investigate, the angle of investigation, the methods judged most adequate for this purpose, the
findings considered most appropriate, and the framing and communication of conclusions"
(Malterud, 2001, p. 483-484). Similar to Moustakas’ (1994) bracketing or epoché technique, by
using reflexivity the researcher was able to establish preconceived notions prior to beginning the
study. Creswell (2007) suggests documenting past experiences, biases, and prejudices
proactively. Malterud (2001) notes that "preconceptions are not the same as bias, unless the
researcher fails to mention them" (p. 484). The dissertation chairperson was in receipt of the
researcher’s epoché one week before the study began.
The other element that allowed the researcher to establish confirmability was the use of
an audit trail. Lincoln and Guba (1985) provide six steps through the development of an audit
trail: (1) the inclusion of all raw data, transcripts, field notes, and other documents; (2) the
reduction of data and products of analysis including summaries, memos, and other condensed
notes; (3) the reconstruction of data and synthesis of products such as the struct of categories and
themes, definitions, relationship, and their connections to existing literature and pre-existing
concepts; (4) the inclusion of process notes, specifically procedural notes, strategies, design
notes, and rationales; (5) any material related to intention and disposition including proposals,
personal notes, reflexive notes and expectations; and (6) instrument development information. In
the case of this study, the semi-structured interviews were designed by the researcher and
adjusted by the dissertation chair and committee members; the observational forms were
modified from Danielson’s (2008) Framework for Effective Teaching.
Dependability. As a suggestion from a data analysis consultant, the researcher was able
to attain the assistance of two external auditors to ensure that data was interpreted correctly. One
external auditor was a strength and conditioning coach and current adjunct college professor of

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

36

exercise science who possessed a bachelor’s degree in physical education and health and a
master’s degree in exercise physiology. The other external auditor was a middle school health
and physical education teacher and adjunct college professor in health and nutrition with a
bachelor’s degree in physical education and health, a master’s degree in positive psychology, and
a doctorate in education in organizational change and leadership.
In the case of this study, the external auditors also assisted as external coders and were
provided copies of the data. Within a week these auditors were able to assist in the process of
identifying new codes, suggested one additional theme, and were able to provide suggestions on
various codes being classified as subcodes.
In summary, the process to establish trustworthiness in this study was lengthy and
meticulously monitored. The result was to conduct a qualitative phenomenological study that
would enlighten the mindset of pedagogues to be exposed to mindfulness research in the context
of K-12 schooling. Through a phenomenological design, it was the hope that the researcher was
able to capture the essential lived experiences of high school teachers infusing mindfulness
content and practices into the curriculum.

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

37
Results

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the mechanisms of infusing
mindfulness-based interventions and MSBR practices into teacher’s pedagogy and gain insight
into their lived experiences. This study took place at a large regional suburban high school in
Central New Jersey. A transcendental phenomenological design was used and parameters for
inclusion in the study included being a health and/or physical education teacher at the high
school level (grade 9-12) and the implementation of mindfulness-based initiatives.

Demographic Information
Twenty-one teachers were asked to participate in this study, however, only 13 teachers
responded to requests to be interviewed and observed. Of the 21 teachers in the department,
several of them coached during the spring season, and there were three long-term substitute
teachers in for teachers on maternity leave. Conducting interviews throughout the school day
proved to be a challenge and on several instances teachers who had made appointments needed
to reschedule either because of end-of-year meetings involving annual teacher performance
evaluations, standardized testing, and in one instance a fire drill during the teacher’s preparation
period.
Seven participants were female, and six participants were male. Teaching experience
ranged from two years to 35 years with many teachers assigned to teach multiple grades during
their tenure. Three of the 13 teachers had teaching experience at other public or private schools
prior to becoming a teacher in the school district, with one teacher identifying teaching as a
second career. Ten of the 13 teachers chose to major in health and physical education for
undergraduate degrees. Nine of the 13 teachers held graduate degrees (two in fitness and
wellness, two in educational leadership, three in health and physical education, and one in social

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

38

and emotional learning). One teacher held two master’s degrees (health and physical education,
and educational leadership) and one teacher held a post-master’s specialist education degree in
educational administration. Only one teacher had tertiary educational training in a field similar to
mindfulness: social and emotional learning (teacher #2) while two other teachers mentioned
mindfulness as a part of their graduate educational endeavors (teacher #1 and #12).
Three serial interviews were conducted among each participants and each interviewee
consented to an observation of a lesson was conducted between the second and the third
interviews. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview guide and all interviews were
recorded via digital recorder and transcribed within three days of an interview (See Table 1).

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

39

Table 1: Demographics of Study Participants
Demographics of Study Participants

Age

9th

10th

11th

12th

Other

Total
Years
Teaching
Exp.

#1

50

27

5

25

-

-

27

HPE

FT/WL

#2

52

-

15

10

10

-

25

HPE

SEL

#3

58

9

13

-

-

22

35

HPE

#4

24

2

-

-

-

-

2

HPE

#5

27

-

4

1

1

-

4

HPE

EDLD

#6

28

3

-

-

-

2

5

HPE

HPE

#7

26

3

-

3

-

-

3

HPE

HPE

#8

36

-

1

-

-

12

13

FT/WL

#9

43

9

-

11

11

-

20

HPE

EDLD

#10

31

7

7

2

2

-

9

HPE

FT/WL

#11

26

-

3

3

3

-

3

FT/WL

Number Years Teaching Exp.
By Grade Level
Teacher

#12

42

3

-

7

-

-

10

Education
BA/BS

MA/MS

BUS

#13
47
4
20
20
24
HPE
Note. BUS = Business. FT/WL = Fitness/Wellness. HPE = Health & PE.
EDLD = Educational Leadership. SEL = Social/Emotional Learning.

Ed.S.

EDLD

HPE
EDLD
HPE

Interviews #1 and #3 had three separate research questions. A decision was made to split
those interviews into three separate documents during transcription which allowed for more
accurate coding and analyzing. Interview #2 only had two research questions and thus those 13
interviews were split into two files. Teacher identification numbers were used and were assigned
in the order they were interviewed, therefore teacher #1 was the first teacher interviewed and
teacher #13 was the final teacher interviewed. After interviews were transcribed, they were sent
to each respective teacher within three days as an attachment through email as a form of member

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

40

checking to ensure that accurate information was reflected should the teacher have any
information that needed clarification.

Analysis of Interviews
Thirteen teachers were asked to share their experiences as they navigated the beginning
stages of implementing mindfulness-based interventions in the classroom. While many of them
had their own personal practices and reasons for showcasing it in their classrooms, just as many
teachers were hesitant for varying reasons and during interviews asked to be reminded about the
confidentiality of the interview data. Many of the teachers were reluctant to engage in a lengthy
process at first, but during regular conversations after interviews many of them stated that the
interviews were a source of reflection for them and in many cases the interviews were beneficial
towards their professional development.
The collection of data was conducted from May 3rd 2018 to June 17th 2018. Interviews
ranged from nine minutes to just over 33 minutes. The average time for the first interview was 18
minutes, the average time for the second interview was 21 minutes, and the average time for the
third interview was 22 minutes. The overall average amount of time across all interviews was 20
minutes. The findings of the research yielded a total of 13 hours, 4 minutes and 28 seconds worth
of interview data and over six hours of observational data. This process resulted in 117 unique
documents and 4,288 coded statements that when compiled, amounted to just over 400 pages of
quotes and memos.
The coded segments produced 106 individual codes detailed in Table 2 along with the
frequency of occurrences throughout all 117 documents. All of the 106 codes were then grouped
under a thematic family; for instance, attention span, lack of acceptance/support, curricular
issues, and immaturity, etc. were grouped under “challenges”; articles, books, literature, bodily

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

41

senses, videos, etc. were groups under “content and practices”. There was a total of eight
thematic families which included: challenges, content and practices, delivery, motivators of
mindfulness, frequency and duration of programs/initiatives, length/time of session, feelings, and
training and support. Several statements were assigned two or more codes.

Table 2: Code Book
Code Book
Code System
Challenges

Memo
Difficulties of implementing and teaching
mindfulness in the classrooms.
Acceptance/Support
Creating a sense of importance and helping
students and colleagues realize the importance of
a certain activity.
Attention Span
Students demonstrate difficulty in maintaining
time on-task because of fluctuations in the
amount of focus or concentration for a particular
activity (or set of activities).
Curriculum
Staff member feels that a mindfulness curriculum
would need to be established prior to engaging
students with more mindfulness activity or that
mindfulness would need to be threaded into the
already existing curriculum.
Immaturity/Behavioral Issues Staff member feels that students do not take the
mindfulness sessions seriously because of a lack
of maturity.
Insufficient Time
Lack of time for staff to implement mindfulnessbased interventions.
Lack of Feedback
Teacher cites that feedback is minimal with from
students, parents, administrators, or other
teachers.
Lack of Knowledge
Staff member feels that s/he is not considered an
expert or authority on mindfulness and thereby
cannot contribute to the success of a program.
Logistical Issues
Staff member feels that there is a lack of space,
or the environment in which mindfulness is
being implemented is not conducive to the
experience, i.e., room too noisy. Teacher may
speak to the number of students (class load) of
each section or conflicts with the school schedule
(testing).
Lack Support/Resources
Staff member feels a lack of support.

N
9
102
77

57

49
62
14
33
59

19

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Pacing

Personal Practice
Pragmatism
Progression
Quality of Sessions/Content

Time of Day
Unmotivated
Content & Practices
Negative/Minus
Positive/Plus
Applications
Articles/Books/Literature
Bodily Senses
Body Scan
Mindful Eating

Mindful Listening/Music
Natural
Sounds/Nature
Classical
Zen/New Age

Ensuring that enough material covers the lesson
or remaining lessons or sticking to a sequence
that allows the teacher to implement the
important facets of mindfulness-based
interventions.
Staff member acknowledges that personal
practice is not a priority either for him/herself or
the students.
Teacher expresses being pragmatic with
expectations and being realistic about goals,
methods, or outcomes.
The need to begin an activity from a basic
understanding and gradually increasing difficulty
or duration.
Teacher mentions that the quality of
sessions/content is a problem and may pose other
issues such as consistency or validity in the
experience.
Teacher mentions that the time of day is a factor
in how his or her students accept or resist
mindfulness practices.
Staff member is not motivated to implement
mindfulness-based practices or mentions that
students have difficulty with motivation.
This is the material and resources that teachers
use while teaching mindfulness.
Negative aspects.
Positive Aspects.
Any online web-based resources that are used to
teach mindfulness.
Written articles or segments of books that are
used as content.
Touch, Smell, Sights, Sounds, Taste
Body scan mindfulness technique used to help
participants become aware of bodily sensations.
Consuming small samples of food while paying
attention to the taste and other sensations as they
arise, e.g. melting chocolate on the tongue,
eating a raisin as slowly as possible, etc.
Teacher uses music to engage students with
sound and melodies.
Birds, scenery (waterfall, oceans, etc.) and other
natural sounds.
Traditional classical music with strings orchestra.
Music uses gongs, bowls, or synthesizers to
create different sensations.

42
19

26
50
30
25

3
17
20
80
106
30
14
19
28
7

26
4
2
9

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Manipulatives
Meditation
Self-Directed Meditation
Guided-Meditations
Mindful Breathing

Mindful Coloring

Mindful Walking
Progressive Relaxation
Puzzles
Reading
Reflective Practices
Discussion
Doodling
Journals
Positive-Talk/Gratitude
Variety of Content
Video/Animation
Visualization/Script

Using tactile, hand-held objects to help bring
attention to kinesthetic senses, e.g. Play-Doh®,
spinners, stress balls, etc.
Mindfulness meditations
A meditation in student/practitioner self-initiated
a mediation without audio or visual cues.
A meditation in which an external source is
guiding the student/practitioner through the
mediation.
Practitioner takes deep breaths and learns to
control one's breathing. Also includes
diaphragmatic breathing exercises whereby
practitioner switches from chest breathing
exercises to using stomach (diaphragm) to
breath.
Using black and white outlined images that allow
participants to color into empty spaces, e.g.
images of mandalas, images of positive sayings,
etc.
Taking a walk while opening one's sense to the
surrounding environment, e.g. keeping a lookout
for colors, sounds, smells, and other sensations.
Technique in which practitioner tenses one part
of his/her body and immediately relaxes that
muscle.
Word searches, sudoku, crosswords, or other
brain teasers.
Generalized reflective practice. May or may not
require students to write or record
thoughts/feelings/outcomes.
Students engage in discussion about mindfulness
and topics that could bring attention to
awareness, kindness, non-judgment, etc.
Allowing a mindfulness practitioner to draw
shape, pictures, words without judgement.
Used to help teachers and students reflect by
writing into a log either online or on paper.
Having students/teachers cite current examples
where they can be thankful of appreciative.
Teacher mentions using a variety of content to
supplement instruction.
Using YouTube clips or DVDs to engage
students both visually and auditorily.
Using a script to help practitioners visualize
being in some relaxing environment.

43
9
39
11
57
46

28

27
14
16
3
44
22
5
62
4
66
45
55

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Websites/Online Materials
Yoga

Delivery
Combination: Direct/Indirect
Direct-Approach
Indirect-Approach
Scaffolding

Audio-guided

Self-guided
Student-guided
Teacher-guided
Technology-guided
Driver of Mindfulness
Administrative
Character Development
Classroom
Chemistry/Makeup
Curiosity

Any online materials or resources that are used to
teach or engage students in mindfulness.
Activity whereby students and teachers move
their bodies into a series of poses designed to
work various muscles or stretch certain parts of
the body.
How mindfulness-based interventions are
delivered.
Teachers use pre-established plans or curriculum
and supplement with other materials or
strategies.
Using pre-established programs or curricula to
assist with mindfulness engagement.
Using self-created or personal
practices/experiences to engage students in
mindfulness-based interventions.
Teacher attempts to deliver mindfulness in a
progression that scaffolds off pre-existing
knowledge, or from prior practices in a step-bystep fashion.
Uses sound to help implement mindfulnessbased interventions, this included: music,
guided-meditations through CDs/online mp3's,
etc.
Each individual student is provided a choice in
what s/he chooses as a mindful activity.
Students lead the mindfulness-based content.
Teachers lead the mindfulness-based content.
Technology is used to implement mindfulnessbased interventions such as: web-based 2.0
applications, smartphone applications, etc.

44
22
35

21
8
15
56
43

58

56
59
39
21

12
Staff member mentions the urge for mindfulness- 26
based initiatives because of either: supervisory or
administrative influence.
Teacher cites the development of character or the 14
need to provide social and emotional learning
experiences to students.
Implies that classroom make-up of students has
78
something to do with the chemistry and the
acceptance of mindfulness-based interventions.
Staff member cites inquisition and wants to
53
know more about the subject. Because of this
curiosity, the staff member has a reason to learn
more about mindfulness-based interventions.
Staff member may also try new things and
express “trial and error” in his/her language.

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL

45

Staff member may also cite wanting students to
be curious about the content.

Develop Focus and/or
Awareness
Develop Resilience/Coping
Skills
Differentiation/Needs of
Individual Student

Teacher cites that students need to develop focus
and/or awareness.
Teacher expresses a need to help students
develop resilience and coping skills.
Teacher determines what is best providing a
variety of instructional methods and resources
for students and attempts to individualize
instruction based on student needs.
Existing/Similar Curriculum Teacher states that pre-existing curriculum is a
focus and helps to implement further
understandings/strategies. Cites a need to
connect with other materials that may be a part
of the unit.
Exposure and/or Introduction Exposure to new material/strategies
Other Teachers/Mindfulness Teacher cites that other teachers have either
Practitioners
directly or indirectly influenced their ability to
infuse mindfulness into their lessons.
Performance/Athletics
Teacher cites that student performance was a
factor or may mention performance in athletics.
Personal Experience
Staff member mentions a personal experience as
a driver, e.g. family, personal stress, moral
obligation, etc.
Preparation for
Teacher expresses a desire to help students deal
Future/Application to Present with future issues as they get older and
experience greater stress/anxiety/depression.
Resources AvailableThe availability of resources that are accessible
Material and/or Space
to teachers either online or through the school
district that could drive the mindfulness
initiatives.
Routine/Expectations/
Teacher cites that mindfulness is part of a routine
Culture
that expresses an expectation of uniformity
and/or culture. Routines may already be in place
from previous semester/years and/or previous
schooling. Students and/or teachers may have
prior knowledge.
School Mission
Staff member cites the mission of the school
district is: "A Sound Mind in a Sound Body".
Student wellness is a part of the school district's
mission.

142
103
84

24

31
34
20
70
82
48

102

32

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Seeing Growth/Benefits in
Students
Student Enjoyment

Technology Dependence
Other
Frequency & Duration of
Programs/Initiatives
Regular 1x/week
Regular 2x/week
Regular Every Class
Sporadic
Unit/Chunk
Length/Time of Session
Under 3 Minutes
Between 3-5 Minutes
Between 6-10 minutes
Between 11-15 minutes
Greater than 15 minutes
Variable Length of Session
Feelings
Apprehensive
Awareness & Insight

Staff members mention seeing growth in student
populations either through personal development
or improved social behavior.
Staff member mentions that students enjoy the
activities or experiences ask for further
resources, more activity, or mention personal
satisfaction.
Teacher mentions that students connection to
technology is a driver of mindfulness-based
interventions.
Other drivers of mindfulness that are not
previously explained.
Total time of program in terms of days, weeks,
months, etc.
Mindfulness is implemented regularly once per
week.
Mindfulness is implemented regularly twice per
week.
Mindfulness is implemented regularly every
class period.
Mindfulness is used sporadically throughout the
year, there is no set time or routine to using it.
Mindfulness is only incorporated in a unit or for
a set-period of time.
The total time per session of mindfulness-based
intervention
Teacher mentions the time of session or a
particular initiative is under three minutes.
Teacher mentions the time of session or a
particular initiative is between six and ten
minutes.
Teacher mentions the time of session or a
particular initiative is between six and ten
minutes.
Teacher mentions the time of session or an
initiative is between 11 and 15 minutes.
Teacher mentions the time of session or an
initiative is greater than 15 minutes.
Teacher states that session length varies, or
individual initiatives may change.
Affect of individuals associated with
mindfulness teaching and/or learning.
A feeling of apprehension and caution from the
interviewee.
Teacher makes an insightful comment that
speaks to the awareness of what s/her believes
and illustrates a deeper understanding.

46
99
59

15
37
15
12
7
15
20
34
32
15
18
40
33
49
8
7
15
201

MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Calmness
Conflict
Disappointment/Exhaustion
Empathy
Excitement
Frustration
Hopeful
Gratitude
Happiness
Unknown
Training/Support
Administrative Training
Books & Literature
Colleagues & Friends
College Courses

Curriculum Writing

Online
No Formal Training
Professional Community

Professional Development
Code System Total Codes

A feeling of calmness and caution from the
interviewee.
Teacher experiences conflict in emotions.
A feeling of exhaustion from the interviewee.
A feeling of empathy from the interviewee.
A feeling of excitement from the interviewee.
A feeling of frustration from the interviewee.
A feeling of hopefulness from the interviewee.
Educator states that s/he appreciates and/or is
thankful for an experience or interaction. May
also signify that students are gratuitous.
A feeling of happiness from the interviewee.
Teacher is either unaware of material or does not
understand/know concept/content.
Teacher cites an element of support.
Administrators are perceived in support when
they train teachers.
Learning about mindfulness either through
journal articles, books, or other written (this
includes online) resources.
Learning about mindfulness from friends or
colleagues.
Higher-level for-credit courses developed for the
purposes of social-emotional learning, classroom
environment, curriculum & instruction, or health
science courses either applied for nonmatriculated or matriculated adult learners.
Formal session in which teacher is required to
write or develop curriculum for the purposes of
putting together new materials and/or
instructional methods.
Online training either through a graduate course
or webinar.
Teacher was required to teach mindfulness
without prior training.
Being a part of a professional community in
which the learner has an opportunity to engage in
mindfulness-based strategies, e.g. Mindfulness
Committee.
Professional development offered through the
school district.

47
48
23
7
99
44
18
55
15
13
71
16
1
24
51
25

15

27
16
22

30
4288

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Using the MaxQDA software program, the researcher was able to analyze the data
according to research questions and the software was able to generate a word cloud for the most
frequently used words. The interview responses across all 13 teachers were distilled down to the
more frequent 100 words and Figures 3, 4, and 5 demonstrate that the most frequently used
words were: “mindfulness”, “students”, and “think”. The word clouds contained some other
similarities such as “question”, “need”, “different”, “activity/activities”, and “practice”. Research
Question 1 asked specifically what content teachers used when teaching mindfulness. While the
word cloud does not specifically show words related to content, the word cloud illustrates that
teachers used a variety of strategies and instead had more to say about programming than about
specific methods. “Breathing” and “meditation” were the two most commonly stated words
during the interview process.

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Figure 3: Word Cloud Research Question #1

Figure 4 illustrates research questions 2 when asked: What mindfulness methods of
delivery, length and frequency of delivery do these teachers use? Teachers were less likely to
mention specific times and durations and instead had a variety of different “approaches”
deciding which “methods” worked best according to their classes. The words “guided”,
“program”, “session” and “curriculum” all appear in this image which illustrates that teachers
used these terms most frequently when referring to the range of programming they incorporated.

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Figure 4: Word Cloud Research Question #2

Figure 5 illustrates the most frequently stated words for the third research question: how
have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching? Words such as “trying”,
“better”, “enjoy”, and “life” appear in the most frequently stated words.

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Figure 5:Word Cloud Research Question #3

Using observational data from all 13 in-class observations, the researcher was able to use
MaxQDA to pull the top 100 most frequently used words during mindfulness practice sessions.
These words were a direct result of either teachers using them in conversations with students or
as a result of the researcher describing the scene during these sessions. The most frequently used
words were “students”, “right”, and “room”.

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Figure 6: Word Cloud Observations
The MaxQDA qualitative analysis allowed the researcher to count significant statements
and highlight them according to one of the 106 codes. These codes were grouped into one of the
eight thematic families and each research question was able to determine which thematic
families were mentioned more during the interview process. The research questions are listed
below for convenience.
Q1. What content do teachers use when teaching mindfulness?
Q2. What mindfulness methods of delivery, length and frequency of delivery do these
teachers use?
Q3. How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?
Figure 7 illustrates a matrix for a research question analysis showing that motivators of
mindfulness appeared to be the most common outcome from research questions 1 and 3, while
research question 2 was able to pull more information from teachers regarding their content and
practices, frequency and duration of program, and length/time of session than the other two

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research questions. Each matrix is represented with blotter marks; larger blots indicated greater
frequencies of responses.

Figure 7: Matrix: Research Question Analysis
Figures 8 through 15 are matrices of each thematic family and their codes by teacher.
Across all teachers, the most frequent reason why mindfulness is taught in this setting was being
able to see growth/benefits in students followed by developing focus and/or awareness in
students and developing resilience/coping skills respectively. Teachers seldom mentioned
character development as a motivator for teaching mindfulness although some form of character
development appeared in 9 of the 13 teacher’s transcripts. The least mentioned motivators in
teaching mindfulness were technology dependence and performance/athletics as only 5 of the 13
teachers mentioned it during the interview process.
Teachers also varied greatly in the number of motivators they mentioned throughout their
three interviews. Teachers #1 and #8 had the most experience with mindfulness as far as formal
training and daily usage; they were the only teachers that cited 19 out of 20 possible motivators
as a reason for infusing mindfulness into their teaching practices. Teachers: #3 and #11 could not
name as many motivators for teaching mindfulness in the classroom. Teacher #13 who had
similar teaching experience as teacher #1 had the fewest motivators to teach mindfulness of any
teacher. Clusters of motivators were found to be more important to some teachers than others, for
example: teacher #2 stated curiosity, differentiation/needs of individual students, and seeing

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growth/benefits in students as greater motivators than exposure to mindfulness, other teachers, or
character development. Teachers #3, #5, and #12 did not feel pressure (either positive pressure in
the form of encouragement, or negative pressure in the form of mandating mindfulness practice)
from administration while teacher #4 mentioned that administration was a main motivator. Codes
that were classified under “other” motivators of mindfulness were statements that could not be
classified into the other codes and included motivators such as: state standards, developing
relationship building, developing a sense of purpose, and developing trust with the students.

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Figure 8: Matrix: Motivators of Mindfulness

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Figure 9 illustrates a matrix showing how each teacher felt trained and supported. There
were nine areas that were identified: administrative training, books and literature, colleagues and
friends, college courses, curriculum writing, online, professional community, professional
development, and for statements that teachers felt they did not have training, a no formal training
code was assigned.
The most popular form of training and support available was through colleagues and
friends followed by professional development and professional community respectively. Books
and literature, and online methods tied as a fourth option, while the least mentioned form of
training was that offered by administrators, in which only one teacher (teacher #9) mentioned.
Nine of the 13 teachers also mentioned that there were instances in which they felt little or no
formal training was available in the school district but were able to cite other resources available
to them in other interviews. Teacher #4 struggled with naming resources.

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Figure 9: Matrix: Training and Support

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Throughout the interviews, teachers expressed certain feelings to the researcher and these
were grouped into one of 12 codes: apprehensive, awareness and insight, calmness, conflict,
disappointment/exhaustion, empathy, excitement, frustration, hopeful, gratitude, happiness, or
unknown. These feelings are illustrated in figure 10 matrix. Every teacher demonstrated
awareness or insight when asked to describe mindfulness practices. For many teachers,
awareness and insight proved to be the most common feeling demonstrated except for teacher #3
who identified more with unknown feelings, and teacher #8 who demonstrated more empathy
throughout the interview process. For many teachers (teachers #1-#4, #9-#13) empathy was
mentioned quite frequently. Following empathy, statements identifying the feelings of
hopefulness and excitement were highlighted in the interviews.

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Figure 10: Matrix: Feelings

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Figure 11 shows a matrix of the length and time of sessions. A majority of the responses
described using mindfulness interventions lasting longer than 15 minutes followed by
interventions lasting in the 6-10-minute range. Mindfulness duration differed among teachers
depending upon the sport or health unit; most teachers felt that the duration of the intervention
should reflect the unit itself such as more mindfulness time for a teacher in a mental health unit
as opposed to a human sexuality unit. Five of the 13 teachers mentioned using variable length of
sessions. Teachers with the most experience with mindfulness trainings (teachers #1, #2, #8, and
#12) had more responses with longer mindfulness class time sessions, while younger teachers
(teachers #4-#6) tended to have shorter mindfulness sessions. Teacher #13 with over 20 years of
experience used shorter sessions under five minutes because of the self-directed methods she was
using at the time of this research.

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Figure 11:Matrix: Length/Time of Session

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Teachers were asked about the frequency of their programming and over how many days
mindfulness covered various parts of the curriculum. Figure 12 displays the matrix of responses
matched to what individual teachers mentioned they employed when it came to mindfulness
practice duration.
The responses illustrate that the most popular duration was during a unit or chunk of
time. Normally units of instruction lasted approximately 10 days. Teachers #1, #6, #7, and #10
identified that units/chunks of the curriculum were being utilized. Except for teachers #2, #10,
and #13, all teachers employed mindfulness at some point throughout the year in a sporadic
fashion.

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Figure 12: Matrix: Frequency & Duration of Program

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The delivery of mindfulness varied from teacher to teacher. Teacher #2 was the only
teacher who mentioned all the various approaches and the different methods of delivery. The
most popular approach was the indirect approach in which individual strategies are used instead
of a program. Every teacher mentioned some informal method of teaching mindfulness whether
it was an idea taken from an existing curriculum or if it was simply an experimental trial-anderror meditation that suited their class for a particular day. Nine of the 13 teachers employed the
direct approach either during a unit or past practice, while six teachers tried to employ a
combination of both direct programming and indirect strategies.
Twelve of the 13 teachers described using some form of scaffolding to build their
mindfulness teaching practice. Twelve of 13 teachers also mentioned employing a self-guided
mindfulness technique in their classes. Technology-guided mindfulness was the least utilized
technique with only 7 of 13 teachers accounting for use. Figure 13 shows the matrix of delivery
matched up with teachers.

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Figure 13: Matrix: Delivery

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During interviews, teachers described a wide array of challenges. As these challenges
were mentioned they began to grow until 16 codes were eminent. These codes were:
acceptance/support, attention span, curriculum, immaturity/behavioral issues, insufficient time,
lack of feedback, lack of knowledge, logistical issues, lack of support/resources, pacing, personal
practice, pragmatism, progression, quality of sessions/content, time of day, and unmotivated. The
most frequently cited challenge was acceptance/support of program, which was mentioned by all
teachers. Several teachers (teachers #1, #4, #5, #7, #8, #10, and #11) also cited
acceptance/support of program as one of their greatest challenges. Other teachers reported other
challenges greater than acceptance/support such as teacher #2 who had more logistical
challenges indicating a concern over gym space, noise, and equipment need. Teachers #3 and
#13 who described insufficient time to incorporate mindfulness as a challenge; teacher #6 who
reported immaturity/behavioral issues, teacher #9 who had issues making mindfulness pragmatic
for students, and teacher #12 who identified a need for developing curriculum rather than using
random strategies. Only two teachers, #2 and #13, mentioned that the time of day was another
perceived challenge when implementing mindfulness programming.

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Figure 14: Matrix: Challenges

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Figure 15 illustrates how teachers identified content and practices throughout the
interviews. In addition to the various content and practices used, the research also yielded
information on whether certain practices were considered positive or negative. Teachers
generally considered most of the practices to be more positive for both them and their students
than negative. The content and practices generated 14 codes: applications,
articles/books/literature, bodily senses, manipulatives, meditation, mindful breathing, mindful
coloring, mindful walking, progressive relaxation, puzzles, variety of content, video/Animation,
visualization/script, websites/online materials. Three of these code categories were broken down
into sub code categories. Bodily senses were broken down into three sub codes: body scan,
mindful eating, mindful listening/music. Mindful listening/music was also broken down into
three: these included natural sounds/nature sounds, classical, and Zen music. Meditation was
broken down into two sub codes: self-directed meditation and guided-meditations. Reflective
practices was the last code group that was broken down into sub codes, specifically four sub
codes: discussion, doodling, journals, and positive-talk/gratitude.
Of all the variety and content, teachers tended to mention that a variety of content was
used more frequently in some of their practices than one specific type of practice. Teacher #6
was the only teacher that did not specifically mention the words “variety of content” or some
other derivative such as “range of activities” or “number of strategies”, however teacher #6 did
mention either experimenting or using different practices. As with other categories in the code
system, teachers differed in using content and practices. Teachers #1, #2, #4 and #9 reported the
greatest variety of content and practice while teachers #3 and #10 chose to use certain practices
more consistently than others. Teacher #9 was also the only teacher to identify using the three
different type of music in her mindfulness programming. The content and practice that had the
single largest reporting of use was the practice of mindful breathing with every teacher being

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able to name the variation of the method they use in their classes. While reflective practices
came up in conversation with every teacher, it was not reported to be as widely and as
consistently used as mindful breathing. Of the two types of meditation mentioned during
interviews, teachers were able to recall instances when they used guided-meditations rather than
self-directed meditations. The least reported content and practice used was the reflective practice
or positive-talk/gratitude report by teacher #12, followed by reading with only two teachers (#4
and #5) stating that they used reading as a method of practicing mindfulness with their classes.
Both the reflective practice of doodling and mindful eating were practiced by three teachers, and
progressive relaxation techniques were practiced by five teachers.

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Figure 15: Matrix: Content & Practices

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MINDFULNESS IN HIGH SCHOOL
Thematic Results of Study
Eight themes emerged revealing a vast array of awareness and insightfulness from the
participants. These eight themes were:
1. Teachers select content mindfully basing decisions on class climate and make-up.
2. Personal history and personal practice influence ability and perceived support.
3. Implementation experience varies and directly affects perceived outcomes.
4. Modeling behavior for students and other staff.
5. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain relevant factors to implementation.
6. Challenges become motivators.
7. Various levels of perceived organizational support.
8. Teachers developed higher levels of empathy from teaching mindfulness.

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Table 3: Thematic Results of Study
Thematic Results of Study
Research Question

Themes

Q1. What content do teachers
use when teaching
mindfulness?

Theme 1: Teachers select content mindfully basing decisions
on class climate, make-up, and individual student needs.

Q2. What mindfulness
methods of delivery, length
and frequency of delivery do
these teachers use?

Theme 3: Implementation experience varies and directly
affects delivery and perceived outcomes.

Q3. How have mindfulnessbased interventions (MBIs)
impacted your teaching?

Theme 5: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain relevant
factors to implementation.

Theme 2: Personal history and personal practice influence
ability and perceived support

Theme 4: Modeling behavior for students and other staff.

Theme 6: Challenges become motivators.
Theme 7: Various levels of perceived organizational support.
Theme 8: Teachers developed higher levels of empathy from
teaching mindfulness.

*Note: Themes in table directly relate to the three research questions.

Theme 1: Teachers select content mindfully basing decisions on class climate, makeup
and individual student needs. During the interview process, teachers discussed a variety of
content ranging from web-based computer applications and guided-meditations, to activities and
strategies that were more reflective such as journaling. While each teacher had their own
repertoire of tools to use during mindfulness sessions, nothing was more prevalent than the need
for teachers to adjust their practice and materials based on their student and classroom needs.
Every teacher was able to speak to the topic of differentiating instruction for groups of students,
and at times spoke on deeper levels of individualizing for further subsets of students.
Teacher #1 gave a little insight into her thinking when asked about the content she said:
“The main thing I want them to do is find something that's going to work for them.” When she

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spoke about her content, she cited a variety of resources. Teacher #1 believed that there was
something in mindfulness for everybody and most students thought that it consisted of a few
similar practices: “Everybody has their own reason for wanting to practice mindfulness and at
this point some of them have just not realized the benefits and how it can be something they can
implement and benefit from in their lives.”
When asked what she found was the most important she commented that the growth of
the student is what mattered to her most and that she would reach the students on an individual
basis: "I would definitely say growth as far as understanding where the... what the students’
needs are and trying to tailor a mindfulness lesson to what I think the students are looking for."
Teacher #2 said that the content she used was also based upon instructional techniques
and individual students: "It's according to what techniques I use or according to my students’
individual needs." When asked to clarify she asked rhetorical questions: "What problems? What
anxiety? What issues? And you kind of base it on that. So, I guess would be a combination of the
time and geared to the age-level of your particular students."
During her second session, teacher #2 was passionate that the techniques that she uses in
her classes are a result of the needs of the individual students. She argued that as a teacher, it is
less about the content and more about the individual: “You're not just teaching because you have
to teach a specific thing on a specific day, you're teaching to the students’ needs.”
When teacher #3 was interviewed, she stated that while she used more of a direct-type of
delivery, her main concern was to make the material adaptable to her students: "So I use the
direct, but I modified that for my classes to make it more student appropriate. For the students in
my class based on their needs." Her reasoning was simple, she did not know what each
individual student needed, and she chooses to experiment with the different types of content in
the hope that she can help them attain a mindful state through self-guided practices:

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Based on those student needs, I don't know what every student in my class kind of needs.
So, you know they usually voice that: "Hey can I color instead of you know doing two
minutes of mindfulness?" "Can I clear my mind that way?" So I don't have a problem
with that. It's just self-guided that way.
Teacher #4 was among the youngest in the cohort of teachers interviewed. When asked
on the type of content she used, she simply responded: "It depends on the student really."
Teacher #5 with a few more years of experience made it clear that the content she chose was
based purely off the quality of the sessions she would be able to offer in an attempt to keep the
student engaged: "So we want to make sure that we can keep the students engaged and do it for
quality versus length of time." While her classes were generally run by the students, she
oftentimes gave her students hints at the type of material and in her early sessions, she had her
students researching three mindfulness-based practices they would like to implement during
class time:
We wanted to give them a little bit of a say to it. So the way we started off before they
create their fitness routines they do a little bit of research on the mindfulness so they get
to look through when they get to research three different types of ways to implement the
mindfulness and then they pick based on their knowledge already but also just the
research they've done, which I think would be most beneficial.
While this practice is not widely used, teachers providing choices has been used in other
classroom and curricular contexts. Wisner and Starzec (2016) found that a byproduct of
mindfulness skills programming in an alternative high school curriculum lead to personal
empowerment and growth for adolescents. This is important for a number of reasons: (1)
adolescents often have very few choices in their living arrangements, the academic process, and
physiological development, (2) giving them a choice may increase positive social relationships,

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and (3) it provides a locus of control so that they may begin to learn skills that will help them in
both a work and a non-work setting. Teacher #7 believed in providing that element of choice
when offering mindfulness content: “I believe one of those reasons for that would be because the
students have their own free gauge where they could kind of navigate it on their own. They're not
specifically being told to do something.”
Teacher #8 used a method called the S.M.A.R.T. method: “So my students will have one
of three things: we can do Script, Animation, or Meditation. I've not used the “R” or the “T” to
be quite honest.” When asked where teacher #8 learned about this technique, he mentioned one
of his good friends who happened to be a strength and conditioning coach. This technique used
one of three methods: a script, either a personal reading or a story; an animation, which was
identified as a visualization; or a meditation, it could be guided, or a student could self-guide him
or herself through one. However, teacher #8 was also a proponent of choice: “Those three I think
are the most beneficial and I give the kids the options to do it… I give them those three options.”
Teacher #8 spoke about how he managed to get all students to support his content and he
was able to bring the conversation back to the element of choice, “You're still holding them
accountable for getting the content done, whether it's mindfulness, whether it's in a regular
curriculum for the day, or whatever we're teaching, it's still giving them the option to instill
giving them freedom of choice." Teacher #8 was asked if there were times when students wanted
to use different content and he replied: “Again if it's going to be quality stuff that the students are
focused on for a period of time then I have no problem instituting it into the classroom that day.”
Since teacher #8 is the only teacher who teaches an at-risk population at the high school, he was
mindful to note that some students could not do certain activities for the fear that they would
trigger intense emotions from past trauma: "What I have found with my ASPIRE kids and my
Project Trust kids, a lot of the script stuff brings up bad memories." This is consistent with

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Creswell’s (2017) warning that: “a participant who has a life history of trauma might have these
trauma memories resurface during mindfulness training exercises, potentially triggering a major
depressive episode.” (p. 510). What made teacher #8 successful was that he was aware that each
of his classes had its own personality and that each student in each one of those classes required
different content based on his or her needs:
I don't want to sound like a broken record but understanding my culture of each class, is
understanding the individual needs of each student… I want to be able to make sure I’m
using student-based learning where I'm going to put a student in a position where they
can be successful.
The individualizing of instruction seemed to be ingrained in these teachers. Teacher #9
recognized that teachers deliver content, but they teach students by putting their needs first:
“You teach the person. Yes you deliver the curriculum, but your priority is to teach the person.”
Teacher #10 did not take an individual approach, but rather a group approach. He
recognized that each class has its own personality and, in the process, explained that
administrators were not interested in what he was teaching, but rather in what students were
learning: “They want to hear students’ opinions, they want to see them work together, they want
to see what they're doing, not necessarily what I'm doing. I think they want a little bit of
everything.” When teacher #10 was asked about the type of curricular content he was using, he
did not mention anything specific and said that he had a “variety of strategies”. He was asked to
explain the rationale for having the variety of content rather than just choosing a small number of
go-to strategies: “Every class is different. Every kid is different. Some things might work one
way for one group of kids or the next group that doesn't work for all… Kind of tailoring it to
each individual class.”

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Teacher #11 thought that the best content was anything that was reflective which
permitted the students free-range to empty negative thoughts and feelings; he believed this gave
the students an opportunity to outline things which may be personal to them: “The most
successful content that I've used is when I give the students an introduction period to the activity
for that day where they basically are just able to open-mindedly write whatever's on their mind.”
Teacher #12 was less concerned about the content and more concerned about the
pragmatism and the currency (how recent) of the content. He believed that infusing mindfulness
has less to do with what content teachers chose and instead made a case for examining the other
teachings that were prevalent in a teacher’s class: “Most often just really try and keep up to date
on formative/summative assessments. Making sure all over content is up to date. A lot of the
other tasks don't directly impact what we're doing on a day-to-day basis.”
Teacher #13 teaches the same course as teacher #5 and provides her students the freedom
to deliver mindfulness to themselves through student-centered, indirect methods. She too used a
variety of content, and gave them options to select: “things like readings, articles about touching
their muscles, some of them have used, apps on their phone, some of them play music and then
do readings, some of them use yoga poses and stuff like that.”

Theme 2: Personal history and personal practice influence ability and perceived
support. Teachers personal experiences with mindfulness in their own lives had an influence on
their ability to teach mindfulness in their classrooms. Personal practice also influenced how
much perceived support teachers felt they received from a variety of stakeholders including
students, other teachers, administrators, and community.
Teacher #4 seemed to put it clearly in her final session when she stated:
If I'm not interested in doing it I'm not going to try it with other students because at this

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point if I'm not interested in it and I can’t get on board with it, I'm not going to try it with
other students.
When asked to explain why she chose to work with certain activities with her students
she replied: "because it personally interests me and I'm not going to force something on students
that I personally wouldn't do."
When asked how personal practice influenced her teaching practice, teacher #5 who
taught across grade levels from 10th to 12th grade responded: “The more comfortable you are—
the better you're going to implement it, the more confident you will be and the more buy-in you'll
get from the students.” Understanding the content and the pedagogy are important for all
teaching staff. Walking in blindly to teaching a mindfulness session poses an issue for staff
because of the perceived problems that students may face.
Teacher #11 found that practicing his mindfulness content with his younger brother who
was also a high school-aged student in a neighboring district gave him better insight into what
the students experienced: “I got a younger brother who's actually in high school, so sometimes
I'll ask him: ‘What would you think if I did this in your class?’"
Teacher #6 found that practicing the lessons prior to teaching them could alleviate any
potential issues: "So if the instructor can go through the trials and tribulations beforehand it will
help them with any potential hiccups that the students might have." The idea that various types of
mindfulness is uncomfortable to some has been well-documented. Kabat-Zinn (2013) cites an
example from his early days of practicing the bodyscan at the stress clinic in Massachusetts,
“when she was scanning through the pelvic region, she heard the word genitals for the first time.
Hearing the word triggered a flashback of an experience that Mary immediately realized she had
repressed since the age of nine.” (p.81). Kabat-Zinn provided other psychological help to the
patient and mentions the ability for the patient to get comfortable being in her own body. Some

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teachers in the school district experienced difficulties working with students who had trouble
either relaxing or focusing. An example of this is teacher #12 when he was asked if he enjoyed
teaching mindfulness practices in his classrooms: “It's frustrating, but at the same time I wonder
if those are the kids that are actually struggling with stuff in their lives to where they can't do
this.”
Here the teacher was concerned about balancing the needs of students with balancing the
requirements of the curriculum. Teacher #2 provided some insight as to what she did with
helping the students along:
Once you tell them that you allow them to feel uncomfortable, let them know that it's not
something that's going to happen immediately, that it's a practice and then the more they
do it, and usually once that one time when they feel more calm they seem more relaxed.
Teacher #11, a younger teacher, when asked: “What were the reasons for why they
wanted to get up and leave?” In response to a student who had to leave his class, he replied:
“One girl left crying went to a counselor didn't hear anything back from it. And then the other
kid just said they need to leave the room for a little bit and was gone for about 20 minutes.”
Teachers who identified themselves as practitioners of MBSR practices tended to be more
open-minded, and better-equipped when working with the challenges of bringing an MBSR to
the classroom. The concept of personal practice came up in numerous interviews. Lawlor (2014)
asked “whether the programs should focus on providing teachers with mindfulness skills, or
should programs be targeted to students?” (p.89). Teacher #8 reflected on his own practice and
realized that he did not just want his students to benefit from his teachings, but he also wanted to
join them: "I do it now, it's funny I find myself doing it whether it's just meeting for 10 minutes
about something that interests me just to clear my mind whether it's writing about something."
During his in-class observation he was able to speak to students candidly about his own personal

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growth as both a teacher and an individual when giving a story to his students about being in the
moment and understanding consequences: “I got to be honest with you, five years ago I probably
never would’ve told you the story because it is uncomfortable to tell, but it is something that I’ve
learned how to get comfortable to do again.”
In this instance, teacher #8 felt comfortable and supported enough by his students to share
a personal anecdote about his past and how he became the person he was today by reflecting on
his own mistakes. Teachers may feel as though they need administrative support to become
stronger teachers with MBIs, however, support (or lack of support) from students remains one of
the preeminent reasons why teachers feel frustrated as evidenced by teacher #11 when he said:
I tend to get more impatient and frustrated when kids aren't doing what they're supposed
to be doing… So I can see lack of participation and lack of effort definitely being a
reason why I choose not to continue with mindfulness.
Teacher #1 echoed those same sentiments when challenging students to be open-minded:
"It gets frustrating sometimes when I know what the benefits are and I just don't feel that the
students sometimes give it a chance, and I get frustrated at myself maybe I'm not selling it
correctly."
Other sources of support were evident to those teachers who did not consider
administration or students in their interviews as a form of support; in many instances most
teachers were able to rely on their colleagues for support, such was the case with teacher #7: "I
would say the biggest support is just being able to compile different resources through
cooperating teachers. As well as talk to different co-workers and things that they have used
within their classroom." Teacher #6 said something similar: "With the audio-guided, I would
find some sort of YouTube video or I've received audios from colleagues and we practice
mindfulness through that method and with this stuff."

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Teacher #8 felt that having conversations with other teachers about pedagogical methods
provided a useful starting point and linked these conversations to developing leadership,
motivational skills, and being in the present: “I've had a lot of support from our teachers just
having conversations. For instance, having conversations with them about various things, it
could be anything about leadership, to motivation, to just talking about the here and now.”

Theme 3: Implementation experience varies and directly affects delivery and perceived
outcomes. Every teacher had a personal story to tell about the various mindfulness practices and
content they used. They each demonstrated that there was no right way to use mindfulness in
their own classes. Some of the teachers were even hesitant to be interviewed at first believing
that they did not have much information to provide the researcher. However, after interviewing
them, it was clear that even though they may have been mindfulness practitioners for a brief
period, they were more than competent and demonstrated proficiency in using a wide variety of
resources.
Teachers were able to cite instances in which they use a variety of techniques. As
teachers were asked what content they used for teaching mindfulness in their classes, some of
them described the actual practices that they used: "I also find that the tension and relaxation is
one that you can do for longer with most students because you're getting them to focus on body
part by body part" (Teacher #2), or they used the clinical terminology for the method itself such
as “progressive relaxation”, or “body scan”.
Teachers who had been implementing mindfulness for longer periods of time
demonstrated greater efficacy towards their ability to teach mindfulness to their students.
Teacher #1 explained that she did not have an issue with selling the idea of mindfulness to her
students because she had been incorporating it herself for a period of time: “I would say I'm

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definitely more confident because I've been doing it more and I know from myself how much
mindfulness has helped me with stress and anxiety and everything else. So, it's not a hard sell for
me.” When asked after the observation of her lesson, teacher #1 stated in the final session: “I
find it very easy to teach different types of mindfulness to them.”
Similarly, teacher #3 mentioned that she has grown a lot in the past year and how her
confidence level has grown: “I think I've grown tremendously over this past year in finding
research and reading about mindfulness and talking to people and watching what other people
do. So going from nothing to feeling pretty confident about it.”
Confidence in teaching mindfulness allowed teachers to venture out of their comfort
zones, if they did not feel comfortable with the material, then they were honest about their levels
of comfort with the pedagogy. Teacher #9 relied on her skills as a veteran teacher with over 20
years of experience to help her navigate the challenges to trying new mindfulness content:
I like that I'm the kind of teacher who when I plan and I’m confident in the knowledge,
the delivery and the strategy to implement is not my greatest struggle. I think it's really
just having confidence that I know what I'm talking about and knowing the resources that
are available to them and having a visual to go along with what I'm trying to teach.
Similarly, when teacher #7 was asked about implementation and behavioral issues in the
classroom he brought up the concept of confidence: “I think confidence does have a direct
correlation with the classroom management.” Teacher #12 expressed that first-year and
inexperienced teachers must start small and then build their repertoires of activities: “Maybe for
a first-year teacher who's never done any type of mindfulness meditation or mindset work having
one to two things where you can keep going back to that barrel and utilizing it to gain comfort
would be important.”
Because the school district employs a block schedule (80-minute blocks once every other

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day), teacher #3 stated she lacked understanding because there was no pre-existing “model” for a
school district of this size: "The length of the session has been most difficult for me because I'm
not really sure how long each session should be. I mean there's no model for that."
The term “model” is similar to using the word “curriculum” when viewed through the
lens of an educational context. The challenge that teachers reportedly faced was the lack of a preexisting curriculum for high-school aged students or one that could be immediately turnkeyed
into the dynamics of a larger school environment across all four high school grade levels. This is
consistent with what Lawlor (2014) recommends: “Educators looking to employ mindfulnessbased programming in their schools should give careful consideration to how the program will be
implemented in order to ensure program fidelity and sustainability of the program within the
school context.” Teacher #12 mentioned: “It would be in our best interest as a department to
develop a 9-to-12 curriculum that we implement as part of P.E. that can be extended into crosscurricular areas that other teachers may be able to utilize.” Teacher #12 added that he usually
delivers most of his content through teacher-centered instruction, especially since he is also a
sport coach and because he has access to sports psychologists: “I typically, especially with my
athletes, I typically deliver most of the content. I have also used Skype or we've had a sports
psychiatrist Skype in and do activities with the athletes and they've been very receptive to that.”
Teacher #9 found that she was still experimenting and had to find a model she liked
before venturing further into other elements of mindfulness: “I'm still on the exploring stages. I
think that as I implement more I'll find maybe a group of videos or a specific person whose
model I like. But right now I'm still kind of in an exploratory phase.” When asked why she used
more video-based mindfulness sessions, teacher #9 stated: “because I’m not comfortable with
doing it myself, self-guiding, or not self-guiding but me being the one who is guiding them
through the experience–I’m not there yet.”

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Teacher #5 demonstrated awareness during her final session when asked about her
content and practices that she would have liked to incorporate that she has yet to try: “I don't
know what I don't know. But I know there's definitely—I have a select few that I like and I'm
strong in but I'm not really good. I don't even know what the other ones are.”
When asked: “Has it gotten easier as you’ve practiced more?” Teacher #5 replied, “Yes
definitely, the more experience the easier it’s gotten.” As teachers practice the materials more,
they become more confident in infusing the content and helping their students apply the
learnings. When students were more likely to participate, this led to a virtuous cycle of teachers
enjoying their lessons more as teacher #10 stated: “It can be hard on both ends for sure. But it's
all more enjoyable too when you find an activity that they really do get benefit out of.”
In one instance, teacher #12 claimed that his understanding of the mindfulness strategies
was directly related to how much he practiced them in his own life:
It allows me to get a better understanding by doing some of the strategies. Personally, it
allows me to get a better understanding of what I'm looking for or what I'm hopefully
expecting this year’s students to experience by being involved in these interventions.
Teacher #12 predominantly teaches upperclassmen, and while he considered his
understanding of mindfulness to be minimal compared to other educational practitioners, he still
believed in conducting teacher-centered/teacher-driven mindfulness sessions so he could provide
both a foundation to their understanding and an element of autonomy for the students in his
course:
I tried to also have the students kind of go off on their own and do their own research. I
found that to be a little less effective to have them run it because some of them don't
really understand what they're trying to get at and what the big picture is with it.
Teacher #13 taught upperclassman as well, however, her experience on mindfulness

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sessions were substantially different since she chose to incorporate student-centered/driven
sessions which are self-driven by the students for the students: “Some students embraced it and
were really into it and more confident with it; other students were still feeling awkward doing it.
So, I think that definitely played into the success of how that portion of the lesson went.”
When asked why she chose to have the students perform mindfulness for themselves and
present to the rest of their classmates, she responded:
I guess I'm kind of just jumping in with them. As they were doing their research, they
asked questions like: "Ms. [Teacher #13] do you think this would be good?" I didn't
know. I'm like: "Yeah let's try it, let's see." So I guess it's a work in progress.
Most teachers’ experiences tended to be positive and most made comments to the
differences in student demeanor, however after asking for specific results in the classroom and/or
student achievement, teacher #2 gave a simple response: "I haven't done enough to look at
testing and we haven't done relaxation methods to testing, so we have to see if there's any real
results.” She then added: “I believe there are."

Theme 4: Modeling behavior for students and other staff. A fourth theme that emerged
was that teachers felt the need for teachers to model behavior for the stakeholders around them.
They felt that by modeling the behavior, it would not only be easier to lead, but it would also
facilitate students to follow in their example. Teacher #1 stated: "Oh I like to lead by example.
So for them to be able to see me practicing the mindfulness with them or explaining how I might
use mindfulness and how it's benefited me." In this statement she acknowledges that mindfulness
has helped her and for her students to get the same benefit, she would have to lead by example.
When asked why she felt that way she responded: “Again I don't like to teach anything I can't do
myself. So, I like to lead by example."

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Teacher #2 was more apt to use technology in her mindfulness sessions; however, she
was grateful for being able to do mindfulness with her students during the teaching day:
"Sometimes I get a chance to do the mindfulness with them and it definitely calms me down. I do
deep breathing exercises. I can see it, I checked my FitBit so I can see my pulse lowering.”
When asked why she chose to do it with her classes during school hours, teacher #2 said that it
allowed her to view her students in a more positive light, particularly with being open-minded: “I
calm down with the students and then when we can do that, we're much better, we're much more
focused as a teacher, to be open-minded to our students and all of their behaviors.”
Teacher #3 had a similar experience with practicing mindfulness with her students:
“Sometimes I'll do the mindful breathing and I'll do some of the mindful things with them and I
feel good that I'm teaching this to them, but I also feel good when I participate in the
mindfulness.”
Teacher #4 felt the need to model mindfulness with her students because she felt that her
experience with dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) helped her understand mindfulness.
Ultimately, she exposed her students to methods that were effective in her own life:
I mean mindfulness is one of the major components of dialectical behavioral therapy, so
I've been through that in inpatient and outpatient therapy and it's one of the major
components. I found that mindfulness is one of the major components of DBT and I
learned all about mindfulness when I went through it. I've learned about a whole bunch of
activities; I learned about ways to incorporate mindfulness into my daily life.
Mindfulness has many different forms and teacher #5’s awareness stemmed from her
being able to acquaint herself with the background information:
A lot of it is just the background information that allowed me to build my content
knowledge and be able to share that with the kids and just be exposed to different types of

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mindfulness whether it's mindful walking/mindful eating because there are a lot of
different aspects that the kids don't realize.
When asked if she practiced mindfulness herself in addition to gathering information
about background knowledge she responded:
I think I do my own kind of mindfulness versus what I do with the kids. I talked about the
readings before and that's kind of a way for me to put things, it's more of me putting
things in my life into perspective, so I wouldn't necessarily say I do.
The most interesting comment however was when teacher #5 stated how she benefitted
from practicing mindfulness in her own life: “I think it just gives me a little bit more experience
to draw off. I mean the whole idea of mindfulness is just being at peace with your decisions and
yourself and being confident.”
Teachers not only have to be role models for their students, they also should believe that
what they are teaching has value. Teacher #6 stated that he was no expert in mindfulness, but for
him to be able to instruct it, he had to at least try it and believe that his students would need it
someday:
I'm a firm believer in anything that I teach or like to try and do myself, particularly these
kinds of methods meaning mindfulness meditation, unless you actually believe in it I'm
quite sure you won’t be able to get your kids to believe in it.
As the session went on, teacher #6 stated that for students to support the practice of
mindfulness, teachers have to support the program and experiment with different strategies on
themselves:
Just buying into the practice and really taking my own personal time to practice
mindfulness and taking notes on how I felt and trying different types of practice whether
it was like a body scan, meditation, or a sensory scan—something of that nature.

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Teacher #8 mentioned something similar about his own practice of mindfulness and
modeling appropriate stress reduction strategies with his students. He used the example of a
“reset button” and how it was able to assist him in his personal life and being able to choose
what outside influences were able to influence him:
I think it's something that I try and do—hit the reset button myself and focus on things
that are really important rather than allowing the beginning, the outside sources, the stress
of the job and that I don’t have to let it affect my focus, my life, my happiness, all those
other things.
Some teachers expressed difficulty leading classes that were not as active as they liked. In
this case, teacher #10 was able to relate his ability to teach and his ability to model to his ability
to enjoy and engage in strategies that were less active:
I'm not always excited about doing it but it can be boring to lead sometimes. As an
educator because like I said myself, I am a very active person. I like being active in my
own classes and sometimes leading mindfulness is a little stale.
When asked if he prepared for those less-active lessons prior to exposing his students to
them he replied: "Yes I prepare myself with every lesson that I bring into the kids for the firsttime trial and error.” He believed that even though some of the material may not be as engaging,
he wanted to make sure he was able to feel what a first mindfulness practice would be like for his
students, “I'll do it myself. I'll see the kinks, I'll work through the weak parts, the strong parts,
and ultimately bring to class what I feel would be the best suited for those kids."
Teacher #13 was honest when asked about how she modeled mindfulness practices. She
stated that she suffered from the same issues her students did, and she felt like she was getting
pulled in several directions, however, she felt that it was a practice worth taking on:
I mean I definitely think there's a lot of room for improvement and I would like to

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incorporate it in my own life and in some capacity but just like these kids I feel so crazy
and I'm running from one place to another. So, I would like to meditate, or do yoga, or
some sort of breathing activities in my own life but I haven't really yet."

Theme 5: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation remain relevant factors to implementation.
Motivation came from both intrinsic and extrinsic factors as all teachers remained committed to
implementing mindfulness-based practices in the classroom. Pink (2009) talks about the three
elements of intrinsic reward systems: (1) autonomy, the ability for individual to have control
over the process and the outcome, (2) mastery, the ability for an individual to become highly
proficient in his or her practice, and (3) purpose, having a greater motive to perform a certain
task and the ability to set one’s own goals. In most sessions teachers were able to cite numerous
reasons for why they wanted to teach mindfulness and continue to hone their pedagogy. Three
teachers discussed the impact of stress hitting home and finding a way to help their own children:
"It wasn't until my daughter started going through bouts of anxiety that I started really looking
into ways to help her and that's when mindfulness started coming up in the things that I was
looking at for her." (Teacher #1). Teacher #9 used the motivator of her young son who had issues
coping in an elementary school classroom with anger:
My son had some issues with his coping strategies and anger just kind of like going from
zero to 10 on the anger scale too quickly so his temper and just kind of finding the words
to talk about his feelings. He would explode before he could actually figure out what the
problem was. So,
I tried a couple apps on... there's "Calm" is one that I've used on the phone with him.
Listening to soothing music before he goes to bed. There are also stories connected to that
app that he would listen to before going to bed. So those are things that I used with him."

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At the time of data collection, Teacher #13’s child was a senior in the same school
district; as a result, she was sensitive to the fact that other teenagers in her daughter’s age group
had struggles with various scholastic and extra-curricular pressures:
I think it's the stress that they have. I mean I have a daughter that's a senior here. I see
they're overwhelmed. They go from one thing to the other. They have sports after school,
it wasn’t like that when I was a kid.
All three of these teachers discussed their reasons for teaching mindfulness in their
classes: purpose—essentially because they empathized with their students as though they were
experiencing similar issues with their own children. Teacher #10 found purpose in another way,
unless he could get his students to enjoy and find benefit from his lessons, he did not find them
worth teaching. When asked if he enjoyed running sessions with his classes, he replied:
If it's an activity that you know you have to at least expose them to but maybe they don't
love. It can be hard on both ends for sure. But it's all the more enjoyable when you find
an activity that they really do get benefit out of.
Teacher #10 having little formal training in mindfulness demonstrated mindfulness
insight himself when he stated: "Mindfulness is one of those things where if you feel forced to do
it, it's not worth it.” Gunaratana (2015) suggests that all practitioners of mindfulness have a goal
in mind because “for if we do not, and blindly follow somebody’s instructions on meditation, we
will simply be groping in the dark.” (p.44).
Numerous times throughout the sessions teacher #10 demonstrated instances where
purpose was not only key to being able to teach, but also being able to learn:
Mindfulness is one of those things where people often think of meditation as the way to
go but sometimes with kids it's hard to get them to do that correctly or even learn how
because it does take a reasonable amount of time to teach them about what the purpose is.

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For other teachers, purpose seemed to be the common motivator behind why they brought
mindfulness into the classroom. Teacher #3 wanted her students to be able to make mindfulness
applicable to the students outside of the classroom: “Will the students use mindfulness when
they're not in the class? What's their takeaway? Do I want the students to kind of know what they
can do and where to find the resources for that?”
Teacher #7 stated purpose in a similar fashion by putting mindfulness techniques to
practice in the lives of his students:
I think a big theme of mine personally is for them to be able to take away at least one or
two things that when they are in a time of stress, or a time where they are caught up in
their heads but too many things going on, that they can use one of these techniques or
strategies to help them get through that moment of time.
Teacher #8 made similar sentiments, however, he believed in taking the time to allow
students to acknowledge where the mindfulness practices have made changes:
If we can get one student to believe in it and walk out of here four years from now and be
able to come back to you ten years later and tell you "Thank you! Hey, you taught me
this. I'm able to train my brain and be happy and focus on things I need to focus on."
Then we’ve won.
Teacher #9 stated that her source of motivation was also purpose, and that it was
paramount that when teaching mindfulness, she taught it well: "So if I do something, I want to do
it well, and I want to do it right, and I want to do with purpose." Some teachers felt that by
having students take control of their own mindfulness programming, the students would be able
to get more out of those sessions. Teacher #5 indicated that she wanted her students to select
strategies that they could immediately apply in their own lives: “Kids research three benefits and
three different practices that they could incorporate and then they were able to pick of those three

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which one they thought would best fit their daily lives and the lives of their classmates.”
A concern was brought up among students having control of the content and the methods.
Teacher #5 added that having good relationships with the students is important: "I find that I
don't have too many discipline problems. I think the kids are coming in and I have a good
relationship with them.” Handing over control to the students was a step towards providing
autonomy to the students, “There's definitely a positive classroom atmosphere and I think
because each student is getting to lead their own.” By allowing the students to lead themselves
through various mindfulness-based activities the teacher was also able to build empathy in her
classroom to those who presented: “They are a little bit more receptive to their peers, so they
know it's a little intimidating to be up there and to be introducing something that you don't know
if your classmates are going to like or not.”
Teacher #13 taught the same grades and subject matter that teacher #5 taught and both
opted to teach the content in a similar way. When asked about why she chose to have students
lead the instruction she responded:
I like the different techniques that the kids have come up with and I like seeing how the
classes, especially in the beginning when they were a little bit uncomfortable, but then
they got more comfortable and they wanted to do it again.
Teacher #10 found that directing students to techniques allowed him to individualize
instruction. In some classes direct instruction worked best, whilst in others indirect instruction
was used to facilitate the needs of the students. When asked: what about them makes you think
that they work the best? Teacher #10 replied: “Because they are geared towards the interest level
of the students within each individual class."
Teacher #10 was able to provide another reason as to his rationale for incorporating
mindfulness into his classroom. Besides the intrinsic motivations of purpose, autonomy, and

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mastery, he felt that because mindfulness was slowly becoming more mainstream in other school
districts, it would be the responsibility of today’s students to become tomorrow’s problemsolvers. He indicated that teaching students to solve problems involved an element of
mindfulness with the ability to step back and analyze situations:
I just think that's the task that they all have ahead of them as kids going into college or
kids going into the workforce it's going to be problem-solving. So, it kind of ties in there
that their content knowledge of things that they go over in the course of a unit and their
experiences apply to the much more important need of figuring out problems and dealing
with situations as they come.
Extrinsic motivators were also found during the study ranging from administrative
pressure or administrative support depending on the teacher. Teachers who were new to
mindfulness or those who may have not had as much experience or even some younger teachers
considered the school-wide initiative to be pressure from administration, for example teacher #4
said, “I feel like there's a lot of pressure to do mindfulness and maybe other classes or other
departments aren't doing it, so it feels like there's a lot of pressure on us to do it.”
Similarly, teacher #7, also a younger teacher, made a comment about the differences
between compliance and commitment, when asked to explain what he meant he responded: “I
think compliance could be a negative thing. In all things in life you want to be committed.
Whereas compliance you're kind of just following along to make sure you're doing the same
things as others.” During his last session teacher #7 came back to the concept of compliance
versus commitment when asked why he adopted the pedagogy that he chose: "I believe in a past
interview we spoke a little bit about compliance and commitment. So the reason that I did adopt
the pedagogy would be to be compliant to what our school district wants—the initiative of
mindfulness." Teacher #7 felt that as a teacher in the health and physical education department,

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he did not feel committed to infusing mindfulness and found that to be one of his own
challenges: “I think it comes down to repetition, practice, and it could be just my overall feeling
of mindfulness going back to the compliance of what the school district is looking for.”
However, in another session when asked how he was initially exposed to mindfulness teacher #7
said: "This was something that was recommended to me by my supervisor and just provides me
with the tools to incorporate experiential learning into the classroom."
Teacher #8 got the feeling that as part of his annual evaluation, the administration would
be enforcing the infusion of mindfulness into regular health and physical education
programming: “Our supervisor is checking to make sure that we are incorporating it. I think she's
definitely looking for it any time we're coming in and evaluated. I think administrators are
looking for us to incorporate that in a daily basis." Some of the older teachers remarked that they
felt supported by the school district, in particular by the health and physical education
supervisor: “Our supervisor [is] very supportive and she's asked us to initiate it" (Teacher #2).
Teacher #6 stated similar assumptions that his supervisor was paramount to helping him infuse
mindfulness: “So our supervisor was the one that introduced mindfulness as part of the Habits of
Mind and I believe that it was at the beginning of last year sometime; so that was my first true
exposure."
Only in one instance did a teacher feel as though the school district was dragging its feet.
In this instance, teacher #1 was able to attain funding for a yoga and mindfulness room on
campus: “We don't really have the quiet room. But with the money that I have… that's going
towards a quiet room, or a calming room, but we haven't gotten the proper go ahead yet to move
forward with that.” When asked why the process was taking some time, she claimed that the
administration kept holding up the process because they were hesitant but did not give her a
reason: "when that got presented to administration they're like ‘Well we were still looking into a

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few things we don't want to really go too far’." Teachers appreciated being able to pick and
choose among mindfulness practices for their classes based upon the needs of the students within
the class and the classroom culture.

Theme 6: Challenges become motivators. Another aspect of this study that came to light
during the analysis process was that challenges also became motivators—that is whenever a
teacher mentioned a problem, often the result to the problem was examining it from a different
perspective. One of the greatest challenges was support for the program that was mentioned by
every teacher during every session. The sessions gave meaning of the words “buy-in” to
resemble both an acceptance from the students and support from teachers. In the beginning
because teachers reported that students had little acceptance, the role of the teacher was to create
that acceptance by fostering support. Teacher #11 made a comment during one of his sessions
when asked about one of his sessions in his classroom. He stated that “when [the students] get
into a guided-audio they tend not to want to stop, and they always want to do another one." He
was amused at the prospect of stopping short so that mindfulness sessions did not bore the
students, but he found that students rather enjoyed his sessions and requested more time with an
audio-guided mindfulness session, oftentimes completing two guided-meditations within a class
time period.
Teacher #1 felt the opposite, she found that in the physical education course, since
students were required to be active, she did not want to lull her students’ bodies into a state of
complete relaxation: “I'm only going to make it five or ten minutes and if I'm doing something
before we do activity I don't want them lying down too long while we're in Phys Ed.” When
asked about this in a later session, teacher #1 felt that the male students in her class could not
hold a focus for long. So, because she deemed it difficult to gain their attention with longer bouts

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of mindfulness, she was able to shorten her mindfulness sessions to accommodate them and
gradually build in the practice of longer sessions:
Because they are freshmen and mainly the freshmen boys that just are too rambunctious
to really sit for long periods of time. It's very important for me to find a meditation that I
can keep to no more than 10 minutes. Again, more for the attention span. I think as they
get better at it, as they practice it more, I'd go up to 15 maybe 20 minutes if the class
really engages in the activities but at this point, I have not seen that yet.
Teacher #10 had similar feelings of keeping the sessions short in the beginning to attain
support for the program:
Well I think it's just enough time for them to give something a shot and buy into it for—
like I said some kids this is not their thing or they're not open to it but you can persuade
them to give it a shot for 10 minutes.
Another challenge was having students sit in silence. Students tended to fidget during
quiet mindfulness sessions and teacher #1 remarked how listening to an audio-guided session
made things easier on both the students and the teachers: "The most successful method is to
make sure that they are constantly hearing something because the silence is what brings them
back to where they are." Teacher #1 also felt that her students listening skills were bolstered due
to the nature of the listening activities that were incorporated, "I would say out of everything we
do, definitely their listening skills are better after doing mindfulness."
Just as with listening, movement became a challenge for one teacher. Teacher #10 found
that when students were not permitted to move, they found themselves restricted and it limited
the number of students he could get to experience a state of mindfulness. To address the
challenge of moving, he decided to incorporate mindfulness activities that used movement and
movement became the motivator: "Some kids can sit still and really handle the meditative type

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practices where some need activity, even though it's mindful—this class still needs to be doing
something in order to kind of get that mindfulness state."
Often students were reluctant to accept and support the program because they did not
understand or experience the benefits of mindfulness. When students demonstrated a lack of
knowledge, there was a culture created that fostered curiosity. Teacher #8 stated that: "I think the
biggest barrier is getting students to understand the benefits of it from the start. I think that's the
biggest barrier." Teacher #2 described how she got her students to accept the program by helping
them understand the physiological changes, “You have to describe what the breathing does for
them, why it is important to breathe in the diaphragm not just the chest, how it physiologically
slows down the heart rate--it physiologically allows them to relax.”
Still other students maintained their distance as teacher #3 claimed: "Some students just
don't want anything to do with that.” When asked why those students felt that way, the teacher
responded:
They feel that they are fine so they'll continue to be quiet and respectful during it but they
just think that Phys Ed should be a time to actively play as opposed to lying back and
taking five minutes and breathing or we're coloring or exploring different tastes, or smell,
or feel of things, rather than just going out and just playing.
This indicated that students resisted if they had a preconceived notion in their minds if they felt
that physical education was just purely physical activity. Teachers in the school district work
hard to help their students by fostering an open-mindedness about the differences between
physical activity and physical education. Teacher #8 talked about how he continued to push his
students to accept the mindfulness practices because he refused to give in to the student
complaints:
Sometimes you institute the breathing and you put on the music, right? Teenage kids: "Oh

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this is corny! This is stupid." Right? But again I'm just a firm believer, the more you talk
about things, the more that you present things, the more reasons you give for why you do
it--the students start to slowly believe in it, they start to buy into it, and you see it again
manifest itself in such a positive way.
This leads into the idea of building a routine and how it also becomes a challenge for
teachers who are unwilling to infuse mindfulness completely. Teacher #5 said: “I don't think a
lot of students really understood what it was to get that buy-in factor, you kind of have to start to
develop a little bit of a routine with them and get them used to it.” Teacher #5 gave further
insight that once that routine was in place, students expected it and thus, it became a part of their
regular programming and they began to see the benefits, “Once it becomes routine it's easier to
get the kids focused on it and to see the benefits of it but also just presenting them with research
and some of the positive aspects of it."
One challenge that was expressed by several teachers that became a motivator was the
need for a curriculum. Originally, the school intended to employ Broderick’s (2013) Learning to
BREATHE MBSR program throughout the entire school. However, it became difficult to train all
the teachers with the intended curriculum, and instead the school district permitted teachers to
seek out their own mindfulness resources. Teacher #1 felt that because there were no preset
guidelines, "The priority right now, I think, is definitely getting/doing mindfulness on a regular
basis getting into some sort of routine and getting all the Phys Ed teachers on board with it." The
main rationale behind developing a curriculum was the need for consistency as Teacher #4
stated:
The longer amount of time you do between mindfulness sessions the more they forget
about it and the more they're likely not used to it. So, if you just randomly do it like a
month or two after not doing it, they get caught off guard. They're like, "Oh mindfulness

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again? I thought we were done with that." So, if you keep doing that, get them used to it
because if they're going to keep doing this throughout high school they need to be on a
consistent schedule.
Teacher #13 expressed similar routines when discussing the consistency of the
mindfulness sessions, as she requires her students to build in mindfulness after the warm-ups and
prior to the start of any instruction: “I just think the consistency of doing it every day like when
we started right in the beginning of school and then it became an expectation.”
Teacher #9 went back to the fundamental philosophies of her teaching and said: "I'm sure
there's space for it and room for it. It's just a matter of what is the priority of what we're trying to
do with our students?” She used the example of continuity throughout the curriculum and the
department philosophy by looking at mindfulness with a top-down approach to ensure all staff
are working towards the same mission and goals: “I think we just have to have a common thread
from the top-down to make sure everything's all consistent and we're all pushing in the same
direction for the same things and our priorities are similar." Teacher #9 expanded on her ideas by
bringing the topic of the school mission into the conversation, "I think we're in a place now in
our district where we've just redefined our mission statement and we're clarifying different core
values at the administrative level.” She went on to say that: “the word ‘wellness’ and making
sure our students are in fact living a life of balance and wellness is definitely a district priority.”
The school district recently amended their mission statement and priorities to include various
aspects of wellness for the 2018-2019 school year. Teacher #9 continued to echo the sentiments
of the school district:
I think we have to balance that I think maybe the district needs to step away from some of
the black and white: AP, or the curriculum, or the tests, or assessments and just kind of
allow our students to experience what it means to be balanced and to feel good and safe

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and reflective and aware.
Ultimately, teachers are focused on more than just academic achievement and fitness
scores in the department. While some teachers were more enthusiastic than others about the
prospect of daily mindfulness sessions, Teacher #12 made an emboldened statement when he
said: "I want it to be a priority. I think it's essential for the mental health of students. We have
students now who are increasingly fragile in nature and in their psychology.” He was passionate
about being able to develop a routine and have students work on mastering empathy through
mindfulness:
So, to gain an appreciation and empathy through understanding of the impact of
mindfulness I think it is my priority for improvement and being able to do it as part of
either a daily ritual or you know a couple of times a week is my priority if we can get
there.

Theme 7: Various levels of perceived organizational support. Teachers were able to
identify various areas where they perceived support either prior to, or during the implementation
of a mindfulness-based program. These levels of support either came from student support in the
form of student enthusiasm, colleague support in the form of encouragement, supervisory
support from direct requests to infusing mindfulness, school level support from various other
departments, and district level support from identifying the purpose of the school mission.
Teacher #13 identified an increased level of enthusiasm when she wanted to attend a
professional development session and identified it as one of her areas of growth throughout the
next school year:
I went to a training on mindfulness last summer and I'm going to one this year. I
definitely think that helped support me in being open to embracing all of these new

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activities and seeing/going through some of it myself feeling the benefits from it and
knowing that it works so that it would be helpful for the students.
Teacher #1 described the type of support she felt when she met middle school teachers
with articulation, "It's helped now that more people are using mindfulness and even the middle
schools at our sending districts, when we had our meetings with the middle school teachers and
we were going over what we do with mindfulness.” This helped her understand the types of
training her students are coming into at the high school level, “So a lot of them are coming in
now with a background in mindfulness so it does make it a little bit easier and easier sell because
they've seen it."
Teacher #1 also spoke to the importance of student support and building a foundation.
She described one of the units she taught for ninth graders, mental health, and mentioned that the
key to feeling that support was by starting immediately: “When I got the second semester
students and we started in the mental health unit and we started right away with mindfulness and
I just think laying that foundation from the very beginning and each day talking mental health.”
Both teacher #1 and teacher #5 expressed similar levels of the types of support in the
school district. Since the department sponsors the mindfulness initiative, all teachers in the
department were asked to incorporate mindfulness in some of their lessons, by the time the
students saw teacher #5 during their junior and senior years, teacher #5 found it easier to gain
that support from the students who had exposure to mindfulness practices from their sophomore
or junior years respectively:
So at least with the sophomores they are seeing a little bit as freshmen and then juniors
and seniors are seeing it as freshmen and sophomores. They're beginning to have an idea
of the benefits of it but there's also I know our counselors are pushing it and it's not just
the Phys Ed classes it's starting to become a trend within the whole school that's making

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students a little bit more accepting of it.

Theme 8: Teachers developed higher levels of empathy from teaching mindfulness.
Another aspect that came to light during this study was that teachers developed higher levels of
empathy from teaching mindfulness. While every teacher discusses empathy or an ability to “feel
for” their students at some point, each teacher expressed empathy as part of their growth as a
professional. Teacher #1 said that listening to her students gave her the motivation to continue
offering mindfulness instruction: "Listening to the kids talk about how stressed they are. That's
really kind of my motivation for making sure."
In addition, teacher #1 strongly identified with being a parent and her ability to see her
own children in her students who are also teenagers has made her become a stronger practitioner
and teacher of mindfulness:
I think just as a teacher but also as a mom, I look at the teenagers and I see my own
teenage daughter, or son and I see the potential that they have to be good at just being the
best that they can be. So, to be healthy to be free of anxiety and to be able to handle their
anxiety, to be able to cope with whatever issues they're dealing with, I think that's where I
think I've become a better teacher because of my experience as a mother.
When teacher #2 was asked how she has evolved as an educator, she spoke to
mindfulness as the element that allowed her to better gauge students in her classes: “It makes you
more aware to their specific needs of your students of your classes." Teacher #3 was able to
speak more extensively on her evolution: "You tend to be accepting more, listening more, caring
more. You tend to be a better person but also a better teacher when it comes to your students
because you understand what they're going through."
Teacher #4 was able to speak to the types of issues that students regularly faced. She

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demonstrated empathy during the session when she said: "Yeah there's a lot of students that have
a lot going on either at home or outside of school.” She acknowledged the importance of her role
as a school teacher in her students’ lives and was able to point to the pressures of being able to
handle the issues by themselves: “Maybe they don't know how to handle it on their own or they
don't have the time to handle it on their own. So now we give them the chance to do it during the
school day.” Teacher #5 stated that by practicing mindfulness in her classes, she was able to
demonstrate to her students that she cared more about them than scholastic achievement: "It
shows the kids that we care more about the whole person rather than just the grades and
everything like that."
While teacher #6 is still a relatively new teacher, he expressed that he was able to manage
the class better than in the past, however, he did not attribute his classroom management to the
mindfulness instruction, "I don't think I have grown in a sense that mindfulness can be
contributed to that growth.” Instead he was able to discuss the concept of how he became better
at being empathetic and understanding because he was required to teach those concepts as part of
his mindfulness lessons: “I could say that I’m more empathetic, more understanding, but I like to
think that I was that way before and the mindfulness which is just a tool that I can use to show
that empathy and teach empathy."
Teacher #8 evolved into a more aware teacher that became highly in-tune with the
students in his classes: “I'm a lot more sensitive to it than I used to be in the past of knowing
when a student is bothered by something, knowing when the students stressed out about
something, just being more aware of each individual student.” Teacher #8 was the only teacher
who had a special schedule which required him to teach students who were considered at-risk
either because of behavioral issues or motivational issues, he continued to note his growth from
the mindfulness: "Not to keep harping on it but I think it's made me a lot more aware of my

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student’s needs.” He believed his ability to work with and manage students who could be
considered problematic for other teachers in the building was a result of a deeper empathetic
connection:
I think it's made me a lot more nurturing for my students, understanding, and still be able
to hold kids accountable but being a lot more understanding to what their needs are and
things that they're going through in their lives. I think that's where it's made the biggest
impact or made me more informed while teaching.
Teacher #9 said that the mindfulness that she’s experienced has made her aware of her
students’ needs and in turn has made herself more aware of her own needs:
Just being more in tune with my students, maybe just being more in tune with my own
needs. Like as far as stress levels, I'm really pausing and keeping priorities in alignment
and just I think really just being in the moment as well.
Teacher #9 used similar terminology with teacher #5 and referred to “the whole child”
and the concept that her students were more than just achievement:
"Maybe it's a sense of caring; students know that you care about them, they're more
committed to the whole journey of that class and that mindfulness does send a strong
message of ‘I care about you as a whole child’ not just your grade.
Because she was more in tune with her own feelings, she felt that she was able to provide
assistance to her own students since she was given the tools and resources to be able to do so:
I acknowledge that you're stressed or that you need help in this one area. And I have
resources or tools to help you work through that. So, I think the teachers that do that well,
it is a strong message of caring to the students and I think they respect and appreciate
that, which will carry over into being a little more engaged and onboard with what's
going on in your classroom.

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When it came to empathy teacher #10 said, "I think it just opens your mind to the fact
that students also need these types of activities. It's not just adults.” He went on to say that
teaching mindfulness in his classes gave him a different perspective on his students which
allowed his students to be more open with him: “By going through as a teacher, you see a lot of
students kind of open up in a way that in a typical class you don't always get to see them.”
One of the most telling moments of personal growth and introspection came from teacher
#11, a teacher with less than three years of full-time experience, he found himself routinely
frustrated by students who did not support the mindfulness initiative. Yet when asked about his
personal growth as a teacher throughout the year he said: "I think it's helped me realize that some
of these students that drive you crazy every day might be dealing with some stuff that makes
them act the way that they do.” He described his experiences in his classes:
Kids that come in and just stand there and act like my class is the last place on Earth they
want to be, because when they don't like physical activity or they're not into any kind of
athletic activities. I don't ever really think that there's something else going on. I think it's
always that they're just being lazy. So, it's kind of made me realize that maybe some of
these kids are actually struggling with just getting through their day. So making a big
stink about them being extra active and participating in class. I've kind of relaxed on that
a little bit."
Mindfulness did not completely allow teacher #11 to remain non-judgmental as he still
had trouble grasping how students who had issues in their personal lives could not take the
mindfulness seriously:
I think even though I bought into the whole idea of doing it with the students it's just hard
for me to still see how much some of these kids actually struggle with stuff. Sometimes it
bothers me to see kids who I think and who I know have issues just kind of not taking the

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mindfulness as serious as other students who it seems don't necessarily have the same
issues in their lives.
As a veteran educator, teacher #12 was aware of the perception that mindfulness may be
portrayed as insignificant to the non-educator, however, he was able to speak on behalf of those
students who felt the stress and anxiety:
While outsiders may look at it as something that may be trivial, it is something that's very
real for the individual experiencing it. So being able to understand and look at the anxiety
that these individuals are stressed that these individuals may be experiencing and being
able to look at it and say: "It's real to them. How can we help?” I think it's important.
By the time teacher #12’s final session came around, he was able to speak on the topic of
empathy and brought up his graduate work as a source of influence:
It allows me to become a little bit more empathetic especially after gaining a better
understanding after writing my thesis on mindfulness and gaining an understanding of all
the variety of stressors that these students face at the high school level. I am a lot more
appreciative and empathetic of what these students go through on a day-to-day basis.
As far as how mindfulness has helped him evolve, he too, was able to put himself in the
shoes of his students and gained a better understanding of the present stressors they are dealing
with:
I think it's allowed me to take a better perspective on the issues that the kids are dealing
with and the baggage that they come into class with. So being able to take a look at how
much stress they're bringing into the classroom and having an idea of some strategies that
we can use to, for lack of a better term, help them leave their baggage at the door.
During teacher #13’s second session she had similar things to say about empathy and
constructing an environment where all of her students could feel safe:

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I think it shows my students that I'm more empathetic to what they're going through in
their lives and showing them that I care about their well-being and so I think that makes it
a more like a ‘safe place’ and more they're willing to let down their guards and be
themselves.
The final session with teacher #13 provided some deep reflection on her growth as a
teacher. She professed that she did not have an awareness to the emotional atmosphere her
students displayed unless they were directly seeking assistance from her.
I mean I think it's made me more empathetic towards the students and the stress that they
have. It's not like I didn't know that they had it in the past, it's just that I guess it's not
something I was targeting unless an individual student came up to me and was talking
with me. So, I think we're putting it out there saying to them like when we brought this in
like, "We understand like you guys have a lot on your plate. So, this is something we're
going to try that you can use like in your everyday life.”

Additional Findings
There were other findings that did not turn out to be major themes in this study. Here they
will be addressed as additional findings which may be useful to researchers.
Building reflective practices. Teachers who had more experience in mindfulness also
seemed to be those teachers with the greatest insight to offer. Teacher #1 could pull multiple
activities and even discuss the science of mindfulness for prolonged periods of time and she was
able to give several ways in which almost all of her students could get involved. Teacher #2 also
had a number of methods to pull from and she gave some incredible insight into the domain of
social and emotional learning which Goleman (2005) agrees with.

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In the process of improving pedagogy by immersing one’s self in mindfulness practices,
teachers may have inadvertently reduced their own feelings of stress and anxiety. Any
improvement by way of reduced feelings of stress will allow for greater non-reaction and
reflection (Hwang et al., 2017). Teachers who practice mindfulness with their classes to a greater
extent also tended to be the teachers that reflected the greatest on their own practices.
Teacher #7 has only a few years of experience as an educator; in one interview he was asked
what some challenges were and how he responded to them:
And then like we also just discussed some difficulties are the group in front of me. You
know, from what I've observed of them are they into it? Are they buying into it? Or do
they turn whatever the activity may be into a joke? Which doesn't happen all the time.
Teacher #12 was a veteran teacher who was able to incorporate mindful practices with his
sports teams that he coached, when he was asked the same question he responded:
I want to see things that work really well for some classes and I have seen some things
that worked really well with one class and not with another. And I've taken notes on them
and they may be some things I'd change moving forward but then again, you have
different classes next year, you have different dynamics next year. So, what worked well
for one class this year and what worked/didn't work so well for a class this year may be
completely different next year but just being able to have I think for me a variety of
strategies. So that way if necessary, you can kind of change on the fly and implement
something else quickly.
Mindfulness is related to the practices of reflection in that “it provides an approach to
thinking about one's teaching and to addressing one's teaching actions in the field on a momentby-moment, breath-by-breath basis. It is a phenomenon that is interwoven into all that we do as
teachers.” (Griggs & Tidwell, 2015, p.88).

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Experience garners challenges and resources. Another finding that was evident during
the analysis process was the teachers who had greater experience, not just as mindfulness
practitioners but also as educators, were not only able to foresee more challenges but were also
more resourceful when finding solutions. This is similar to findings in other studies where
mindful practitioners have been able to think more flexibly by shifting from a doing mode to a
being mode and become open to creative solutions (Willgens & Sharf, 2015). Individuals who
work in similar environments benefit from discussing solutions to mutual challenges among
work-related issues (Yalom & Leszcz, 2008). Teacher-targeted mindfulness programs such as the
Stress Prevention and Mindfulness (SPAM) program developed for educators may also increase
opportunities for administrators and staff to work together to troubleshoot issues throughout the
school (Reiser et al., 2016). The ability for teachers to find various solutions is a quality of good
leadership. From the practice of mindfulness, teachers are able to more effectively regulate
emotions and they are able to stay in the present, listen to others, and find flexible solutions
(Fonow et al., 2016).
Religion and non-secular concerns were not mentioned by teachers. During the
interview process, none of the teachers who were interviewed stated challenges or motivators
associated with religion. Some studies have cited religious connotation to be an issue when
instituting mindfulness practices (Bohecker, Wathen, Wells, Salazar, & Vereen, 2014). Wisner
and Starzec (2016) recommended replacing meditation cushions with chairs and using less
regimented walking practices to deemphasize religious perspectives. Providing students with
secular mindfulness instruction is important, especially in public schools as instructors want to
emphasize the positive benefits without offending anyone because of their religious beliefs
(Edwards, 2016). While mindfulness has a deep history and connection with some Buddhist and
Hindu religious practices, practitioners have made distinctions between religious practices and

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spiritual practices; spiritual experience is one of the keys to wellbeing (Mars & Oliver, 2016).

It is useful to note that this study took place during the first year of implementation and
various teachers may have been trying to hone their skills during this process. While the health
and physical education department in the high school has 21 teachers on staff (including the
researcher) only 13 teachers participated in this study. Other teachers either did not respond to
requests or they chose not to participate for undisclosed reasons. During the 2017-2018 school
year, three teachers were also out on maternity leave which left only 17 regular full-time staff
available.
While this study incorporated interviews from various teachers, it did not include the
most important stakeholder: the students. Parental consent is difficult to obtain, especially when
it comes to the issue of student well-being. However, the interviews were beneficial for the
purposes of providing insight into a school district that is looking to make some positive
changes. Another limitation is that not all teachers went through the same trainings. All teachers
went through the mandatory one-day training which included presentations from mindfulness
practitioners from a local tertiary institution. However, others who may have been more
passionate for various reasons may have felt compelled to go to other trainings, professional
conferences, and workshops. While this is not a controlled experiment, the types of responses
elicited from staff members fluctuated based off their experiences.
During this study, the researcher was able to gather substantial data in the form of
interviews, while observations, were limited in scope to some teachers who taught additional
mindfulness sessions or went back through their lesson plans to re-teach a mindfulness plan that
they had previously taught because of a request from the researcher. Data gathered from

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observations did not track student behaviors, moods, or responses. At the time of this proposed
study, only IRB approval was granted for the observations of teacher behaviors and statements.

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Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based
interventions and MBSR practices into teachers’ pedagogy and gain insight into their lived
experiences. The three research questions allowed eight themes to reveal themselves. The
qualitative analysis focuses on the eight themes that came to light in the narratives of the teachers
interviewed. In many cases themes were connected and included relevant concepts such as
pedagogical practice, motivators that were responsible for implementation of mindfulness, and
implementation experiences that were related to both the teachers personal mindfulness practice
and classroom mindfulness experiences. Individual quotes from teachers are used to illustrate the
key concepts and themes.
These eight themes will now be discussed in greater depth. To answer the first research
question: What content do teachers use when teaching mindfulness? the themes of: (1) mindfully
selecting content on class climate and individualizing instruction, and (2) teachers’ personal
history and practice with mindfulness influence both ability and perceived support came to light.
The second research question: What mindfulness methods of delivery, length and frequency of
delivery do these teachers use? addressed the mindfulness methods of delivery by: (3) the
variable implementation experience, and (4) the simple act of modeling behavior for students and
other staff members. The final research question on the impact of teaching: How have
mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching? is answered by: (5) intrinsic
and extrinsic motivational factors, (6) the idea that challenges could somehow become
motivators enabling teachers to seek out better solutions, (7) various levels of perceived
organizational support, and (8) the perceived increases in empathy and understanding from
teachers regarding student needs.

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Theme 1: The Mindful Selection of Content and Pedagogy
Employing mindfulness in the classroom is a powerful tool as it allows educators to
connect with their own thoughts about teaching. In working with undergraduate science
education majors, Powietrzyńska and Gangji (2016) interviewed two future science educators
who were able to include mindfulness practices as part of their undergraduate training; one of the
undergraduates acknowledged that teaching difficult content could bring anxieties to children
and upon reflecting, found that being mindful of the audience and understanding that education
had a human element was critical prior to developing curricula and syllabi.
When implementing whole school supports for mindfulness interventions, researchers
indicated using a three-tier method in which tier 1 supports included universal prevention
programs that could potentially target all students, tier 2 supports included providing specialized
programs to students who needed supplemental or targeted instruction, and tier 3 supports were
aimed at the few students who had the most severe needs and required intensive individualized
mindfulness instruction (Stuart, Collins, Tomas, & Gwalla-Ogisi, 2017).
When educators assign mindfulness tasks and exercises to their students, research
supports a system of assigning tasks to individuals who shown favorability to similar content and
practices (Schueller, 2010). Wilson (2012) suggests that “giving students a choice in what they
read can make it easier to teach them how to create mental imagery; they are more likely to be
engaged in and derive meaning from reading they enjoy.” (p.192). She adds that teachers need to
be able to ask students what interests them and find out the things that students enjoy—if
teachers can personify then they may personalize.

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Theme 2: Fostering a Personal Mindfulness Practice
For facilitators to succeed in training mindfulness to their students, they must develop a
personal practice (Saltzman, 2016). Developing a personal practice prior to facilitating a
mindfulness session is imperative not just for teachers, but also other practitioners within the
educational context (Campbell & Christopher, 2012). “Lacking in specific awareness leads to
habitual or automatic behaviors.” (Ruffault, Bernier, Juge, & Fournier, 2016, p.450). Whitesman
and Mash (2016) go a step further by saying that mindfulness-based instructors have unique
expectations placed upon them, particularly in clinical settings, therefore beyond regular
intensive training, the mindfulness-based instructor needs to be well-versed in personal mindful
meditation practices.
It is critical to be properly trained to be able to work with others who have little or no
prior knowledge in order to provide a complete experience of mindfulness practice. Schien
(2017) recommends that when constituents within an organization learn new information during
a change process, formal training and resources should be provided. An example of this is the
Resilient Kids program, originally developed as an after-school program; it was modeled off the
five competencies of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
program: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and
relationship building—all classroom instructors are required to go through instructor training and
have their own personal mindfulness practices (Semple, Droutman, & Reid, 2017). “Teacher
development in MBSR and MBCT, for example, is weighted towards development of the
teacher's personal practice and transformation of her way of being, because the teacher's
presence is deemed central to how the class learns.” (McCown, Reibel, & Micozzi, 2010, p.27).
Some teachers indicated increased levels of stress and pressure from outside influences
such as administrators, other colleagues, increased expectations to accommodate students with

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special needs, and even students themselves who may have presented meta-stressful (stressed
about being stressed). Developing a personal mindful practice can be particularly useful when
working in a high-stress profession such as teaching as one systematic review of qualitative
studies found that mindfulness can be a coping mechanism to help teachers manage difficult
emotions and resolve conflict (Hwang, Bartlett, Greben, & Hand, 2017, p.39). “Like other
demanding professions, teachers deserve and need methods of maintaining good executive
function in the context of their elevated work-related stress.” (Meiklejohn et al., 2012, p.293).
In several schools, professional development may be completed in an online format.
These professional development sessions may also include basic training and foundations of
mindfulness, including definitions, and helping one engage in personal mindfulness practice
prior to implementing it with students. In one study, online training took place using the Mindful
Schools program which lasted six weeks and required teachers to incorporate a consistent
mindfulness practice that had a reflective component; while advanced training required an inperson two-day workshop in which participants practiced teaching mindfulness to other
participants (Kielty, Gilligan, & Staton, 2017, p.131).
Hwang et al. (2017) argue that the relationship teachers have with their own bodies
constitutes an area of importance in mindfulness practice because of the recognition of their own
stress levels in their bodies, becoming aware of physical tension release such as rolling one’s
shoulders, and the ability to ground themselves when they feel overwhelmed at work by
incorporating body scans or anchoring their breathing.
Researchers in Australia working with disadvantaged youth found that being proficient in
a personal practice was essential being both credible and being able to teach these skills on the
job:

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“One common thread, reported through multiple interviews, was the importance of staff
members both believing in the usefulness of the skills and applying them in their lives
outside of work. These two factors were reported as improving their credibility to train,
mentor, and coach young people and thereby increasing the willingness of young people
to listen and engage with the teaching.” (Raymond, Iasiello, Jarden, & Kelly, 2018,
p.241).
It was evident that teachers who practiced mindfulness on their personal time, even if it
was only a beginning practice, had greater ability to articulate the concepts, the science, and were
better prepared to practice their mindfulness pedagogy on their students. They were also much
more likely to have a positive outlook and view support for the initiative from their students and
other colleagues, and they were able to see opportunities with the program where others may
have seen issues. Crane et al. (2012) discuss this concept as the ability to “embody” practices and
indicates this as a differentiator when implementing mindfulness-based instruction:
“Woven across all these processes is the capacity of the teacher to teach everything
through an embodiment of the qualities of mindfulness. 'Embodiment of process' by the
teacher is the feature of the approach which differentiates it from other approaches and is
therefore illustrative of the particularities which need consideration in developing a
mindfulness-based teaching competence framework.” (p.80).
Educators from all walks of life are continually faced with increasing levels of stress and their
jobs require a tremendous amount of flexibly and responsiveness, considering the mounting
evidence of the damages of toxic stress it would be beneficial for teachers to engage in simple
mindful awareness activities (Meiklejohn, 2012). Doing so would not only provide ample
modelling for students, but also provide teachers a natural means to cope with the increasing
demands and expectations placed on teachers.

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Theme 3: A Wide Spectrum of Experiences
Teacher experience can often be an effective factor on the outcomes of mindfulness
programming as Zenner, Herrnleben-Kurz, and Walach (2014) found that “the instructors'
qualifications and their personal experience with mindfulness are surely important” (p.17).
McCown et al. (2010) outlined a continuum of mindfulness instruction where teachers would
find themselves basing their teaching practices on their personal practices (see Figure 16). A
teacher’s personal commitment to mindfulness may be purely existential in nature or he or
she may need to learn about mindfulness in conjunction with a goal. McCown et al. (2010)
indicate that the training for mindfulness may be on a continuum with one teacher who may
be highly trained with a deep personal practice of mindfulness on one end of the continuum
and another teacher as someone with high levels of training in theory, skills, and mindfulness
techniques on the other end. Both the person’s own personal philosophy and the person’s
training will coincide with the question asked, whether it is about deep practice or deep
understanding.

The Person

Existential commitment
transforms self and others

Professional with commonfactor mindfulness

The Training

Highly trained and deeply
practices in mindfulness

Highly training in theory, skills,
and techniques of intervention

The Question

“Is my practice deep enough?”

“Is my understanding right?”

Figure 16: Continuum of the who of teaching mindfulness as a professional (McCown et al.,
2010)
Materials and activities should be relevant and useful to the learners, connected to their
interests, and based on real world tasks (Pintrich, 2003). According to Ergas (2014), there are

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two prevailing agendas that seem to exist among practitioners for mindfulness. The first
identifies mindfulness-curricula as achievement- and performance-based; therefore, educators
place mindfulness into their curricula with the intention of bettering educational outcomes of
their students. The second identifies mindfulness as a contemplative inquiry and outcome goals
remain secondary to the experience that mindfulness may provide students, this agenda is more
closely related to the Buddhist teachings of non-striving. Ergas (2014) stated that these two
agendas seem as though they are on opposing ends of a dichotomy, however, they need not be
mutually exclusive, i.e., educators can still achieve the outcomes they wish while gently guiding
their students through an experience.
Experiences may be the result of training or personal practice and while each individual
may achieve something different from their own experiences in mindfulness, training should
support the teachers by filling in the knowledge gaps. Furlager (2018) argues that training should
provide three key foundations to those seeking to train others in positive psychosocial behavior:
(1) empower teachers to be change-agents, (2) enable teachers to support safe school
environments with the requisite knowledge and skills, and (3) become advocates by helping
others become aware of positive psychosocial methods as needs in adult and children increase.
School district physical education and health teachers came with a wide variety of
experiences, training, and personal reasons when they incorporated mindfulness training in their
classes. Some teachers were more aware of their own limitations and indicated they looked
forward to learning more either from colleagues, through additional training, from reading books
and other literature on mindfulness, or from an informal support system such as the mindfulness
committee. Teachers who possessed more knowledge either in educational or mindfulness
theory, practical experience with mindfulness, or pedagogical experience reported greater self-

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efficacy with the mindfulness initiative and were more likely to view their roles as changeagents.

Theme 4: Modeling Behavior
Mindfulness awareness practices may be helpful for teachers as they take on the
challenges of running a classroom (Jennings et al., 2017). According to an analysis of over 250
different instructional methods, one of the greatest predictors of student performance is teacher
self-efficacy—the understanding and the belief a teacher has that he or she is capable of teaching
particular content (Hattie, 2017). Among educators, feedback and modeling increases selfefficacy (Pajares, 2003). By modeling behavior for other teachers or seeking out teachers who
were exemplars of mindful pedagogy, teachers were able to scaffold their own practice by
simply watching the successful practices of others. Facilitators are crucial in many fields,
however, in one study participants described the role of facilitators as “essential” and “their
execution of the role as ‘inspiring’.” (Shonin, Van Gordon, & Griffiths, 2014, p.856). Models
who are credible and similar (gender, culturally appropriate) can foster positive values (Pajares,
2003). Teachers indicated that learning from other teachers was a major source of their
knowledge throughout the mindfulness initiative. This relationship could be seen as a
mentor/trainee relationship in some cases, especially between veteran and newer teachers.
Literature on mentoring in education suggests a growing importance on mentorships because of
the inverse relationship between increasing experienced teacher attrition and decreasing
educational attainment (Paris, 2013).
The importance of credibility in mindfulness practice is inherent in the process. Because
mindfulness practice involves experiential and conceptual components, educators who do not
have their own practices need to invite guests into their classrooms who can confirm the

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importance and relevance of the practice (Wells, 2013). “Guests to the classrooms could provide
this authentic experience for students. The teachers involved in the MBSR programs practice
meditation along with the patients in the programs.” (Wells, 2013, p.4). When instructors model
mindfulness to their students, researchers have found that the aspect of modeling itself takes the
pressure off the participant by reducing expectation and enables the process of self-discovery
(Hopkins & Proeve, 2013), there is no reason why this phenomenon would not be prevalent
among staff members who model pedagogical practices for each other. Mentor teachers may also
model behavior for their mentee teachers.
Empirical research has also found support for a Head Start model where preschool
teachers received training and weekly mentoring support to develop improvements in emotional
supportiveness (Jennings et al., 2017). This study found that teachers felt a prolific urge to
model mindfulness for students and other staff members. Ideally, teachers were able to share
practices with one another and facilitate dialog through departmental meetings, professional
learning communities (PLCs), informal observations, coteaching opportunities, and casual
discussion. The more teachers observed others performing mindfulness with their classes and
differentiating for individual students, the more teachers felt a need to implement mindfulness in
their own teaching practice and develop a repertoire of activities for students with gifted and
special needs.

Theme 5: The Intrinsic/Extrinsic Motivational Connection
The connection between intrinsic motivation and well-being (Ryan & Deci, 2000),
mindfulness and motivation (Brown & Ryan, 2003), and mindfulness and intrinsic motivation on
the effects of physical activity (Ruffault et al., 2016) have been well-studied and documented.
Teacher stress levels often play a role in the effectiveness of teaching a class (Jennings et al.,

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2017) and experiencing negative emotions can have a negative effect on teacher’s intrinsic
motivation and self-efficacy (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). “School related tasks require the ability
to use and regulate emotions in order to increase concentration, develop intrinsic motivation, and
control impulsive thinking and hostility.” (Franco, Amutio, López-González, Oriol, & MartínezTaboada, 2016, p. 2). Ryan and Deci (2000) found that the level of autonomy an individual
experience was both theoretically and empirically linked to motivational levels. Other research
on motivation indicates that high self-efficacy can positively influence motivation (Pajares,
2003), and learning and motivation are enhanced if the learner values the task (Eccles & Harold,
1991). Empirical research has demonstrated that mindfulness practice may increase as intrinsic
motivation rises, the opposite is also true—as mindful individuals are more likely to be
intrinsically motivated (Ruffault et al., 2016).
Pink (2009) claims that intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation
because reward systems lose their effectiveness after a period of time. What is more problematic
is that once reward systems are removed, motivational levels rapidly decline. He expands on this
idea of increasing one’s “drive” by fostering three elements of intrinsic motivation: (1) providing
purpose, (2) giving an individual or group of people autonomy, and (3) providing an opportunity
for mastery. Similarly, Raymond et al. (2018) found that program sustainability was more likely
to me obtained “if staff: (1) used the skills in their own life, (2) thought they had gained more
tools for working with young people, and (3) enjoyed their work roles to a higher degree.”
(Raymond et al., 2018, p.241).
The school district teachers who were extrinsically motivated either by pressure from
administration or from peer pressure were less likely to find mindfulness practices appealing and
were less likely to articulate their practices in ways that included practical evidence, cite
scientific theory, or acknowledge instances in which they may have made progress in student

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health and well-being. Teachers who were intrinsically motivated however, were more likely to
view breakthroughs with hard-to-reach students, provide evidence in the form of written journal
reflections, recall captivating stories of overcoming challenging logistical situations, or were
more reflective and articulate in their own understanding of mindfulness theory and practice.
These teachers were motivated by one, or a combination, of Pink’s (2009) intrinsic motivation
criteria. Stronger teachers did not necessarily have more experience teaching, although
pedagogical experience was considered helpful; younger teachers tended to struggle more with
classroom management even though they may have demonstrated more passion in infusing
mindfulness throughout the initiative. Impassioned teachers felt as though they had a greater
purpose than just teaching curriculum or getting students to move, they also felt that they had the
freedom to choose whichever resources and methods worked best for their classes and individual
students at a particular moment in time, and they all felt that they could master mindfulness and
become proficient in understanding the basic concepts.
One element of intrinsic motivation was the opportunity to master the methods or content
of mindfulness. Teachers particularly enjoyed seeing students grow throughout their sessions and
in some cases these teachers were able to view a noticeable difference in their students in one
session as teacher #6 commented:
I just like when the students are really into the session and they're really listening to the
audio and they stand up very slowly and you can tell that they're more aware of their
surroundings and they were calm and they were focused, they're present in the moment.
In a different session when asked what he thought the benefits of mindfulness were,
teacher #6 used the idea of students learning to let go and to appreciate the environment around
them:
The benefits are that the students can learn how to let go of what's stressing them out and

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what's bothering them or what's not going great in life and they can be present and also
not just focus on themselves, learn to focus on others and to be good listeners and to be
more appreciative of life and their surroundings and what's really going on is what really
matters.
Teacher #1 felt that providing her students with the opportunity to help students
experience what she felt herself when she experienced the clarity that mindfulness brought to her
was an intrinsic drive to help her continue to push it in her class: “For them to get the same
benefits that I get, like to understand it's going to help clear your mind. It's going to help you stay
focused and make the right decisions and not just be reactive to situations.” This is in line with
the concept of “stress contagion” as teachers with exceedingly high levels of stress and anxiety
could imprint these feelings directly to students (Wethington, 2000, p.234).

Theme 6: Building Resilient Teachers
The sixth theme demonstrated that as teachers practiced facilitating mindfulness to their
students, teachers became more mindful and were exposed to various challenges that they were
motivated to overcome. When students showed a lack of support for the initiatives, teachers rose
to the challenge in several creative ways either by offering a variety of activities, explaining the
benefits, discussing the theoretical concepts, or allowing autonomy by offering choices to their
students. Support for program implementation has been well-documented. In one study, athletes
exposed to Mindfulness Meditation Training for Sport (MMTS) rated their mindfulness sessions
higher if they were exposed to prior knowledge about meditation before mindfulness sessions
occurred allowing student-athletes to “buy-in” by connecting meditation with athletic
performance (Worthen & Luiselli, 2016). Similarly, in this study teachers who had a stronger

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conceptual understanding of mindfulness reportedly found fewer challenges and greater
opportunities with student and coworker support.
The ability for teachers to tackle challenges head-on exemplifies the quality of resilience.
Resilience and mindfulness are both related to each other as they fall under the umbrella of
positive psychology. The concept of teacher resilience can be defined as a quality of maintaining
commitment to teaching practice despite challenging conditions and recurring difficulties
(Brunetti, 2006). Studies have demonstrated the positive aspects of resilient teachers and how
they may attain greater positive outcomes from students than those who are less resilient and
committed (Day, 2008). Mindfulness and resilience are linked due to the connection between
self-regulation, emotions, and behavior—mindful individuals are more capable of changing
behavior and thinking positively than those who are less mindful (Levesque & Brown, 2007).
Although some teachers did not report personally practicing mindfulness, it was clear that
teachers expressed elevated resilience from working with class management issues, last-minute
changes to space availability, flexibility regarding content, and working with students who may
have felt uncomfortable initially. Meiklejohn et al. (2012) stated that:
“Short but regular formal mindfulness training exercises, combined with informal
mindfulness awareness practices, can strengthen their innate capacities for being mindful,
and therefore their capacities to relate to any experience—whether pleasurable, neutral,
stressful, or difficult in ways that are responsive rather than reactive and reflexive.
(p.297).
Numerous teachers cited that self-guided meditation was difficult for the students and
teachers often defaulted to using audio-guided or technology-guided mindfulness practices such
as guided-meditations, audio-guided body scans, progressive relaxations, or audio-guided
visualizations. As a result, teachers who attempted self-guided meditations or teacher-guided

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mediations became aware that in order to become stronger at teaching self-guided meditation,
they needed to persist in teaching the students about brain-based learning and encourage students
to try what worked for them. This is similar to the reports from Hopkins and Proeve (2013) that
found: “adapting to meditation shows that participants overcame meditation practice difficulties
in a number of ways, including practicing for less time, choosing a favorite practice, or
occasionally allowing themselves to avoid practice.” (p.124).
One major challenge which tested the resilience of teachers was the logistical component.
Teachers reported frustration when faced with limited space, loud noises, or insufficient
resources. While resource constraints can pose as barriers to student engagement, especially in
underserved urban schools (Dariotis et al., 2017), the school district is resource-rich and it was
still a challenge for teachers to find quiet spaces free from distractions. Teachers who were
interviewed welcomed the challenge and made light of their position, many even claimed that it
was the students who made their jobs easier and worthwhile.
Langer (2014) provides an interesting perspective on mindfulness because her research
leads her to view both mindfulness and mindlessness as the ability to make change, be proactive,
and take control: “Some have found it easier to take risks and to welcome change, or have felt
less fearful of failure, others have felt control where they once felt helpless, or freer where they
once felt confined” (p.8). Interestingly, although teachers were faced with various challenges and
in one teacher’s case (#8) working with at-risk, emotionally disturbed population, they all
managed to find the silver lining and spoke with the belief that if things did not improve,
somehow, they would manage to find improvement from the choices they make and the action
they take.

Theme 7: Examining Organizational Support

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Parsons (1956) inferred that there was one distinct differentiator between an organization
and a community; while they are both a gathering of individuals, the former works together to
achieve a common purpose while the latter does not. Ledoux, Forchuk, Higgins, and Rudnick
(2018) state that there are three types of organizational-level catalysts which have proven to be
positive predictors of compassion among healthcare providers: (1) structural empowerment, (2)
psychological empowerment, and (3) interprofessional collaboration. Various support from all
organizational levels are important; Reiser, Murphy and McCarthy (2016) stated that in order to
foster elevated levels of support, open lines of communication with higher level school staff are
vital in planning and addressing logistic concerns. “Program implementation at a classroom,
grade, or whole-school level likely creates a shift in school climate more broadly, facilitating
administrative and teacher engagement.” (Dariotis et al., 2017, p.67). Supportive team cultures
among healthcare providers boosted self-confidence and compassion while negative
organizational factors stemming from a lack of supportive leadership led to increases in
healthcare provider apathy (Ledoux et al., 2018). Reiser et al. (2016) uses the term “member
buy-in” (p.132) and cites an example of a principal soliciting a teacher to join mindfulness
training sessions.
Specific factors such as teaching along with colleagues, having administrative support,
parental support, and increased student enthusiasm may increase the chances of successful
implementation (Joyce, Etty-Leal, Zazryn, & Hamilton, 2010). “Multiple organizational factors
come together to form a school’s overall organizational health.” (Ouellette et al., 2018, p.495). In
an evaluation of four place-based education programs, Powers (2004) found four strengths that
effective programs had in common: (1) a start-up approach that was effective, (2) calculable
teacher, administrative, and community support, (3) partnerships with other existing
stakeholders, and (4) ongoing communication. Overall, support for a school-based initiative is

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critical to sustainability especially from the key stakeholders of teachers, parents, school
counselors, and administrators.
Promoting mindfulness practices in school proved to be a challenge because of the
limitations that are imposed on individual employees—to make a well-meaning, much-needed
impact on well-being, ownership from various organizational levels may need to occur (Moen et
al., 2016). A mutual agreement between administrators and staff must exist as difficulties can
arise when mandating that teachers spend excessive time from implementation and effectively
highlighting program involvement (Dariotis et al., 2017). Employees are much more likely to
feel supported individually if they have the sense that their best interests, particularly when it
comes to well-being, are enhanced within the larger organizational goals (Bostock, Crosswell,
Prather, & Steptoe, 2018). “In addition, evidence of an organizational commitment to learning,
improving systems of professional practice, innovation, stable management, and staff groups
were also considered important, as was a willingness to co-invest in the program. (Raymond et
al., 2018, p.233). Falb and Pargament (2012) indicated support for mindfulness programming
must be linked to real social situations.
Another aspect of school-wide support is held in the ideal that individual goals should be
in line with organization goals for maximum effectiveness (Himmetoglu, Aydug, & Terzi, 2018).
Teachers who viewed their positions primarily as health practitioners and secondarily as teachers
reported stronger practices and greater support from the school-district. Those who viewed their
roles as physical education teachers demonstrated disappointment with some aspects of
mindfulness and struggled with aligning themselves to the school’s vision and strategic plan. Eva
and Thayer (2017) state that while formal mindfulness courses for individual teachers may not be
required to obtain benefits in personal and professional lives, there are nonetheless evidencebased training programs which enable teachers to feel supported in the development of

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mindfulness-based interventions when considering the school culture and environment.
Klockner (2017) suggests there are two actions to building a resilient organization: (1)
“organizational mindfulness”, in which the organization becomes mindful of its mission, its
actions, and its vision; and (2) “mindful organizing” in which the stakeholders in the
organization, particularly the decision-makers, deliberately work to ensure that attention is
directed at: (i) preoccupation with failure, (ii) reluctance to simplify, (iii) sensitivity to
operations, (iv) commitment to resilience, and (v) deference to expertise. Administrators need to
be aware of “organizational mindfulness” as simply expecting teachers to put mindfulness
programming by piecemealing several different activities does not constitute a curriculum. With
each teacher owning a variety of strengths, it is important to structure teacher schedules, duties,
professional development communities, and departmental meetings so that the organization may
be put in a position to operate at optimal effectiveness.
Because teachers were able to view certain levels of support differently than others, they
may have had an easier transition turnkeying the mindfulness initiative within the school district.
Previous research highlights the value of whole-school programming and how they increase the
chances of success (Naylor & McKay, 2009). Studies that examined teacher reports of selfefficacy and classroom-level functioning, when correlated with school-level organizational
health, indicate lower levels of stress and highest levels of teacher satisfaction: “findings point to
organizational climate and teacher connectedness as potential levers for change, supporting prior
work on teacher stress and satisfaction in schools. The significance of targeting organizational
factors may be particularly significant in urban school districts.” (Ouellette et al., 2018, p.494).
Group problem solving and whole-group support contribute to enhanced learning and
normalization (Hopkins & Proeve, 2013).

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Theme 8: Developing Empathy
Both mindfulness and empathy are central to teaching because they encompass the senses
of seeing and feeling. Goleman (2005) refers to what teachers experienced in this study as
emotional intelligence (E.I.) and empathy falls under the umbrella of E.I. Foody and Samara
(2018) found that schools that implement mindfulness-based techniques often lower the number
of reported bullying incidents because victims develop resilience, onlookers develop positive
bystander behavior, and bullies develop perspective. E.I. development from mindfulness
interventions is not solely linked to children and adolescents however as empathy is a word often
used in educational circles; Howard (2006) mentions how empathy is necessary for teachers to
navigate the “river of change” when teaching in an environment they do not identify with (p. 69).
“Empathy or the ability to understand the perspectives of others who do not share one's point of
view is crucial to transformational leadership.” (Fonow, Cook, Goldsand, & Burke-Miller, 2016,
p.120). Teachers are leaders of their classrooms, and often good teachers are recognized by their
ability to positively influence student achievement and well-being. Findings from Goleman
(2005) indicate that good leaders have a high degree of emotional intelligence. Even
administrators would benefit from mindfulness as Thompson (2018) states: “Administrators are
pressed to use their emotional intelligence to listen, empathize and respond to issues that often
have no “right” answer” (p.31).
An earlier controlled study indicated that clinicians providing therapy were protected
from empathy erosion by significantly increasing their ability to detect and feel another
individual’s emotions through mindfulness training (Lesh, 1970). Ensuring that teachers continue
to empathize not only for their students, but also for their colleagues is a trait worth building and
sustaining because not only does empathy play a role in effective teaching, but so does
compassion. Epstein (2017) stated that compassion is a triad of elements which must coincide

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before compassion takes place: (1) having the ability to notice another person’s suffering, (2)
resonating with their suffering in some way, and (3) acting on behalf of that person. One of
Kabat-Zinn’s (2013) elements of mindfulness is “acceptance”, for us to be able to accept others
we must be willing to show compassion. Eastern philosophy guides through this idea that
empathizing by experiencing one’s pain is a demonstration of compassion: “In this way,
mindfulness can show us, as the Buddha taught, that every human being suffers; the Other, like
myself, suffers. It is this insight that can give us compassion for the Other.” (Lu, Tito, & Kentel,
2009, p.363). Being in tune with our own emotions allows us to be in tune with others’ emotions
(Fukuskima, Terasawa, & Umeda, 2011). While there are various forms of mindfulness practice,
meditation has been linked to compassion because: “sitting in meditation provides repeated
opportunities in handling negative thoughts, unpleasant feelings, and difficult sensations that
lead to development of compassion.” (Gates & Gilbert, 2016, p.256)
Previous research has demonstrated that in addition to empathy, mindfulness can foster
other therapeutic qualities such as attention, cognitive flexibility, self-awareness, and
responsiveness which are all elements that teachers need to be able to reach every student
(Fulton, 2005; Gehart & McCollum, 2008; Napoli & Bonifas, 2011). “Training attention also
enables the deliberate cultivation of positive qualities through specific practices designed to
promote empathy and prosocial attitudes.” (Flook et al., 2013, p.183).
This eighth theme is one of the most significant of this study because “empathy” was a
concept that all teachers managed to speak about. They either directly used the word and stated
that they were able to build it. While some teachers chose to facilitate mindfulness sessions
through teacher-centered instruction, other teachers provided opportunity for their students to
facilitate through student-centered instruction. Regardless if the teacher led or followed,
throughout interviews and from observations it was evident that teachers seemed to be more

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attuned to the needs of their classrooms and the needs of their individual students. Many teachers
explained that this connection grew throughout the initiative—this connection could also be from
building rapport with students throughout the course of the semester since teachers would have
seen their students more frequently, however, this connection was highly articulated in
conversations with teachers who practiced mindfulness with their classes multiple times per
week than those who sporadically infused the practice from time-to-time.

Essence of Mindfulness in Education
Examining the experiences of educators experiencing mindfulness in their classes has
yielded a plethora of data. During the preliminary stages of a mindfulness initiative in a school
district, three questions were answered regarding these lived experiences and they have been
illustrated in Figure 17 and they can be summed as: mindful teachers in the school district seek
content that is general and try to individualize it by environment or student needs; once this
content is deemed appropriate, the teachers refine their delivery and provide the element of
choice to their students. In the process the teacher looks at each challenge and works to create a
strategy that will create support for the program and in turn evolves as an educator. Throughout
the process, the teachers are reflective, passionate about quality rather than other metrics such as
student achievement or test scores, they seek to provide a better experience to their students with
every class and they evolve into more empathetic educators and begin to explore their own
strengths when seeking out new content for future sessions.

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Seeks out content that
can be individualized
based on environment,
event, or student needs.

Teacher is reflective and
develops empathy for
students, other teachers,
and the process.

Evolves as a professional
either by gaining more
knowledge and/or expertise
through self practice.

Teacher examines
materials to determine
appropriateness.

The
Mindful
Educator

Works at refining
delivery to a group of
students and provides
choice.

Teacher garners
support of initiatives by
being open and accepting of
challenges
Figure 17: The essence of a mindful educator

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Conclusion

Teachers care very deeply about the quality of their instruction, so much so that they often may
feel as though their mindfulness sessions pale in comparison to their regular sport, physiology, or health
science pedagogy. The teachers in this study came from a variety of backgrounds and each had their own
reasons for participating in this study. Some said that engaging with discussions with the researcher was
reflective and challenged them to think about their current practices and what constitutes a “best practice”
in the realm of mindfulness.
This study found that more than caring about personal practice and self-improvement, teachers
felt as though they were a critical checkpoint in the lives of their students as they transitioned from late
puberty into early adulthood. Teachers solicited feedback from students and often engaged in both formal
and informal assessment hoping to adjust their mindfulness practices for their next sessions. Younger
teachers, while still early in their careers held onto the importance of their own roles in their own
students’ lives and believed that the role of the educational practitioner and health practitioner were no
longer mutually exclusive. When teachers expressed dissatisfaction throughout their interviews, they were
not expressing dissent at the system, but rather how they felt as though they could not help their students
enough, and that they hoped for more knowledge, more training, and in many cases a frustration with the
limited time they had available to their students. It was as if these teachers felt as though mindfulness
practice made them acutely aware of the challenges their students faced daily, and at the same time, made
them mindfully aware of their own limitations.

These findings provide some suggestions for school districts, particularly districts
employing new mindfulness initiatives at the high-school level. The primary concern for
educators is the use of common language. Some teachers often referred to mindfulness as “stress
management” or “social-emotional learning”. Mindfulness can fall under both broad categories
because they each employ a different set of strategies. Mindfulness is unique in the sense that
there are specific strategies associated with it; by having common language, teachers will be able

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to articulate needs and expectations throughout disciplines and across grade levels. This provides
a starting point when formulating or adopting a curriculum.
Even though there are numerous ways to teach mindfulness as there are numerous ways
to teach fitness, the fitness industry is significantly further in terms of providing a accreditation
system enabling consumers to be properly informed on issues like trainer qualification,
professional development, and the scope of professional fitness practice. It should be a priority
for wellness practitioners to urge certifying agencies to come together and put forth a set of
competencies for mindfulness instructors.
Another aspect of mindfulness is that it is not a one-size-fits-all modality. Teachers are
acutely aware that each class has its own personality (some teachers deem it a “culture”) and
within those classes there are individual students who have different needs. Teachers who look to
not only differentiate instruction across groups, but also individualize instruction on a case-bycase basis are more likely to find students accept their mindfulness instruction. Different
strategies work better for various populations, yoga may work better for some of the more active
students, while journaling and mindful coloring may work better with the more reflective
students.
This study also provided some insight into the training of individual teachers. Teachers
who were personally affected in their lives or those who had something to gain from exposure to
mindfulness-based practices such as increased performance, lower levels of stress, personal
family issues that resulted in the adoption of mindful programs at home—those teachers
seemingly went on to find further resources either in the form of a professional development
course, a continuing education graduate course, or through professional organizations.
Teacher training and personal practice are of vital importance when implementing a
mindfulness-based intervention within a school district. Without the combination of personal

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mindfulness practice and pedagogical applicability, teachers will have difficulty communicating
expectations, critiquing curricula, and modeling mindfulness pedagogy to other educators within
the school community. Teachers’ understanding and application of mindful practices is that they
can be incorporated anywhere throughout the school district from individual classrooms, to
sports teams, as part of a unit, as an at-home assignment, from entering ninth graders to seniors
ready for graduation. While individual practices, facilitation, and acceptance may differ from
teacher to teacher the goal is genuinely the same, educators come from a place of caring and
kindness and they want to see their students thrive beyond the four walls of the classroom (or
gymnasium). Standard and consistent teacher training and personal practice are of vital
importance when implementing a mindfulness-based intervention within a school district.
Schools are capable of becoming incubators for student and staff growth provided that
there are support systems in place which enable teacher creativity, autonomy, and teacher selfefficacy. Teachers viewed those systemic supports as enablers allowing them to explore the
limits of their newfound skills. The development of empathy had such a significant effect with
these teachers that they were more attuned to their students and found creative ways to work with
individual students. But more than anything, these teachers that developed empathy felt a sense
of perspective when they found it empowered their students to make personal choices that may
someday have an effect on the wellness of their communities.
School districts have a responsibility to keep students safe and educate them, however,
they also have a moral responsibility to ensure both psychological and physical wellness when
the students are away from their parents. While incorporating mindfulness may only be one
avenue of accomplishing this goal, it is nonetheless an avenue that is backed by 20 years of
research and over 2,500 years of spiritual practice. What this study demonstrates is the
unequivocal belief that teachers in one school district have in their ability to make a difference in

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their students’ lives because of the simple act of caring. The decisions the school district will
make considering its vested interest in such an initiative is dependent upon the building support
systems, providing training protocols and having them in place to confront (and possibly
remove) the many challenges.

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Future Directions for Research (Recommendations)
The extent of mindfulness practices in public schools now reaches far and wide. Several
developed countries besides the United States have been working with mindfulness-based
curricula in both public and private schools (Edwards, 2016; Montgomery & Rupp, 2005). This
study took place in a public school in New Jersey and covered a small portion of the teaching
staff in one department. This study was also conducted after the standardized testing window set
forth by the New Jersey Department of Education.
More research must be done particularly in the area of long-term studies in public and
private K-12 education as this provides a foundation for future coping skills in our young adults
entering higher education, the military, or the workforce. This is critical to the development of
standardization and accreditation of training and certifying agencies so that mindfulness can be
better established and adopted by states or both private and non-profit organizations, much like
the Common Core State Standards or the training standards used by the American Red Cross and
American Heart Association to certify first-responders in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. States
have not adopted standards for social emotional learning because they are relatively new in the
educational arena and the focus has largely centered on student achievement through
standardized testing put forth by policy enacted by No Child Left Behind (NCLB; 2001) and
more recently the Race to the Top program (2014).
Long-term studies done with students over a period of two or more years are few in
publication, however, they would provide how much improvement educators and parents may be
able to expect over the course of a long-term which combines both educational and clinical
outcomes.
In this study mindfulness examined the phenomena off what teachers experienced,
however examining the phenomena that administrators experience may also provide useful data

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to the field of mindfulness research. Students and staff achievement should also be taken into
consideration in future studies. Do students who practice prolonged periods of mindfulness have
higher tests scores? Is it possible to boost test scores across a district with a district-led initiative
much like the initiative at the school district? Do teacher absenteeism rates drop in teachers
whose classes practice mindfulness? Do teachers in a department or school within a district who
practice mindfulness express higher satisfaction in their jobs compared with those in departments
or schools that do not? What is the feasibility of promoting mindfulness not only within a school
district, but also toward the surrounding communities in the form of school-based outreach
projects?
Very few quantitative instruments exist that measure high-school aged students’ aptitudes
in mindfulness. Some of the more popular instruments such as the Depression and Anxiety Stress
Scales (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), the NEO-five factor inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa &
McCrae, 1992), the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003) Mindful Attention Awareness
Scale (MAAS; Brown & Ryan, 2003), or the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness ScaleRevised (CAMS-R; Feldman, Hayes, Kumar, Greeson, & Laurenceau, 2007) are designed for
clinical adult populations that measure different facets of mindfulness which may or may not be
relevant to specific high-school level populations.
If school districts are intent on implementing mindfulness-based interventions in their
schools, then teachers and curriculum administrators should take on the responsibility of
designing school-based curricula that fit within a school’s needs rather than relying on
purchasing a turnkey curriculum. Various curricula that are on the market tend to target younger
audiences and seldom do these curricular programs provide training to teachers. There are
certification programs such as mindful.org and mindfulschools.org that provide certification, but
often these programs require fundamental courses and are generally background courses. Kabat-

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Zinn’s (2013) MBSR course instructors were required to practice mindfulness themselves for a
year prior to being able to even enroll in an instructor-level course. Broderick’s (2013) Learning
to BREATHE curriculum is the closest to addressing adolescent mindfulness, but still her
trainings are sporadic and not available widely. Therefore, it is important that educators who
have some form of mindfulness training work within their schools to establish a schoolappropriate curriculum that can be modified based off subgroups of students.
School districts operating on the belief that social-emotional learning are critical to the
benefit of student and staff must seize the opportunity to recommunicate their expectations to
their communities and to their main stakeholders. Holding parental meetings, sending out
information through social media, and inviting parents, students, and staff to come together in a
forum that permits a free exchange of ideas is essential to ensuring proper administration of a
mindfulness-based school mission.
School counselors are a vital part of the student wellness initiative. In this study,
counselors were not interviewed yet in the school district. Counselors were also briefly trained in
mindfulness through the same avenues as the health and physical education teachers. Many
counselors sought out professional development opportunities on their own. However, future
studies should focus on the combined practical applications of both the teachers and the
counselors as a team within a school district and examine both the attitudes and perceived effects
of mindfulness-based interventions on school-aged populations. Bohecker et al. (2014) found
that counselors can incorporate a nine-week Mindfulness Experiential Small Group (MESG)
curriculum to both meet the American Counselors Association’s (ACA) Code of Ethics and
exceed the Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW) and Council for Accreditation of
Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards.

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Appendix A
Review of the Literature

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Initially used by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1764, the etymology of
Phenomenology comes from a Greek origin "phainein" which means “to appear” (Yüksel &
Yıldırım, 2015). Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is considered the founder of phenomenological
research (Kafle, 2011; van Manen, 2016). Phenomenology is an umbrella term that includes both
a philosophical movement and a variety of research approaches (Kafle, 2011). Phenomenology
as a research method was founded in the 19th century as a counter thought to positivism (Reiners,
2012). The positivism paradigm exacerbated rationale based on measurable and objective ideals,
the fact that we can explain outcomes because we have the quantitative capability to do so. The
naturalists disagreed, and from their perspectives, certain outcomes were better understood
through individual and subjective realities (Reiners, 2012). Phenomenology is not concerned
with the technical or instrumental workings of a phenomenon, it seeks to understand the
ontological (nature of existence), epistemological (nature of knowledge), and axiological (nature
of values) workings (van Manen, 2016).
Husserl argued that phenomenology was not based on facts, but rather was concerned
with realities: "it... exclusively seeks to ascertain 'cognitions of essences' and no 'matters of
fact' whatsoever." (Husserl, 1983, p. xx). As such, Husserl believed that from a psychological
perspective, human beings should not be subjected to empirical methods because they lived
through external stimuli and did not have automatic responses (Moustakas, 1994). In light of
this, Husserl founded the transcendental approach to phenomenology and considered it to be
more appropriate than the scientific method (Eddles-Hirsch, 2015).
The following literature review will delve into the various methods of transcendental
phenomenology, hermeneutical phenomenology, answer questions about phenomenology, and
look at how phenomenology has been used as a tool in educational research. Next mindfulness

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will be reviewed along with mindfulness and education, mindfulness and teachers, and issues
with mindfulness in education.

Phenomenology
Transcendental Phenomenology
Husserl came to the realization that his version of research was based on a foundational
approach which sought correct answers (Allen, 1999). Looking at phenomena in the life world
and separating oneself from a reflective response to categorize or conceptualize is often taken for
granted as common sense (Husserl, 1970). For Husserl, the main focus of the study appeared
through consciousness, not meaning as: "He purported that minds and objects both occur within
experience, thus eliminating mind-body dualism” (Laverty, 2003, p.23).
Husserl divides phenomenon into two separate meanings: the objective experience of the
object (noema), and the experienced acts of consciousness (noesis) (van Manen, 2016). For
example, if students practiced meditation in health classes, the noema would be the sounds of the
teacher instructing them through a guided meditation, while the noesis would be the reactions
to how the students felt following the meditation. “In relation to science education we might
speak of the teacher's double focus in the learning situation: the attention is, on the one hand,
directed towards the subject itself, or the phenomena in nature and, on the other hand, towards
the students.” (Østergaard, Dahlin, & Hugo, 2008, p.97). Eddles-Hirsch (2015) confirms that
researchers must consider both the noema and the noesis to gain comprehension of participant
experiences.
In an effort to obtain true meaning from essences, Husserl claimed that an individual
needed to "bracket" out external stimuli and individual preconceived notions; this was an effort
to see the phenomenon clearly (Laverty, 2003). Other researchers have attempted to describe the

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bracketing process as an opportunity to set aside presuppositions about the inherent nature of
the phenomena to capture all the characteristics (Osborne, 1994).
There are issues with bracketing however, as Husserl contended that researchers are able
to understand essences “without inferring their concrete existence in the world” (LeVasseur,
2003, p. 412). If we were to examine the essences of quadrupeds and found that the essence of a
horse is similar to the essence of a unicorn, without acknowledging our own experiences of what
constitutes a real creature from a mythological creature, we would consider them both to exist
(LeVasseur, 2003). Van Manen (2016) suggests that the epoché (bracketing) is difficult because
our bodies and our minds are connected, we remember smells, touches, sounds, and once we
experience them ourselves, we are more likely to trigger memories; as such “[t]he
phenomenology of remembrances that are elicited from the things our lifeworld (leaves, bells, a
band, an image, a playground) are not necessarily under our control” (p. 218). LeVasseur (2003)
recommends that individuals are more likely to be open-minded when they are curious about
new knowledge, and therefore recommends adjusting our philosophical attitudes and in effect,
question our prior knowledge.

Hermeneutical Phenomenology
Hermeneutics is derived from the Greek word "hermeneuō", which means to translate,
or interpret (Klein, 2000, p.344). Just as art can be interpreted as beauty or ugliness from various
perspectives, hermeneutics as a method has been interpreted differently by various researchers
(Gadamer, 1975; van Manen, 2016). In the traditional sense, hermeneutics referred to
interpreting meaning from texts that have had various meanings, predominantly religious texts
(Kvale, 1996)."Like [transcendental] phenomenology, hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned
with the life world or human experience as it is lived." (Laverty, 2003, p.24). Hermeneutic

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phenomenology is a method (a way or attitude of approaching a phenomenon) of abstemious
(reflecting on experience to look to abstain from theoretical or emotional intoxications) reflection
on the simplest structures of the lived experience of human existence (van Manen, 2016). “It is
an interpretive endeavor and it therefore informed by hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation”
(Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, p.3). Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a student of Husserl's and
found himself disagreeing with the transcendental approach of "bracketing" whereby a
researcher disconnects from his own beliefs in order to understand a phenomenon (EddlesHirsch, 2015). Heideggar believed that phenomenology's purpose, when used as a method, was
for the researcher to interpret lived experiences rather than simply describe them from a
detached standpoint (van Manen, 2016).
While phenomenology encompasses a vast array of philosophies and beliefs,
hermeneutical phenomenology is a method of research in its own right. "It should be pointed out,
however, that all or much of phenomenology has hermeneutic (interpretive) elements—but not
all hermeneutics is phenomenology." (van Manen, 2016, p. 26). Hermeneutic phenomenology is
“concerned with how a phenomenon appears, and the analyst is implicated in facilitating and
making sense of this appearance.” (Smith et al., 2012, p. 28). Many researchers have tried to
present phenomenology as a single approach but failed to grasp the differences between the
various types of phenomenology (Eddles-Hirsch, 2015). Table 1 clarifies the major differences
between the two major phenomenological methods (Laverty, 2003; Matua & Van Der Wal,
2015; Reiners, 2012; van Manen, 2016).

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Table 4: Comparisons Between Transcendental and Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Comparisons Between Transcendental and Hermeneutic Phenomenology
Transcendental

Hermeneutic

Descriptive.

Interpretive.

Objective.

Subjective.

Absolute value.

Relative value.

Experiences come in attendance, perception,
recall, and thinking.
The study of the lived experience or
‘Lebenswelt’
Allows the development of a perspective
inclusive of external, physical, isolatable
stimuli

Experiences come from beings interacting
with their world.
The study of the lived experience or
‘Lebenswelt’
The researcher is integral to the research and
her previous understanding and knowledge
‘fore-structure’ helps interpretation

Focused on understanding "beings" and/or
"phenomena".

Focused on Dasein, or the mode of being
human. The relationship between
the human and the world.

Capturing the ‘essence’ of the phenomenon

Capturing the ‘essence’ of the phenomenon

Both a philosophy and a method of research.

A method of research.

Includes "bracketing" stimuli.

Relies on intrinsic awareness
that draws meaning from own constructs of
the experience.

Interested in subjects' descriptions of the
experiences.
Consciousness is possible to separate from the
self.
Does not rely on past.

Interested in subjects' interpretations of the
phenomena.
Consciousness and the self cannot be
separated.
Takes into account the history of the
lived experience.

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Questions in Phenomenology
Phenomenological questions arise when we have questions about the existence that cause
one to pause and reflect (van Manen, 2016). Heidegger (2010) said "Hence phenomenology
means: to let that shows itself be seen from itself, just as it shows itself from itself." (p.32).
Researchers have tried to define this statement and perhaps van Manen (2016) interprets it best
as "phenomenology aim to 'let show itself'" something that is "concealed or hidden"
(p.28). When researching a phenomenon, the researcher must first identify it, then describe it;
Creswell and Poth (2018) provide examples of phenomena in emotional states such as anger, or
social constructs such as professionalism. Standal’s (2014) study on adapted physical activity
participants explored the difficulties disabled persons felt when learning motor skills and
elucidated to the living in the situations they were in.
Phenomenology has been used to find meaning from ethics (Levinas, 1978), existence
(Sartre, 1956), gender (de Beauvoir, 2011), embodiment (Merleau-Ponty, 1962), sociology
(Schutz, 1970) and politics (Arendt, 1951). Phenomenological methods are more geared towards
finding the right questions than finding the right answers (van Manen, 2016). Phenomenon can
also describe bodily characteristics such as being obese or underweight or classify through
professional descriptors such as the meaning to be a teacher (Creswell & Poth, 2018). The next
section will examine phenomenological research in the context of education.

Phenomenology Research in Education
According to Creswell and Poth (2018) phenomenology may be considered too structured
by some researchers, but if a study should require it, then researchers should be well-versed in
some of the philosophical underpinnings of the method. Phenomenology is about the practice of
living and has been described as a human science (van Manen, 2016).

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It is viewed by many as a mode of philosophical inquiry (Randles, 2012) but also aims to
describe the phenomenon through detailed descriptions and interpretation (van Manen, 2016;
Randles, 2012). When looking specifically at phenomenological human science, as opposed to
philosophical phenomenology, there is a presence of certain empirical and analytical methods
that stem from the social sciences (van Manen, 2016).
Education is one of the most important elements that helps sustain societies and considers
the social order and histories of changes and innovations (Kozikoğlu, 2017). Phenomenology is
useful in educational contexts because researchers can get deeper into the analysis by interacting
deeply through the experiences and expressions of participants (Patton, 1987). In the field of
educational research, we are going back to the historical social sciences, and looking at human
behavior in a natural environment.
Phenomenological research is said to be a common approach when doing qualitative
studies, and places an emphasis on studying people (Creswell, 2014; Randles, 2012). Qualitative
researchers at times will put themselves into the study (Randles, 2012) which support
Spiegelberg’s (1975) claims that the spirit of doing phenomenological research resides in the
phenomena and experience itself. McEwan and McEwan (2003) explain the idea of qualitative
research in simple terms by giving it three main characteristics, it is: descriptive, focused on
meaning, and naturalistic. Randles (2012) supports this simplification by saying qualitative
research allows the researcher to remember what was most meaningful about the specific
phenomenon being studied.
In order for one to become a good researcher in hermeneutical phenomenology, one must
possess a zest for reading texts, particularly transcripts, deduce meaning out of anecdotes of
personal meaning, and be able to isolate themes (Sloan & Bowe, 2014). Phenomenology has
often been used by researchers to gather wide-angle looks into specific phenomenon, specifically

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educational situations such as composition and improvisation with children and curriculum
development (Randles, 2012), or to even look through a wider-angle lens to study and
understand student perspectives on a large college campus (Sohn, Thomas, Greenberg, & Pollio,
2017).
Any individual reading phenomenological research should be able to grasp why the
phenomenon is valuable and what constitutes its importance (Randles, 2012). A team of
researchers from the University of Tennessee give great support for phenomenological
educational research, referencing the following issues which have been studied using the
phenomenological research framework: underachieving students and the teachers in a K-12
setting, court-mandated adult education, transformative learning in a graduate seminar, the
student experience of other students, and the students' experiences of taking their first
standardized tests (Sohn et al., 2017). Each of these examples supports Randles' (2012)
commitment to the idea that phenomenology is a research methodology that is naturally linked to
practice.
Education is a field where all stakeholders are held accountable in their personal
practices, and these practices are often looked at through the lens of a researcher. The same
previously mentioned educational research team from the University of Tennessee, support the
efforts of educational research done through the phenomenology methods, pointing out the value
of the contributions of many contemporary scholars of phenomenology have made (Sohn et al.,
2017). When it comes to the field of education, Randles (2012) also supports the importance
of phenomenological research, stating, "It is hoped that this article will demonstrate to the field
where phenomenology has been useful and where it might be useful in the future." (p.9).
In a study conducted with entrepreneurship educators, a phenomenological method was
used to determine the experiences of those who were successful at fostering entrepreneurial skills

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in their students. The researcher found four themes that emerged: entrepreneurship ability in
teaching programs, the methods and techniques (pedagogy) used when transferring those skills,
the difficulties in transferring entrepreneurialism, and suggestions for improvement in
entrepreneurial education. Phenomenology was useful in this study of entrepreneurial educators,
because the eight participants interviewed claimed that those teachers who had experiences
opening up their own businesses tended to be better than those that did not. Among the various
reasons why entrepreneurs made better entrepreneurship educators included: the ability to
evaluate opportunities, perseverance, sociability, continuous development, taking initiative,
consistently prepared, and lifelong success—all of which were considered critical entrepreneurial
skills (Aladağ, 2017).
In recent years, science educators have increasingly begun to show interest in
phenomenology, especially since phenomenology is a method of research itself, researchers have
asked if teachers could combine the study of phenomena of natural sciences with the experiences
of those who observe the phenomena—the students, in their classes (Østergaard et al., 2008). A
branch of phenomenology called anthropological phenomenology adds another dimension to
science education with its combination of natural phenomena, cultural phenomena, and social
phenomena.
In a mixed-methods study involving social studies teachers and character education in
Turkey, the researcher utilized a phenomenological method to examine the experiences of
teachers who were required to prioritize values in lesson planning. However, when interviewed,
the several teachers believed that the Turkish Ministry of National Education was pushing
ideological values that were not reflective of the teachers’ own values and hence, did not provide
the necessary attention to developing ethical principles in young children (Katılmış, 2017). In the
same study, the quantitative methods combined with qualitative survey data yielded positive

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results that character education was indeed prioritized, however, from the phenomenological
interviews with the individual stakeholders, the values education component was falling short
because of the perceived ill-effects of ideological motives.
Phenomenology has also been used when examining technology usage. To understand
teacher techniques and educational technology skills, nine teachers volunteered to be interviewed
through open-ended semi-structured interviews, in addition, they were also asked to draw
concept maps of the various ways they implemented technology in their teaching practices. A
content analysis was conducted using Miles and Huberman’s (1984) three-stage technique of
data reduction, visualization of the data, and results and confirmation. Results of the
phenomenon indicated that while teachers indicated a liking to using non-electronic materials for
teaching, they found that using educational technology tools likely increased creativity in their
students. When probed further, the researchers found that teachers who were more likely to feel
they had less self-efficacy were more likely to use other materials instead of educational
technology. At the end of the study, teachers felt that while they possessed adequate levels of
educational technology skills, they found that: lesson design, classroom management, extensive
thinking, research skills, presentation skills, and a working knowledge of learning principles
were more likely to be elements of effective teaching than educational technology skills (OrhanKarsak, 2017).
The explanations of these phenomena in education provide rich descriptions from
participants’ experiences—deepening the layers of meaning (Randles, 2012). Educational
practitioners and researchers used phenomenology because it provides the necessary first-person
perspective rather than a third person account that is common in other scientific fields (Standal,
2014).

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Phenomenology and Teachers
The function of education hinges on the capacity for the teachers to fulfil their duties by
providing quality instruction and engagement (Kozikoğlu, 2017). We have often heard the
saying: “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” to demonstrate the concept of empathy. It would
be appropriate then to assume that if teachers ask their students to “do unto others” then they too
will urge their students to develop empathy. Phenomenology, when used as a practice for
understanding seeks to develop the empathetic traits in educational researchers. Phenomenology
as pedagogy was first advanced by van Manen (1993) when he put forth the three tenets of
pedagogical meaning: (1) being in touch with situations involving students, (2) orchestrating the
learning, and (3) handling situations with sensitivity. Goodwin (2009) provides an ideal example
of what teachers need to understand—the fact that understanding is not enough, and if educators
are to create an impact then they cannot come back to their practice the next day unchallenged by
experiencing the phenomena of these lived experiences. Teachers observe student learning on a
daily basis, however, just because students demonstrate this learning does not mean that teachers
can adequately pinpoint what about their experiences became successes. “Teacher competence in
teaching and learning is an important factor in determining the success of teaching.” (Kozikoğlu,
2017, p.64). Some researchers have implied that teachers may be the best researchers of teaching
and learning (Roberts, 1994).
Aladağ (2017) reminds us that although phenomena can appear in various forms and
show up as “events, experiences, perceptions, orientations, and situations in the world we live…
acquaintance does not mean we understand the facts.” (p.53). Researchers need to carefully
consider how their own understandings (or misunderstandings) could potentially alter the way
they administer and analyze research. Educators must become phenomenologists if they are to
advance their practices, particularly in the areas of students with challenges (Standal, 2014).

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“Teachers and instructors continue to assume that their view of the world is the students’ view of
the world and that they understand and know the needs and interests of their students” (Goodwin
& Watkinson, 2000, p.145). In an article titled Purple Suede Shoes (Fite, 1999), the author
recites reading a story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. While she read the story with
excitement and tried to engage the children, the children seemed perplexed by the purple suede
shoes she was wearing and lost attention. Twenty years later she reminds her readers and those
she prepared to become teachers—that children “see the world differently than adults do.” If
teachers are to be effective in the classroom, no matter what age, they must experience the world
as their students do.
By using the phenomenological methods, Kozikoğlu (2017) was able to experience what
prospective teachers viewed as the ideal teacher. The researcher defined the definition of the
phenomenon as the conceptual tools that teachers needed to be considered ideal. Thirty-six
(n=36) pre-service teaching majors at the Yüzüncü Yıl University were gathered from a
purposeful sample. Research for this study took four stages: (1) a non-ideal teacher interview, (2)
a placement of ideal and non-ideal teachers on a spectrum, (3) a writing task that asked teachers
to distinguish ideal characteristics from two-out-of-three qualified teachers represented, and (4) a
scoring of personal qualities that represent constructs for ideal teachers. Results from the study
yielded 356 separate constructs for what constituted an ideal teacher. Constructs such as effective
speech, effective communication and openness were organized as “communication skills. All
constructs were then distilled to create the essence of what an ideal teacher possessed:
communication skills, student-centeredness, innovativeness, and sensitivity.
There is much qualitative phenomenological research examining negative experiences
and claiming “change” to be the simple solution; while change is inherent in most
phenomenological research, particularly in pedagogy and curriculum, researchers need to also

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examine the practices of the model pedagogues to find what separates them from the rest
(Standal, 2014). Pedagogues are often more sensitive to those in the profession and have attuned
themselves to the lived experiences of their colleagues (van Manen, 1993).

Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the act of paying attention to one’s own surroundings and accepting
experiences while being fully present and aware throughout the day’s events (Jennings, 2015).
Mindfulness draws its roots from Eastern philosophy of mindful meditation and Buddhist
teachings (Compton & Hoffman, 2013). Followers of Buddhist teachings profess a holistic
philosophy that helps to develop a person’s sense of awareness, affect, and the opening of the
mind (Gates & Gilbert, 2016). Its opposite form is mindlessness, or an awareness associated with
inattention (Langer, 2014). Mindfulness can be practiced in a formal or informal fashion; formal
practices include: mindfulness meditation, attending to body sensations, and being aware of
sensations and thoughts, informal practices is when an individual weaves mindfulness into their
everyday being such as: mindfully eating, mindfully walking, mindfully showering, and having
mindful interactions (Meiklejohn et al., 2012). In a study that examined mindfulness practices in
teachers using an MBSR course adapted specifically for teachers using a randomized controlled
study design of a modified 8-week (~26-hour) intervention, the mindfulness intervention group
showed significant decreases in stress levels and burnout, with improvement in classroom
organization and performance when compared to the waitlisted control group. The intervention
group also showed a statistically significant decrease in cortisol production with increases in
psychological functioning (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, Bonus, & Davidson, 2013). With over 20
years of neuroscience, medical, and psychological research, teachers are just like the rest of the

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population—they can attain the benefits of reflective discipline with mindfulness practice
(Meiklejohn et al., 2012).
Mindfulness encompasses mindful breathing (Viafora, Mathiesen, & Unsworth, 2015),
mindful walking (Wolf et al., 2016), mindful meditation (Gates & Gilbert, 2016; Kabat-Zinn,
1993; 2013), and various other forms of activities and exercises (Broderick, 2013; Hassed &
Chambers, 2015; Jennings, 2015; Rechtschaffen, 2014) that demand cognitive practice.
Practitioners of mindfulness often tout the benefits ranging from clearer thinking (Gockel, 2015;
Shoshami, Steinmetz, & Kanat-Maymon, 2016), better self-awareness (Bernier, McMahon, &
Perrier, 2017; Bostic et al., 2015; Metz et al., 2013; Toomey & Anhalt, 2016;), and better moods
(Lau & Hue, 2011; Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015; Schwind et al., 2017) . In the early 1990’s, Jon
Kabat-Zinn, a medical doctor at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, performed
treatment on patients who had difficulty dealing with chronic pain, and found success with
mindful meditation and pain acknowledgment (Kabat-Zinn; 1993, 2013).
In today’s fast-paced world, resources often compete for our attention. As Levey and
Levey (2015) state, “[t]he very things that are supposed to save time and give us the opportunity
to relax and enjoy are too often the cause of hassle and worry.” (p.v). Of the 301 diseases
indexed in the Global Burden of Disease study, diseases associated with mental health heavily
influenced worldwide health accounting for 21.2% of years lived with a disability (Vos et al.,
2013). In the same study, depression and anxiety came in as the leading and second-leading
causes of mental health followed by schizophrenia. Depression was also a major cause of
disability in 26 countries, more so than back pain. Approximately one out of six adolescents
experience depressive episodes by the time they reach ages 15-16 (National Institute of Mental
Health, 2016).

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Mindful meditation is only one form of mindfulness, yet it allows a person to focus on his
or her breathing and bring it back to a natural rhythm which is useful in stressful situations
(Gates & Gilbert, 2016). Mindfulness practices such as meditation have been shown to affect
patterns of brain development in the hippocampus, and increase gray matter (Hernández, Suero,
Barros, González-Mora, & Rubia, 2016), as well as improve creativity and cognitive
flexibility—the mental ability to switch between different concepts (Müller, Gerasimova, &
Ritter, 2016). Examining the effects of mindfulness practices on depression (Chambers, Phillips,
Burr, & Xiao, 2016; Falsafi, 2016; Lau & Hue, 2011; Toomey & Anhalt, 2016), anxiety (Gouda,
Luong, Schmidt & Bauer, 2016; Lam, 2016, Quach, Jastrowski Mano, & Alexander, 2016), and
productivity (Flook et al., 2013) in education may assist instructors in classroom settings as well
as improve teaching practice. The purpose of this section in the review is to examine the effects
of mindfulness on various aspects of the educational environment including teaching and
learning, and its applications to improve learning.

Mindfulness and Learning
The research on mindfulness in cognitive psychology spans cognitive brain-based
science—the physiology of the brain and the capacity for memory and learning, positive
psychology—the role of happiness and positivity, and mindfulness concepts—the existential
development of self-awareness brought on by the practice of mindfulness. Learning to
disconnect and center one’s mind could be beneficial to production (Flook et al., 2013; Jennings,
2015). The awareness provoked by noticing sensations through certain mindful exercises such as
meditation have shown to increase left-sided prefrontal lobe activity as well as demonstrate
decreased hyperactivity in emotional areas of the brain (Bostic et al., 2015). A study involving
23 long-term practitioners of Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) were compared with 23 similar

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non-SYM participants in age and education; voxel-based morphometry revealed larger right
hemispheric brain areas such as the ventromedial orbitofrontal cortex, the insula, and the inferior
temporal lobe—areas which control affect and attention control (Hernández et al., 2016). The
topic of mindfulness has now spread far and wide with public institutions to private corporations
looking to attain better results from using mindful strategies. There are several recognized
mindfulness-based interventions available that are derived from various doctrines. Several
incorporate mindfulness, while in other programs, mindfulness is the key component, see Table
5.
Table 5: Available Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI)
Available Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBI)

Program

Doctrine

Mindfulness
Role

Format

Target
Population

Acceptance &
Commitment
Therapy (Hayes,
Strosahl, &
Wilson, 1999)

Eastern &
Western
psychological
approach to
well-being

Mindfulness
constitutes only
part of the
treatment

Individual &
group based.
Lasts 1 day or
up to 16 weeks

Originally
psychological
patients. Now
includes healthy
individuals with
stress.

MindfulnessBased Stress
Reduction
(Kabat-Zinn,
1982)

Eastern
philosophy and
psychological
approach

Mindfulness is
central to the
treatment
therapy

Group based.
Fixed duration
of 8-10 weeks.

Originally
psychiatric and
pain trauma.
Now includes
healthy
individuals with
stress.

Dialectical
Behavioral
Therapy
(Linehan, 1993)

Eastern &
Western
psychological
approach to
well-being

Mindfulness
constitutes only
part of the
treatment

Individual &
Psychiatric
group uses. Each borderline
stage lasts 1 year personality,
impulsivity, and
eating disorders.

MindfulnessBased Cognitive
Therapy (Segal,
Williams, &
Teasdale, 2002)

Eastern &
Western
psychological
approach to
well-being

Mindfulness is
central to the
treatment
therapy

Group based.
Fixed duration
of 8-10 weeks

Psychiatric and
chronic
depression.

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Mindfulness in Education
Mindfulness shares traits that are similar to other states of consciousness such as selfawareness (Leary, Adams, & Tate, 2006) and self-focused attention (Baer, Smith, Hopkins,
Krietemeyer, & Toney, 2006). Training students how to be aware is a skill, much like reading,
writing, speaking, and calculating (Francesconi & Tarozzi, 2012). Mindfulness can be taught
through three separate approaches: direct, programs that are directly implements to impact
students; indirect, informal activities developed by teachers who have their own mindfulness
practices; and a combination of the two (Meiklejohn et al., 2012).
Various mindfulness curricula are available to education practitioners; several have been
tested and have found promising results when used in a K-12 environment. Several authors have
published mindfulness curricula and academicians are able to modify certain aspects of selected
curriculum based on the populations of participants. These curricula are available both online
and in written, hard-copy format, and they have been tested in the field. Table 6 lists available
mindfulness curricula in K-12 education to date of the research report.

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Table 6: Available Mindfulness-Based Curricula For K-12 Education
Available Mindfulness-Based Curricula For K-12 Education
Program
Cultivating Awareness and
Resilience in EducationTM
(Jennings, 2015)

Grade Level

Method

Teachers
(indirectly
filters down to
all students in
classrooms)

A prosocial program that was designed by
educators and scientific advisors to
promote social and emotional competence
(SEC) in teachers. Practices are rooted in
classroom organization, instruction
support, and co-worker reinforcement.
Focus is on helping teachers attain a daily
mindfulness practice that will radiate
towards their students.

Learning to BREATHE
(Broderick, 2013)

7-12

Based on the MBSR method by KabatZinn (1982) students learn social and
emotional learning skills by using the
BREATHE acronym. The program can
last 6, 12, or 18 weeks.

Mindfulness in School Project
(MiSP, 2017)

9-12

Based on both the MBSR and MBCT
methods. A 9-week course that is infused
into regular daily lessons.

Pre-K-8

A complete social-emotional learning
(SEL) program based on the work of the
Collaborative of Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning (CASEL). Program
requires mindful breathing incorporated at
least 3 times per day either before or
during lessons.

(MindUP, n.d.)

Waters, Barsky, Ridd, and Allen (2015) make the argument that school curricula are
already overloaded and teachers must be able to target various standards, therefore any additions
must be meaningful. Traditional approaches to teaching mindfulness are usually “toolbox”
alternatives, like turnkey curricula or adding bits and pieces of mindfulness throughout units.
This approach, while common in education, may work with other units, but may not work in a
mindfulness setting (Meiklejohn et al., 2012).
A randomized controlled trial compared the effectiveness of the online MindUP
curriculum against Canada’s own Social Responsibility Program (SRP) on various biological and

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behavioral measures involving 99 students in grades four and five from four different schools in
a middle-to-upper middle class Canadian suburban neighborhood (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2015).
The SRP acted as the control treatment and resources and guidelines were provided to teachers
online from the British Columbia’s Ministry of Education and acted as a control condition.
While both the MindUP curriculum and SPR interventions shared common themes in promoting
acts of kindness and collectively engaging community, only the MindUP program incorporated a
daily breathing program (performed for three minutes) and promoted positive prosocial behavior
through social-emotion understanding, mindful smelling, mindful tasting, and positive mood
exercises. Researchers performed a battery of assessments: (1) the flanker tests which required
study participants to react to stimuli on a computer screen and change responses based on a
change in stimuli, (2) salivary cortisol tests measured three times daily (9 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and
2:30 p.m.), and (3) child self-assessments on personal perspectives, optimism, social
responsibility, empathy, and mindfulness. Other measures included perceptions by peers as well
as an achievement measure through a summative mathematics assessment. Over the course of
four months, the study found statistically significant positive behavioral and cognitive changes
in MindUP children in comparison to the SRP children. MindUP treatment intervention
produced significant improvements in self-reported measures of well-being, and self- and peerreported prosocial behavior. The children in the MindUP treatment intervention demonstrated
better math performance relative to children who received the SRP treatment. Cortisol in both
treatment groups did not show significant differences between the two groups.
Mindfulness was cultivated in 9-to-13-year-old at-risk children from seven separate
fourth-to-sixth grade classrooms at an elementary school in Hong Kong (Lam, 2016).
Participants were selected based on anxiety and depression scales, and strengths and difficulties
self-reported questionnaires. Both parents and students filled out questionnaires, and 20 students

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were selected to participate in the nine-week intervention. The procedure involved two-stage
screening aimed at identifying children with subclinical levels of internalizing problems. The
intervention consisted of randomization into a pre- and post-treatment group or a waitlist control
group. The MBCT program was adapted from Segal, Williams, and Teasdale’s (2002)
framework for adults, and was administered after school hours. Results indicated that the
treatment group experienced moderate effect sizes compared to the control group in reducing
anxiety syndromes and decreasing problem internalization. The treatment group measured small
effect sizes compared to the control group in youth depressive symptoms. Statistically significant
differences regardless of group were reported for panic, generalized anxiety, and obsessivecompulsiveness. Lasting effects were measured three months after the intervention.
Stress and mental health issues do not end when students graduate from secondary
schools; mindfulness studies demonstrate the benefits that college educators may replicate in
their own learning environments. In an exploratory study, researchers at Ryerson University
recruited 52 graduate and undergraduate students and offered instructor-guided mindfulness
practices over eight weeks to examine whether mindfulness-based exercises assisted students
with higher levels of engagement and lower stress levels (Schwind et al., 2017). The students
were encouraged to partake in exercises at home for 5-to-15 minutes of mindful breathing 4-5
times a week and keep a log of their experiences. At the end of the intervention, the participants
were invited back for interviews in small focus groups, only 25% of the students consented
(n=13). When interviewers asked questions such as: “Describe your experience of engaging in
mindfulness practice,” (p.94) “How did brief mindfulness practices impact your academic work,
your clinical practice, and your sense of well-being?” (p.94) “What were the facilitators/barriers
to engaging in mindfulness practice?” (p.94) respondents generally stated: “It helped with
managing stress,” (p.94) “I felt more relaxed,” (p.94) “Great way to start the day,” (p.94) and “It

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helped me deal with school” (p.94) respectively. At the end of the study, the students
subjectively rated their instructors’ demeanor as one of the elements that influenced the way the
students felt during sessions. Students found varying difficulty with practicing mindfulness at
home due to workload and other obligations. However, the mindfulness intervention has shown
to be a positive experience for the students overall and found similar positive effects of
mindfulness on both the teaching and learning processes.
Yang and Goralski (2016) sought to understand how mindfulness concepts taught in
undergraduate and graduate business courses affected students’ stress levels and examined
whether students could incorporate it into their daily lives. Using qualitative feedback, two
instructors administered a pre-course survey four weeks into the semester that asked four
questions: “To what extent were you familiar with the notion of mindfulness before taking this
course?” (p.18) “What was your first impression of mindfulness?” (p.18) “What is your current
understanding of mindfulness?” (p.18) “What changes have you noticed in your life for the past
four weeks?” (p.18). During the course, students were required to complete journals and attempt
to work towards creating mindful habits. The authors then followed up at the end of the semester
and asked four similar questions: “Upon having almost completed a course on mindfulness, what
is your most current understanding of mindfulness?” (p.18) “What has been the most difficult
aspect for you in understanding the concept of mindfulness?” (p.18-19) “What has been the most
difficult aspect for you in practicing mindfulness meditation?” (p.19) and “What changes have
you noticed in your life for the past fifteen weeks?” (p.19). The authors also performed an
examination of meditation journals, essays, and research papers, to conclude that using a
pedagogical approach to mindfulness may be effective in helping students maintain personal
health and well-being under rapidly changing environmental pressures. The pressures of
advancing through higher education can be stressful to undergraduate, graduate, and transfer

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students. Students in the study indicated that stress came from hectic work and study schedules,
constant connectivity to social networks, and the pressures of maintaining open communication
through school and work email. Students found however, that while incorporating mindfulness
practice was difficult initially, it eventually became helpful later on in the semester once it was
an ingrained habit. If colleges and universities can provide their students the tools to manage
anxiety and emotional changes, the institutions will increase the probability that students will
finish on time.

Mindfulness and Teachers
Teachers need to have the skills that allow them to continuously develop and possess the
skills that society needs as changing times require an evolution of instruction (Kozikoğlu, 2017).
Futhermore, Meiklejohn et al. (2012) recommend that teachers need to be given methods for
attaining good executive function because work environments can be stressful. Research
involving teachers who implement mindfulness practices in their own lives and classrooms are
an important consideration. Often the atmosphere and the quality of the learning environment is
a direct result of classroom management and in establishing a culture of learning (Danielson,
2007). Thus, teachers must first embody the traits of mindfulness in order to be empowered to
teach mindfulness (Meiklejohn et al. 2012).
Mindfulness has been explored with both students and teachers, however, Gates and
Gilbert (2016) have begun working with school leaders to develop five attributes which are
believed to be mindfulness-based training: (1) attention to the present, (2) receptivity to
experience, (3) proclivity to question, (4) cultivation of compassion, and (5) responding with
wisdom. Incorporating mindfulness into teaching practice provides twice the benefits to
educational stakeholders, particularly those who are learners. Educational leaders need to

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acknowledge that mindfulness can be taught in educational institutions and research is trending
towards positive improvements in learning and cognition. (Lanestrand, 2012; Martin, 2018;
McConville, McAleer, & Hahne, 2016; Stillman, You, Seaman, Vaidya, & Howard, 2016).
Gouda et al.’s (2016) prospective cohort pilot study used a controlled waitlist design and
involved 29 students (n=15 intervention; n=14 waitlist) and 29 teachers (n=14 intervention;
n=15 waitlist) assigned into either an intervention or control group. Both groups were
administered MBSR courses with the control group receiving the same treatment as the
intervention group four months earlier. Both groups were given pre- and post-intervention
questionnaires measuring self-reported mindfulness (Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory, Walach,
Buchheld, Buttenmüller, Kleinknecht, & Schmidt, 2006), stress (Perceived Stress Questionnaire,
Fliege, Rose, Arck, Levenstein, & Klapp, 2001), anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and
Depression Scale, Herrmann-Lingen, Buss, & Snaith, 2005), test anxiety (Test Anxiety
Inventory, Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1999), self-efficacy (General Self Efficacy Scales, Schwarzer
& Jerusalem, 1999), self-regulation (Self-Regulation Scale, Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1999),
emotional regulation (Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire, Berking & Znoj, 2008),
interpersonal competences (Inventory of Interpersonal Problems, Horowitz, Alden, Wiggins, &
Pincus, 2000), openness (NEO Five-Factor Inventory, Borkenau & Ostendorf, 1993), creativity
(Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production, Urban & Jellen, 1995), and work engagement
(Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) . Results found that relative to the
control group, students in the intervention group experienced statistically significant
improvements in self-reported stress, self-regulation, and school-specific self-efficacy. In the
same study, teachers in the intervention group reported significantly higher levels of selfreported mindfulness and a reduction in interpersonal problems when compared with the
waitlisted control group. The study showed medium effect sizes for mindfulness, anxiety, and

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creativity for students in the intervention group, and medium effect sizes on anxiety and
emotional regulation in the teacher intervention groups.
With much of the research centered on adult patients, children in K-12 settings, or
graduate students, Meiklejohn et al. (2012) performed a comparative study of three programs
that help teachers specifically deal with work-related stress: Mindfulness-Based Wellness
Education (MBWE), Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE), and Stress
Management and Relaxation Techniques (SMART) in Education. These programs, however,
focus more on non-didactic modes of mindfulness (an indirect approach) rather than empower
teachers with the training to teach skills directly to students. The research found that while these
mindfulness-based programs are accepted methods of stress reduction for adults, suggestions on
the merit of integration and acceptance of mindfulness-based programming needed to objectively
assess the rigor of existing research, integrate the current research into existing programs and
evaluate and publish findings, design longer experimental trials, conduct more interventions
across a broad range of mental health populations, determine the relationships between what is
valued and what is evaluated in a school setting, and finally, being able to integrate teacher and
student mindfulness wellness programs to help broaden the appeal, efficacy, and scalability of
these programs, only then will these programs get the much-needed support they need to help
individuals flourish professionally and personally (Meiklejohn et al., 2012).

Issues with Mindfulness in Education
Education continues to be one of the most stressful fields with most new teachers leaving
the profession (Paris, 2013). Developing professional teachers with adequate teaching practices
is paramount to being able to increase teacher motivation, professionalism, empowerment, and
autonomy while at the same time decreasing burnout and stress (Pearson & Moomaw, 2005).

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Much of the mindfulness research in K-12 education is problematic, some issues include:
small sample sizes (Franco et al., 2016; Fung, Guo, Jin, Bear, & Lau, 2016; Lam, 2016; Lau &
Hue, 2011; Toomey & Anhalt, 2016), lack of diversity (Falsafi, 2016; Schwind et al., 2017;
Waters et al., 2015), poor experimental designs (Wolf et al., 2016; Yang & Goralski, 2016), short
treatment durations (Cavanagh, Vartanian, Herman, & Polivy, 2014; Lau & Hue, 2011), or poor
facilitation (Schwind et al., 2017). These issues make it difficult to generalize results and call
into question the validly and reliability of the research methods. Several studies also provided
self-reporting assessment (Coholic & Eys, 2015; Falsafi, 2016; Fung et al., 2016; Gouda et al.,
2016; Metz et al., 2013; Yang & Goralski, 2016) which call into question reliability of the
measures.
Another element that may subject the research to more scrutiny is that mindfulness
research has its roots in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism. Kabat-Zinn (2003) remarks that if we
are to take mindfulness and meditation seriously, we need to separate it from religion and work
to make it a non-secular routine. Even those who are not religious may have issues with
attending contemplative centers because of the association with East Asian language,
iconography, and an undercurrent of Buddhist teachings (Cullen, 2011).
Very few mindfulness studies focus on the daily effects of mindfulness or even the
follow-up of mindfulness effects post-intervention (Creswell, 2017). Jayawardene, Lohrmann,
Erbe and Torabi (2017) recommend that researchers “include a follow-up period postintervention for all groups with adequate reporting of information, including intervention
participants' continuing practice of learned mindfulness exercises” (p.158). In one study
involving the positive effects of mindfulness on sleep-deprived teacher populations, mindfulness
effects from intervention began to fade after a three-month follow-up (Crain, Schonert-Reichl, &
Roeser, 2017). This is on par with a systematic review examining 15 facets of wellness which

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included: mindfulness, burnout, stress, psychological distress, depression, occupational selfcompassion, quality of sleep, relaxation, anxiety, occupational stress, life satisfaction, mood,
efficacy in regulating emotions at work, self-efficacy and locus of control, and work
engagement; researchers similarly found that of 23 studies only 14 studies tested short-term
effects, while only six studied short-to-midterm effects no longer than four months; only three
studies did the follow-up measures to one year (Janssen, Heerkens, Kuijer, Engels, & van der
Heijden, 2018). The implications are problematic because all employers should want their
employees to be in peak mental and emotional condition. Since most careers do not revolve
around an eight-week to four-month work season, it is imperative that longer term studies greater
than one year that incorporate measures at regular intervals be administered.
Some researchers have cited that the reason mental health practices have not been
accounted for in public education is that “achieving health outcomes is not the core business of
schools” (Rowling, 2009, p.358). However, because adolescence is a key stage in human
development, and because K-12 education is mandatory in all 50 states, schools should take the
opportunity to lead the charge against mental health disorders that can debilitate their student
populations (Dupéré et al., 2018). Greenberg, Domitrovich Weissberg, and Durlak (2017) finds
that schools can become the solution to a public health crisis slowly looming. Essentially,
schools are the critical link between childhood and adulthood that could potentially thwart
greater health consequences later in life.
The problem, however, exists with the lack of training and continued support. Educators
who look to implement mindfulness programs must carefully consider whether the program will
be sustainable and used appropriately within a school context (Lawlor, 2014). Several models of
mindfulness-based curriculum are only available for certain grades. The needs of one school may
also differ from the needs of another within the same school district. There are ongoing

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predicaments with the timing of mindfulness-based approaches, developmental considerations,
and instructor training, experience, and competency (Greenberg, 2010). “To develop mindfulness
however—a process of human development—is not like other cookie cutter curriculums that can
be learned in a day, outlined in a resource guide and then be brought into a classroom using a
transmissive approach” (Meiklejohn et al., 2012, p.297).
The systemic curriculum may also become an obstacle when teaching mindfulness in the
classroom. As additional content has made its way into the lesson planning, teachers may find
that there is less time to cover material required for standardized testing and exams. In an
entrepreneurship phenomenological study, teachers cited that they do not hone the
entrepreneurial skills of their students in particular areas (such as critical thinking and problemsolving) because the content they must cover is greater than the allotted time (Aladağ, 2017).
This is similar to Katılmış’ (2017) who reported that teachers often found it difficult to infuse
values education into their lessons because of a “busy curriculum”.
While the field of mindfulness in education continues to grow, Lawlor (2014) states that
teachers need to be continual consumers of research and become critical consumers prior to
implementing any programs. Teachers also have an obligation to both the students and the
district by ensuring that content knowledge and pedagogy are up-to-date and reflect current best
practices: “Teachers do seem to have a professional obligation to be cognizant of research that
would claim to offer new knowledge about the tasks that they are engaged in” (Roberts, 1994,
p.25). Only when teachers take an initiative of their own training will they truly be able to assist
the students they serve.

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Conclusion
Both Husserl and Heidegger were instrumental in bringing phenomenology to the
mainstream researchers and unlike other research methods, phenomenology is often difficult to
understand when utilizing it for the first time (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015). There are two popular
methods of phenomenological research: transcendental (descriptive) and hermeneutics
(interpretive). Smith, Flowers, and Larkin (2012) make a compelling argument that researchers
using interpretive phenomenology engage in double hermeneutics because they are often trying
to make sense of the phenomena while also trying to make sense of the participants while the
participants themselves are also making sense of the phenomena. Both forms of phenomenology
try to find the essence of the phenomenon. “This means that ultimately, phenomenology is
something you must do, as an inner activity, and it is the reason why Husserl often said that one
could not really understand his philosophy by merely reading it” (Østergaard et al., 2008, p.9596).
The comprehension of phenomena is important because it allows an individual to become
practical (van Manen, 2016). Educators make strong phenomenological researchers because they
are in classrooms that mix the lived experiences of other stakeholders. Roberts (1994) finds that
teachers are some of the best researchers particularly in the learning process. Goodwin (2009)
suggests that teachers need to see the world the way their students do and presses for greater
understanding and empathy on behalf of the students. By performing phenomenological research
in educational settings, phenomenology is not only being applied as a philosophy, but becomes
an actionable methodology that pedagogical practices may be built upon (Standal, 2014).
Mindfulness is the skill of understanding how your mind embodies consciousness, Francesconi
and Tarozzi (2012) define this as: learning consciousness and give credit to the

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phenomenological method as a way to improve the bodily experiences. As a practice,
mindfulness has been in existence since some religions and cultural traditions use it build upon
authentic, kind, and insightful experiences (Rechtschaffen, 2014). Recently the mindfulness
movement has gained traction among K-12 and higher education for its mental, emotional, and
physical benefits. Metacognition, positivity, nonjudgement, and self-regulation are all critical to
the learning process among the full spectrum of students. Mindfulness practice has shown
positive results with memory development, retention, resilience, and is even successful as a
behavioral intervention for at-risk and vulnerable adolescents. Increases in cognitive functioning
and improved emotional regulation translate into higher levels of well-being, social competence,
and academic achievement (Waters et al., 2015). The benefits that come from decreased levels of
stress, anxiety, and depression are measurable and replicable.
What people learn during meditative courses, for instance, is nothing miraculous, but
something very concrete and pragmatic, that is, the way to stay in the lebenswelt; people
usually learn to look at the world in a different way, to perceive differently, to improve
their intentional skills, changing their gaze, and so switching from experience to lived
experience, where the subject is fully present and can better appreciate what is going on
(Francesconi & Tarozzi, 2012, p.273).
Studies involving both a student and teacher population is useful because it demonstrates
how mindfulness-based interventions can target all stakeholders in a school setting (Gouda et al.,
2016). Changing attitude and behavior is often the role of an educator or school-based counselor,
often this cannot be achieved without support from home or external sources. K-12 teachers face
a plethora of stressors every day, yet few are given the training to deal with such issues
(Meiklejohn et al., 2012). Studies such as Lam’s (2016) are viable because it examines schoolbased mindfulness beyond school hours. In Schwind et al.’s (2016) study, course facilitators

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mentioned to researchers they felt mindfulness practice supported students as they dealt with
potentially difficult course topics, or how it helped students engage more completely in the
subject. Feedback should also be required from teachers and facilitators of mindfulness,
particularly since each course or caseload works with participants from differing backgrounds.
Phenomenology and education go hand-in-hand as teachers are often reminding students
to “bracket” their own beliefs and remain open-minded (Moustakas, 1994). Teachers are
considered experts in their classrooms and the masters of the content they teach, it is therefore
also imperative for the purposes of professional development and improvement that teachers are
held to the same standards of remaining open-minded. Some may state that the concept of the
epoché is not relevant to education because the teacher’s role in the learning process is
constantly evolving and as teachers their experiences are just as critical to the student learning
process as the students’ experience. Moustakas (1994) reminds us that since teachers are in a
position of power, “power affects the relationship to self and others” (p. 63) and teachers
inherently have the capabilities to exert influence, knowledge, and control over others.

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Appendix B
Problem Statement

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In today's educational arena, teachers are given responsibilities that encompass dozens of
tasks that reach far outside the scope of instruction of content area material. They are responsible
for planning and facilitating lessons in their respective subject matter, assisting students who
have varying degrees of academic and social ability, disciplining students who
are negatively impacting the classroom environment, interacting with guidance counselors and
parents, and also are seen as valuable assets when promoting student engagement and wellbeing (Kyte, 2016). In addition to this extensive list, teachers are constantly being asked to take
on new workloads and challenges such as new school-wide initiatives yet are rarely given the
tools and training to be confident and effective, thus promoting negative experiences. These
negative experiences can cause teacher burnout, which is a problem for the individual teacher, as
well as the students, and the entire school district (Avanzi et al., 2018).
A very promising initiative in schools to enhance the teacher experience, while also
positively impacting students—is the implementation of a mindfulness curriculum, as it has the
capability to promote the well-being and personal experiences of all stakeholders within a school
(Meiklejohn et al., 2012). Forty years of mindfulness research, a component of positive
psychology, shows it can improve the social-emotional and academic growth of teachers and
their students (Davenport & Pagnini, 2016). The support for mindfulness programs in
schools is growing, but with increased enthusiasm, it is critical that teachers are given the
support they need so they can successfully teach such curriculum. If individuals do not believe
they have the skills to be successful, they will struggle committing to their work tasks, and the
quality and amount of mental effort put in will also be affected (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Teacher's wanting to influence their students need to be confident in their subject matter
as well as motivated to teach it. Teachers with higher self-efficacy have shown they are more
open to new ideas and willing to experiment with new teaching methods to positively affect

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student learning (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). The problem addressed in this study was the
lack of clear information on teacher training and strategies used to effectively teach mindfulnessbased stress reduction (MSBR). This problem was important to address because without proper
implementation of mindfulness-based interventions, all stakeholders cannot reap the benefits of
the content.

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Appendix C
Additional Methods

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Appendix C1
Letter of Approval from the Superintendent

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Hunterdon Central Regional High School
84 Route 31, Flemington, New Jersey 08822-1239
Main Number:
(908) 782-5727
9/10 Campus FAX: (908) 788-6745
11/12 Campus FAX: (908) 284-7230

Suzanne J. Cooley
Principal

From: Dr. Jeffrey Moore, Ed.D. Superintendent
Email: jeffrey.moore@hcrhs.org
Date: Thursday, February 8, 2018
To: Institutional Review Board
School of Graduate Studies and Research
California University of Pennsylvania
250 University Avenue
California, PA 15419

Dear Cal U IRB,
The purpose of this letter is to grant Kaman Hung, at the California University of
Pennsylvania permission to conduct research at Hunterdon Central Regional High School. The
project titled, “Pedagogical Practices Employed Among Public School Health & Physical
Education Teachers Implementing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to Adolescents: A
Phenomenological Study” entails examining the different teaching methods, practices, and
experiences of health and physical education teachers in the context of their own classrooms
when it comes to mindfulness-based stress reduction.
It will involve one-on-one interviews and observations with health and physical
education teachers. Teachers will be asked a series of questions permitting the researcher to gain
an understanding of their current mindfulness practices, and they will be observed on how these
practices are infused into the curriculum, and how the teachers experience mindfulness in
pedagogy.
After review of the study protocol, I do hereby grant permission for Kaman Hung to
conduct the research title “Pedagogical Practices Employed Among Public School Health &
Physical Education Teachers Implementing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to Adolescents:
A Phenomenological Study” at Hunterdon Central Regional High School.
Sincerely,

Dr. Jeffrey Moore, Ed.D.
Superintendent

National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence

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Appendix C2
IRB Review Request

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Proposal Number
Date Received

IRB Review Request
Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval is required before beginning any research and/or data
collection involving human subjects
Submit this form to instreviewboard@calu.edu or Campus Box #109

Project Title: Pedagogical Practices Employed Among Public School Health & Physical Education Teachers
Implementing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to Adolescents: A Phenomenological Study
Researcher/Project Director: Kaman Christopher Hung
Phone #

(848)-219-5459

E-mail Address

Faculty Sponsor (if researcher is a student)

hun5255@calu.edu

Dr. Carol Biddington (biddington@calu.edu)

Department Exercise Science and Sport Studies
Anticipated Project Dates

April 2018

to

April 2019

Sponsoring Agent (if applicable)
Project to be Conducted at
Project Purpose:

HCRHS School District
Thesis
Research

Class Project

þOther/ dissertation

Keep a copy of this form for your records.
Required IRB Training

All researchers must complete an approved Human Participants Protection training course. The training
requirement can be satisfied by completing the CITI (Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative) online course
at http://www.citiprogram.org New users should affiliate with “California University of Pennsylvania” and select
the “All Researchers Applying for IRB Approval” course option. A copy of your certification of training must be
attached to this IRB Protocol. If you have completed the training within the past 3 years and have already provided
documentation to the IRB, please provide the following:
Previous Project Title
Date of Previous Project IRB Approval

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SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT
1. Provide an overview of your project-proposal describing what you plan to do and how you
will go about doing it. Include any hypothesis(ses)or research questions that might be
involved and explain how the information you gather will be analyzed. All items in the
Review Request Checklist, (see below) must be addressed.
Mindfulness falls under the umbrella of social and emotional learning (SEL). In many
school districts this is part of character education. The purpose of this study is to examine the
mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based interventions and mindfulness-based stress
reduction practices into their pedagogy and gain insight into a teacher’s lived experiences.
Using a qualitative phenomenological approach, the research will seek to answer these
questions and distill them down into the essence of how mindfulness is experienced by health
and physical education teachers who are required to teach it:
Q1. What content do teachers use when teaching mindfulness?
Q2. What mindfulness methods of delivery, length and frequency of delivery do these
teachers use?
Q3. How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?
The research plans to interview between 5 and 20 teachers on how they infuse
mindfulness into the school’s evolving 21st century curriculum. The interviews will take
place in-person between April 2018 and June 2018 on school grounds either during lunch or
afterschool periods to minimize distractions and permit teachers the use of their preparation
“prep” time. Interviews will last between 30-50 minutes and will follow a semi-structured
format. These interviews will be audio recorded and transcribed.
The qualitative research will:
Examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based interventions and mindfulnessbased stress reduction practices into their pedagogy and gain insight into a teacher’s lived
experiences
Methods & Research Design:
The study will employ a qualitative transcendental phenomenological design which will
take place on-site at the High School. The school is predominantly white, suburban school
district, with above average socio-economic development—the generalizability of this study
is therefore limited to those same school districts with similar demographics.
Health and physical education teachers in the 9th and 10th grade were trained on MBSR
techniques using the Learning to BREATHE (Broderick, 2013) curriculum in the summer of
2017 during professional in-service days. All teachers across the 9th and 12th grade health and
physical education staff have been provided the same content for curricular and instructional
purposes.
The participants involved in this study will be 20 health and physical education teachers
ranging from 2 to 35 years in experience and range from 23 to 56 years old. These teachers
are course instructors for a variety of health and physical education courses beginning in 9th
grade: human sexuality, drug, alcohol, and nutrition education; 10th grade: driver’s education
and European team sports; 11th grade, junior health education and individual sports and
fitness; to 12th grade: senior health education and adventure education. Health and physical
education teachers are broken down into teams of five with some teachers teaching across
multiple grade levels and one designated teacher working with the adapted physical
education course.

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The study will examine the different teaching methods, practices, and experiences of
health and physical education teachers in the context of their own classrooms when it comes
to MBSR.
Procedures
The research will take the various steps to complete: (1) the researcher has obtained
permission from the superintendent of the school district to perform interviews and
observations of teachers only. (2) The researcher will send an email requesting volunteers.
The researcher is looking to get at least 12 participants to volunteer to be interviewed and
observed. (3) The researcher will obtain written informed consent from each participant. (4)
The researcher will conduct the research in a primary interview, secondary interview,
classroom observation, tertiary interview format for each teacher. Interviews will be recorded
and confidentiality of those interviews will be discussed with each participant.
(5) The first interview will collect biographical data and pre-existing knowledge on
mindfulness practice and personal experiences and set to collect data for the first research
question: “What content do you use for teaching mindfulness”. (6) The second interview will
ask questions on delivery, length, and frequency, as well as the implementation, and personal
impact of teaching mindfulness. The second interview seeks to answer the second and third
research questions of: “What mindfulness methods of delivery, length, and frequency of
delivery to you use?” and “How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your
teaching?”
(7) The observation will take the form of field notes and only the actions, statements, and
questions performed by a teacher will be written down. No audio or video recording will
occur. The notes will be written into a narrative format and coded along with the
transcriptions of the interviews during phenomenological analysis.
The direct comments and activity will then be summarized into a separate column for data
management and coding purposes.
(8) The third interview is the final interview and will occur after the first two interviews
and the observation. The third interview is more reflective in nature and seeks to answer all
three research questions once again with the intent of going deeper while the participant
reflects on his or her first two interviews and observed classroom lesson. It will ask the
participant to reflect on his or her own growth and evolution as a mindfulness-based
practitioner.
The one-on-one interviews with health and physical education teachers will permit the
researcher to gain an understanding of their current mindfulness practices and how these
practices are infused into the curriculum as well as their personal and professional
development as a mindfulness-based practitioner. Various teachers employ different
techniques from a variety of curricula since the school district provides flexibility to use
whatever methods educators deem acceptable. Teachers will also be asked to be observed for
one class during which mindfulness-based interventions are employed.
Teachers have a number of resources available to them including professional
development on mindfulness-based stress reduction strategies specifically geared to high
school-aged students and personal well-being.
Data Analysis:
The data analysis will be conducted using Moustakas’ (1994) approach which follows
three phases: phenomenological reduction, imagination variation, and essence.
Prior to beginning: “Bracketing” and familiarization with the data.

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The researcher will have to “bracket” his own personal beliefs, prejudgments, and
predispositions and create an epoché so that this does not conflict with the data reduction.
Verbal data will need to be transcribed word-for-word into a database or spreadsheet
document that is easily searchable.
Phenomenological Reduction. This approach requires that responses be electronically
recorded and then follows a seven-step order:
Step 1: Horizontalization and listing all relevant expressions. Once interviews have
been transcribed, the primary researcher will horizontalize the data and highlight “significant
statements,” sentences, and/or quotes that will provide some insight on mindfulness
pedagogy. Yüksel and Yıldırım (2015) state that all information should be treated with equal
value. During this stage, researchers will remove any expressions that are irrelevant to the
study.
Step 2: Reduction of experiences. The horizontal statements must be split into
meaningful units so that each statement only has one identifying theme. Creswell (2013)
refers to meaning units as themes.
Step 3: Thematic clustering. The next stage in the data analysis process will be to cluster
those statements according to themes in an effort to find meaning. This step is defined by
Moustakas (1994) as the “core themes of the experience” (p.121).
Step 4: Comparison of multiple data sources. This stage involves comparing the
thematic clusters with field notes from observations or other data (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015).
Since this study will use observations, then this stage would be relevant to ensure that data
sources are accurate and relevant. This step will also assist with the study’s validity.
Step 5: Crafting individual textural descriptions. Once these themes are produced, the
fifth step will involve a summary or textural description of what participants experienced. At
this stage, the researcher will write a description of what was experienced by the participants
in the study (Creswell, 2013).
Imagination Variation. This phase is also called a structural description and it involves
how participants experienced the phenomenon in terms of the conditions, situations, or
context (Creswell, 2013, p.60).
Step 6: Crafting structural textural descriptions. During this step the researcher will
provide a structural description—this includes context cues that are taken from the
environment that influence how participants may experience mindfulness in their classrooms,
these are based off the atmosphere of the environment and it is interpreted by the researcher.
According to Moustakas (1994), this involves examining all possible meanings, looking at
different perspectives, and changing frames of references about the phenomenon. Essentially,
this is a description of how the phenomenon occurred (Creswell, 2013). In the context of this
study, the researcher will provide organizational and spatial descriptors of the mindfulness
sessions.
Step 7: Construction of composite structural descriptions. During this stage the
researcher will combine both the individual and the structural textural descriptions to
formulate a composite description (Creswell, 2013).
Essence. During this stage, the descriptions are synthesized into an expression and distills
all the narratives of the experiences into a whole (Yüksel & Yıldırım, 2015). The essence of a
phenomenon includes: epoché or bracketing, significant statements, meaning units, textural
descriptions, and structural descriptions (Creswell, 2013).
Validity and Reliability
Creswell and Poth (2018) recommend that for reliable data analysis to occur, the
researcher must “[include] others beyond the researcher and those involved in the research”

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(p. 262). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) state that “Strategies that a qualitative research can use
to ensure consistent and dependability or reliability are triangulation, peer examination,
investigators position, and the audit trail.” (p. 252). Creswell and Poth (2018) explain that an
audit trail is the ability of the researcher to enable an external audit by a general consultant
or auditor that has no connection to the study. This particular party would provide feedback
on whether the methods and the data support the conclusion of the study (Creswell & Poth,
2018).
This study will utilize Creswell and Poth’s (2018) “reliability and perspectives
procedures” (p. 264-266). First the researcher will have to establish a common platform for
coding and develop a preliminary code list. Next the researcher will include additional
support with a codebook and share the codebook among coders. For the third step, the
researcher will apply the codebook across additional transcripts, and compare coding across
multiple researchers. The fourth step will involve the researcher to assess and report the
intercoder agreement among researchers. Because of the ongoing nature and evolution of
the data analysis it is important to revise and finalize the codebook to inform further coding.
Triangulation is the process of using multiple sources of data to allow for cross-checking—
this study incorporates multiple interviews and observations from various participants.

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2. Section 46.11 of the Federal Regulations state that research proposals involving human
subjects must satisfy certain requirements before the IRB can grant approval. You should
describe in detail how the following requirements will be satisfied. Be sure to address each
area separately. (text boxes will expand to fit responses)
a. How will you insure that any risks to subjects are minimized? If there are potential risks,
describe what will be done to minimize these risks. If there are risks, describe why the
risks to participants are reasonable in relation to the anticipated benefits.
There are minimal potential risks to the participants. Teachers are pressured in no way to
participate in the study and may choose not to be interviewed.
The one-on-one interviews may produce a sense of discomfort particularly with questions
that ask about teacher practice. Teachers may not feel comfortable sharing their
techniques or may wish to understand if the data/transcriptions from the interview will be
used by school administration. The interviewing itself will take valuable time out of the
teachers’ already busy schedule. Teachers may withdraw from participation at any time.
Teachers may feel there is something negative to say about an initiative whereby the
administration will become vindictive and make their work unpleasant. To guarantee that
teachers are in a safe environment, these recorded interviews will not be available to
anyone except the primary researcher and the dissertation chair. To ensure
confidentiality, when the final data analysis is conducted, the participant names will be
swapped out with pseudonyms. Full audio recordings and transcripts will continue to be
unavailable.
The benefits to participating in this research will far outweigh the minimal risks. The
administration of the school district would like to know how mindfulness-based stress
reduction is being perceived in the school district by teachers and the lived experiences of
the teachers.
b. How will you insure that the selection of subjects is equitable? Take into account your
purpose(s). Be sure you address research problems involving vulnerable populations
such as children, prisoners, pregnant women, mentally disabled persons, and
economically or educationally disadvantaged persons. If this is an in-class project
describe how you will minimize the possibility that students will feel coerced.
A purposive sample will be used. The high school is considered “regional”, several
school districts feed into the high school and there are over 430 teaching staff at the
school. The district hires 21 health and physical education staff, each with varying levels
of expertise and ability. Since all of the subjects will be selected to be interviewed as part
of a purposeful sample, this ensures a fair selection.
No coercion can occur because the researcher is not in a supervisory role. Teachers will
be reminded by the researcher that participation in the study is optional.
c. How will you obtain informed consent from each participant or the subject’s legally
authorized representative and ensure that all consent forms are appropriately
documented? Be sure to attach a copy of your consent form to the project summary.

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The researcher will provide an Informed Consent Form (Appendix C5) to all health and
physical education teachers. Teachers will be asked to agree to be recorded so that
interview notes may be transcribed and agree to be observed between April and June.
The researcher will ask for a mutually convenient time of no more than 30 minutes. Since
the school day has a 50-minute lunch built in, some consent forms and biographical
interviews could be collected during this time. The researcher will collect the consent
forms and begin setting up time slots with teachers either during lunch or afterschool.
These informed consent forms will be distributed to teachers when the researcher meets
with them in person during an introductory meeting. These forms will be in hard copy
and will scanned into the computer and kept in an online storage system (Dropbox).
d. Show that the research plan makes provisions to monitor the data collected to insure the
safety of all subjects. This includes the privacy of subjects’ responses and provisions for
maintaining the security and confidentiality of the data.
Teacher experiences and anecdotal accounts of mindfulness in the classrooms may
naturally come to mind, however these are personal experiences. The data and the
consent forms will be stored online in a secure location requiring password protection off
school premises using a California University of Pennsylvania cloud account. The results
of this study may be published but identities will not be revealed. Only aggregate data
and pseudonyms will be reported. Data that is collected cannot be accessible without a
password and access to the online cloud. Only the researcher and the dissertation adviser
will have access to the data.

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3. Check the appropriate box(es) that describe the subjects you plan to target.
þ Adult volunteers

o Mentally Disabled People

o CAL University Students

o Economically Disadvantaged People

o Other Students

o Educationally Disadvantaged People

o Prisoners

o Fetuses or fetal material

o Pregnant Women

o Children Under 18

o Physically Handicapped People

o Neonates

4. Is remuneration involved in your project? Yes or þ No. If yes, Explain here.
There is no remuneration at all.
5. Is this project part of a grant? o Yes or þ No If yes, provide the following information:
NO
Title of the Grant Proposal: N/A
Name of the Funding Agency: N/A
Dates of the Project Period: N/A
6. Does your project involve the debriefing of those who participated? o Yes or þ No
If Yes, explain the debriefing process here.
No debriefing is needed.
7. If your project involves a questionnaire or interview, ensure that it meets the requirements
indicated in the Survey/Interview/Questionnaire checklist.
The interview questions and scripts (Appendix C6, C7, & C9) meet all the requirements
indicated in the survey/interview/questionnaire checklist.

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SUMMARY OF ALL APPENDIX C MATERIALS
C1: Letter of Approval from the Superintendent
Permission to interview school staff from the superintendent.
C2: IRB Review Request
Paperwork included as part of the request to use human subjects for research.
C3: Certificate of IRB Training
C4: Recruitment Email For Study Participants
Emailing seeking participation from staff members in a public high school district.
C5: Informed Consent Form
These forms require the parents to sign off before any data or treatment may be administered.
It provides details on the study as well as the benefits and harms of participating. The consent
form will be provided by the research to the teachers of randomly selected classes.
C6: Interview Questions & Script
These are questions designed by the researcher to be used to gain further knowledge on the
qualitative effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction programming during the school day.
C7: Interview Questions & Script
These are questions designed by the researcher to be used to gain further knowledge on the
qualitative effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction programming during the school day.
C8: Observation/Field Note Guide
Permission to interview school staff from the superintendent
C9: Interview Questions & Script
These are questions designed by the researcher to be used to gain further knowledge on the
qualitative effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction programming during the school day.
References
Broderick, P. C. (2013). Learning to breathe: A mindfulness curriculum for adolescents to
cultivate emotion regulation, attention, and performance. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five
approaches. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
Creswell, J. W. & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry & research design (4th ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Merriam, S. B. & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: The guide to design and
implementation (4th Eds.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Yüksel, P., & Yıldırım, S. (2015). Theoretical frameworks, methods, and procedures for
conducting phenomenological studies. Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry,
6(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.17569/tojqi.59813

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California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board
Survey/Interview/Questionnaire Consent Checklist (v021209)
This form MUST accompany all IRB review requests
Does your research involve ONLY a survey, interview or questionnaire?
YES—Complete this form
NO—You MUST complete the “Informed Consent Checklist”—skip the remainder of this form

Does your survey/interview/questionnaire cover letter or explanatory statement include:
[ü] (1) Statement about the general nature of the survey and how the data will be used?
[ü] (2) Statement as to who the primary researcher is, including name, phone, and email
address?
[ü] (3) FOR ALL STUDENTS: Is the faculty advisor’s name and contact information
provided?
[ü] (4) Statement that participation is voluntary?
[ü] (5) Statement that participation may be discontinued at any time without penalty and all
data discarded?
[ü] (6) Statement that the results are confidential?
[ü] (7) Statement that results are anonymous?
[ü] (8) Statement as to level of risk anticipated or that minimal risk is anticipated? (NOTE: If
more than minimal risk is anticipated, a full consent form is required—and the Informed
Consent Checklist must be completed)
[_] (9) Statement that returning the survey is an indication of consent to use the data?
[ü] (10) Who to contact regarding the project and how to contact this person?
[ü] (11) Statement as to where the results will be housed and how maintained? (unless
otherwise approved by the IRB, must be a secure location on University premises)
[ü] (12) Is there text equivalent to: “Approved by the California University of Pennsylvania

Institutional Review Board. This approval is effective nn/nn/nn and expires mm/mm/mm”?
(the actual dates will be specified in the approval notice from the IRB)?
[_] (13) FOR ELECTRONIC/WEBSITE SURVEYS: Does the text of the cover letter or
explanatory statement appear before any data is requested from the participant?
[_] (14) FOR ELECTONIC/WEBSITE SURVEYS: Can the participant discontinue
participation at any point in the process and all data is immediately discarded?

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California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board
Informed Consent Checklist (v021209)
This form MUST accompany all IRB review requests
Does your research involve ONLY a survey, interview, or questionnaire?
YES—DO NOT complete this form. You MUST complete the “Survey/Interview/Questionnaire
Consent Checklist” instead.
NO—Complete the remainder of this form.
1. Introduction (check each)
[_] (1.1) Is there a statement that the study involves research?
[_] (1.2) Is there an explanation of the purpose of the research?
2. Is the participant. (check each)
[_] (2.1) Given an invitation to participate?
[_] (2.2) Told why he/she was selected.
[_] (2.3) Told the expected duration of the participation.
[_] (2.4) Informed that participation is voluntary?
[_] (2.5) Informed that all records are confidential?
[_] (2.6) Told that he/she may withdraw from the research at any time without penalty or loss
of benefits?
[_] (2.7) 18 years of age or older? (if not, see Section #9, Special Considerations below)
3. Procedures (check each).
[_] (3.1) Are the procedures identified and explained?
[_] (3.2) Are the procedures that are being investigated clearly identified?
[_] (3.3) Are treatment conditions identified?
4. Risks and discomforts. (check each)
[_] (4.1) Are foreseeable risks or discomforts identified?
[_] (4.2) Is the likelihood of any risks or discomforts identified?
[_] (4.3) Is there a description of the steps that will be taken to minimize any risks or
discomforts?
[_] (4.4) Is there an acknowledgement of potentially unforeseeable risks?
[_] (4.5) Is the participant informed about what treatment or follow up courses of action are
available should there be some physical, emotional, or psychological harm?
[_] (4.6) Is there a description of the benefits, if any, to the participant or to others that may
be reasonably expected from the research and an estimate of the likelihood of these benefits?
[_] (4.7) Is there a disclosure of any appropriate alternative procedures or courses of
treatment that might be advantageous to the participant?
5. Records and documentation. (check each)
[_] (5.1) Is there a statement describing how records will be kept confidential?
[_] (5.2) Is there a statement as to where the records will be kept and that this is a secure
location?
[_] (5.3) Is there a statement as to who will have access to the records?

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6. For research involving more than minimal risk (check each),
[_] (6.1) Is there an explanation and description of any compensation and other medical or
counseling treatments that are available if the participants are injured through participation?
[_] (6.2) Is there a statement where further information can be obtained regarding the
treatments?
[_] (6.3) Is there information regarding who to contact in the event of research-related injury?
7. Contacts.(check each)
[_] (7.1) Is the participant given a list of contacts for answers to questions about the research
and the participant’s rights?
[_] (7.2) Is the principal researcher identified with name and phone number and email
address?
[_] (7.3) FOR ALL STUDENTS: Is the faculty advisor’s name and contact information
provided?
8. General Considerations (check each)
[_] (8.1) Is there a statement indicating that the participant is making a decision whether or
not to participate, and that his/her signature indicates that he/she has decided to participate
having read and discussed the information in the informed consent?
[_] (8.2) Are all technical terms fully explained to the participant?
[_] (8.3) Is the informed consent written at a level that the participant can understand?
[_] (8.4) Is there text equivalent to: “Approved by the California University of Pennsylvania
Institutional Review Board. This approval is effective nn/nn/nn and expires mm/mm/mm”?
(the actual dates will be specified in the approval notice from the IRB)
9. Specific Considerations (check as appropriate)
[_] (9.1) If the participant is or may become pregnant is there a statement that the particular
treatment or procedure may involve risks, foreseeable or currently unforeseeable, to the
participant or to the embryo or fetus?
[_] (9.2) Is there a statement specifying the circumstances in which the participation may be
terminated by the investigator without the participant’s consent?
[_] (9.3) Are any costs to the participant clearly spelled out?
[_] (9.4) If the participant desires to withdraw from the research, are procedures for orderly
termination spelled out?
[_] (9.5) Is there a statement that the Principal Investigator will inform the participant or any
significant new findings developed during the research that may affect them and influence
their willingness to continue participation?
[_] (9.6) If the participant is less than 18 years of age? If so, a parent or guardian must sign
the consent form and assent must be obtained from the child
[_] Is the consent form written in such a manner that it is clear that the parent/guardian is
giving permission for their child to participate?
[_] Is a child assent form being used?
[_] Does the assent form (if used) clearly indicate that the child can freely refuse to
participate or discontinue participation at any time without penalty or coercion?
[_] (9.7) Are all consent and assent forms written at a level that the intended participant can
understand? (generally, 8th grade level for adults, age-appropriate for children)

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California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board
Review Request Checklist

(v021209)

This form MUST accompany all IRB review requests.
Unless otherwise specified, ALL items must be present in your review request.
Have you:

[ü] (1.0) FOR ALL STUDIES: Completed ALL items on the Review Request Form?
Pay particular attention to:
[ü] (1.1) Names and email addresses of all investigators
[N/A] (1.1.1) FOR ALL STUDENTS: use only your CalU email address)
[ü] (1.1.2) FOR ALL STUDENTS: Name and email address of your faculty
research advisor
[ü] (1.2) Project dates (must be in the future—no studies will be approved which
have already begun or scheduled to begin before final IRB approval—NO
EXCEPTIONS)
[ü] (1.3) Answered completely and in detail, the questions in items 2a through 2d?
[ü] 2a: NOTE: No studies can have zero risk, the lowest risk is “minimal
risk”. If more than minimal risk is involved you MUST:
[ü] i. Delineate all anticipated risks in detail;
[ü] ii. Explain in detail how these risks will be minimized;
[ü] iii. Detail the procedures for dealing with adverse outcomes due to
these risks.
[ü] iv. Cite peer reviewed references in support of your explanation.
[ü] 2b. Complete all items.
[ü] 2c. Describe informed consent procedures in detail.
[ü] 2d. NOTE: to maintain security and confidentiality of data, all study
records must be housed in a secure (locked) location ON UNIVERSITY
PREMISES. The actual location (department, office, etc.) must be specified
in your explanation and be listed on any consent forms or cover letters.
[ü] (1.4) Checked all appropriate boxes in Section 3? If participants under the age of
18 years are to be included (regardless of what the study involves) you MUST:
[ü] (1.4.1) Obtain informed consent from the parent or guardian—consent
forms must be written so that it is clear that the parent/guardian is giving
permission for their child to participate.
[ü] (1.4.2) Document how you will obtain assent from the child—This must
be done in an age-appropriate manner. Regardless of whether the
parent/guardian has given permission, a child is completely free to refuse to
participate, so the investigator must document how the child indicated
agreement to participate (“assent”).
[ü] (1.5) Included all grant information in section 5?
[_] (1.6) Included ALL signatures?
[_] (2.0) FOR STUDIES INVOLVING MORE THAN JUST SURVEYS, INTERVIEWS,
OR QUESTIONNAIRES:
[_] (2.1) Attached a copy of all consent form(s)?
[_] (2.2) FOR STUDIES INVOLVING INDIVIDUALS LESS THAN 18 YEARS OF
AGE: attached a copy of all assent forms (if such a form is used)?

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[_] (2.3) Completed and attached a copy of the Consent Form Checklist? (as
appropriate—see that checklist for instructions)
[ü] (3.0) FOR STUDIES INVOLVING ONLY SURVEYS, INTERVIEWS, OR
QUESTIONNAIRES:
[ü] (3.1) Attached a copy of the cover letter/information sheet?
[ü] (3.2) Completed and attached a copy of the Survey/Interview/Questionnaire
Consent Checklist? (see that checklist for instructions)
[ü] (3.3) Attached a copy of the actual survey, interview, or questionnaire questions
in their final form?
[_] (4.0) FOR ALL STUDENTS: Has your faculty research advisor:
[_] (4.1) Thoroughly reviewed and approved your study?
[_] (4.2) Thoroughly reviewed and approved your IRB paperwork? including:
[_] (4.2.1) Review request form,
[_] (4.2.2) All consent forms, (if used)
[_] (4.2.3) All assent forms (if used)
[_] (4.2.4) All Survey/Interview/Questionnaire cover letters (if used)
[_] (4.2.5) All checklists
[_] (4.3) IMPORTANT NOTE: Your advisor’s signature on the review request form
indicates that they have thoroughly reviewed your proposal and verified that it meets
all IRB and University requirements.
[_] (5.0) Have you retained a copy of all submitted documentation for your records?

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Project Director’s Certification
Program Involving HUMAN SUBJECTS
The proposed investigation involves the use of human subjects and I am submitting the complete
application form and project description to the Institutional Review Board for Research
Involving Human Subjects.
I understand that Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval is required before beginning any
research and/or data collection involving human subjects. If the Board grants approval of this
application, I agree to:

1. Abide by any conditions or changes in the project required by the Board.
2. Report to the Board any change in the research plan that affects the method of using
human subjects before such change is instituted.
3. Report to the Board any problems that arise in connection with the use of human subjects.
4. Seek advice of the Board whenever I believe such advice is necessary or would be
helpful.
5. Secure the informed, written consent of all human subjects participating in the project.
6. Cooperate with the Board in its effort to provide a continuing review after investigations
have been initiated.
I have reviewed the Federal and State regulations concerning the use of human subjects in
research and training programs and the guidelines. I agree to abide by the regulations and
guidelines aforementioned and will adhere to policies and procedures described in my
application. I understand that changes to the research must be approved by the IRB before they
are implemented.
Professional (Faculty/Staff) Research
Project Director’s Signature
Student or Class Research

Student Researcher’s
Signature

Supervising Faculty Member’s
Signature

ACTION OF REVIEW BOARD (IRB use only)

The Institutional Review Board for Research Involving Human Subjects has reviewed this application to ascertain
whether or not the proposed project:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

provides adequate safeguards of the rights and welfare of human subjects involved in the investigations;
uses appropriate methods to obtain informed, written consent;
indicates that the potential benefits of the investigation substantially outweigh the risk involved.
provides adequate debriefing of human participants.
provides adequate follow-up services to participants who may have incurred physical, mental, or emotional
harm.

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Approved[_________________________________]

228
Disapproved

___________________________________________
Chairperson, Institutional Review Board

_________________________
Date

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Appendix C3
Certificates of IRB Training

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COLLABORATIVE INSTITUTIONAL TRAINING INITIATIVE (CITI PROGRAM)
COMPLETION REPORT - PART 1 OF 2
COURSEWORK REQUIREMENTS*
* NOTE: Scores on this Requirements Report reflect quiz completions at the time all requirements for the course were met. See list below for details.
See separate Transcript Report for more recent quiz scores, including those on optional (supplemental) course elements.
•
•
•
•

Name:
Institution Affiliation:
Institution Email:
Institution Unit:

Carol Biddington (ID: 1993723)
Northcentral University (ID: 786)
cbiddington@my.ncu.edu
Education

• Curriculum Group:
Human Research
• Course Learner Group: IRB Required Modules for NCU
• Stage:
Stage 1 - Basic Course
•
•
•
•
•

Record ID:
Completion Date:
Expiration Date:
Minimum Passing:
Reported Score*:

24807109
12-Jan-2018
12-Jan-2020
85
99

REQUIRED AND ELECTIVE MODULES ONLY
History and Ethical Principles - SBE (ID: 490)
Defining Research with Human Subjects - SBE (ID: 491)
The Federal Regulations - SBE (ID: 502)
Assessing Risk - SBE (ID: 503)
Informed Consent - SBE (ID: 504)
Privacy and Confidentiality - SBE (ID: 505)
Research with Prisoners - SBE (ID: 506)
Research with Children - SBE (ID: 507)
Research in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools - SBE (ID: 508)
International Research - SBE (ID: 509)
Internet-Based Research - SBE (ID: 510)
Unanticipated Problems and Reporting Requirements in Social and Behavioral Research (ID: 14928)
Cultural Competence in Research (ID: 15166)
Conflicts of Interest in Human Subjects Research (ID: 17464)
Consent and Subject Recruitment Challenges: Remuneration (ID: 16881)
Vulnerable Subjects - Research Involving Workers/Employees (ID: 483)
Gender and Sexuality Diversity (GSD) in Human Research (ID: 16556)
Research with Persons who are Socially or Economically Disadvantaged (ID: 16539)
Research with Subjects with Physical Disabilities & Impairments (ID: 16657)
Basic Institutional Review Board (IRB) Regulations and Review Process (ID: 2)
Records-Based Research (ID: 5)
Avoiding Group Harms - U.S. Research Perspectives (ID: 14080)
Research and HIPAA Privacy Protections (ID: 14)
Data Management (RCR-Basic) (ID: 16600)
Research Misconduct (RCR-Basic) (ID: 16604)
Research, Ethics, and Society (RCR) (ID: 15198)

DATE COMPLETED
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
09-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
10-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
11-Jan-2018
12-Jan-2018
12-Jan-2018
12-Jan-2018

SCORE
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
4/4 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
3/3 (100%)
3/3 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
5/5 (100%)
4/5 (80%)

For this Report to be valid, the learner identified above must have had a valid affiliation with the CITI Program subscribing institution
identified above or have been a paid Independent Learner.
Verify at: www.citiprogram.org/verify/?k24ccf3c5-1608-44d2-aa42-6d85eac6ff86-24807109
Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program)
Email: support@citiprogram.org
Phone: 888-529-5929
Web: https://www.citiprogram.org

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Appendix C4
Recruitment Email for Study Participants

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Subject: Mindfulness Study
April 1st, 2018
Hello [Participant Name]:
I hope you are well. My name is Kaman Hung and I am currently a student at California
University of Pennsylvania pursuing a doctoral degree in health science. I have chosen
to focus my research on the topic of mindfulness, specifically the phenomenon of the
lived experiences of the teacher to better the research in the field of mindfulness and
education.
The purpose of this research is to examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulnessbased interventions and mindfulness-based stress reduction practices into their
pedagogy and gain insight into a teacher’s lived experiences. Jennings (2015) states
that while there’s been a lot of talk about 21st century skills, there are two areas which
are not given fair attention: adaptation and resilience. Hassed and Chambers ask that:
“If the first question was “What is education?” the second has to be “What is
mindfulness?” (p. 5).
For this study, I will go through four steps to attain the data.
1. The first step involves a 20 to 30-minute one-on-one interview in which an
informed consent form will be signed, and your background (teaching experience
and biographical data) will be explored.
2. The second step will involve a 20 to 30-minute one-on-one interview about your
understanding of mindfulness, the resources you use, and the strategies you
currently implement into your lessons.
3. The third step will be an observation of one of your mindfulness sessions. I
would like an opportunity to observe and take notes on one of your classes.
4. The last step will be a third and final 20 to 30-minute one-on-one interview that is
more reflective in nature. I will ask you about the mindfulness lesson and ask you
to describe your experience to me in regards to implementation and revision of
content.

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Since you are currently a teacher in the school district and you have been requested by
your department supervisor to implement mindfulness-based stress reduction into your
lessons, I would like to ask for your participation in my study.
There is minimal risk to you participating in this research study, however, it is also my
responsibility to make you aware of such risks. The one-on-one interviews may produce
a sense of discomfort particularly with questions that ask you about your practice. You
may not feel comfortable sharing your techniques or may wish to understand if the
data/transcriptions from the interview will be used by school administration. The
interviewing itself will take valuable time out of your already busy schedule.
There are also potential benefits to participating in this study:
•
•
•
•

You may gather a better understanding of your own personal mindfulness
practices as you will be asked to be reflective in your practice.
This study may deepen your interest in mindfulness, specifically in educational
settings.
You may contribute valuable information about pedagogy on mindfulness to the
profession.
Results of this research may facilitate professional support regarding mindfulness
based curriculum such as in-service opportunities.

However, there may also be no direct benefit to you.
This study has been approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional
Review Board (IRB). If you have any other questions about this research study, you
may contact the Cal U IRB at instreviewboard@calu.edu.
Because your participation is voluntary, you will not receive remission for your
assistance. You may also withdraw from participation at any time. Please know that for
the purposes of publication, your name along with any identifying data will not be
reproduced at any time and will only reflect pseudonyms.
Should you have and questions or concerns about this email or the research, please
feel free to reach out to me by telephone: (848)-219-5459 or by email:
hun5255@calu.edu.
Thank you so much for your help with this study. I will be in contact with you over the
next few days to gauge your interest. I look forward to speaking with you then.

Sincerely,
Kaman Hung
Doctoral Candidate
California University of Pennsylvania

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Appendix C5
Informed Consent Form

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Title of Study
Pedagogical Practices Employed Among Public School Health and Physical Education Teachers
Implementing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to Adolescents: A Phenomenological Study.
Introduction
You are invited to participate in a research project being conducted by Kaman Hung a
faculty member in the Department of Health & Physical Education at High School and a doctoral
student at the California University of Pennsylvania.
As part of the high school health and physical education curriculum, mindfulness
activities have been infused into regular instruction across 9th through 12th grade physical
education and health courses. It is unclear, however, as to the extent these mindfulness-based
activities have been used and how the teachers’ experiences differ from using these activities.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the mechanisms of infusing mindfulness-based
interventions and mindfulness-based stress reduction practices into their pedagogy and gain
insight into a teacher’s lived experiences. The goal of the study is to explore the pedagogical
practices and techniques that teachers use while following a mindfulness-based stress reduction
(MBSR) program. Only health and physical education teachers have been selected for this study
since they are currently the only department in the School District to formally include it in their
curriculum.
Procedures
You are currently a health and physical education teacher and the school district has
opted to use mindfulness practices designed to target social and emotional competencies of SelfAwareness and Self-Management set forth by the New Jersey Department of Education
(http://www.nj.gov/education/students/safety/sandp/sel). This research will only examine
qualitative data collected from interviews and observations. The principal researcher will ask
open-ended questions. You will have an opportunity to provide insight and outline some
practices that you use in your daily lessons. At no point will the researcher make any
recommendations, nor should this research intend to persuade you to do any less or more of what
you are already doing.
Initial Phase:
1. Twenty teachers have been selected for this study and all teachers that have met the
criteria of: physical education/health teacher AND mindfulness classroom teacher have
been sent an email.
2. You are here because you have responded to that email and have chosen to participate.
3. The lead researcher will meet with each teacher individually to introduce himself and
hand out consent forms. The rationale for the study will be explained to the teachers and
any questions will be answered.
4. The researcher will then collect the consent form from each individual teacher after
meeting. Teachers are reminded they may refuse at any time to be a part of the study.

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Interview #1:
1. Once teachers have completed reading, understanding, and have signed the informed
consent form the researcher will initiate the first interview.
2. The lead researcher will remind the teacher that the interview will be audio recorded,
however, the audio recording and the transcriptions will be kept confidential with the
exception of the primary researcher, dissertation chairperson, the dissertation committee,
a data analysis consultant, and two subcontracted coders responsible for data analyses.
3. The lead researcher will interview the participant. The questions have been pre-designed
and formulated by the researcher, however, there may be follow-up questions.
4. Teachers will be asked questions related to their pedagogy and the content used to teacher
MBSR.
5. The researcher will label each interview with an identification number protecting the
teacher’s identity.
6. Audio recordings will be transcribed.
Interview #2:
1. The second interview will take place 3-to-7 days later. Times will be made by
appointment between the lead researcher and the participating teacher.
2. The lead researcher will remind the teacher that the interview will be audio recorded,
however, the audio recording and the transcriptions will be kept confidential with the
exception of the primary researcher, dissertation chairperson, the dissertation committee,
a data analysis consultant, and two subcontracted coders responsible for data analyses.
3. The lead researcher will interview the participant. The questions have been pre-designed
and formulated by the researcher, however, there may be follow-up questions.
4. Teachers will be asked questions related to their delivery and how mindfulness-based
interventions have impacted their teaching practice.
5. The researcher will label each interview with an identification number protecting the
teacher’s identity.
6. Audio recordings will be transcribed.
Observation:
1. The researcher will schedule a time with the participating teacher to observe a classroom
in which mindfulness will be utilized.
2. The researcher will arrive before the start of the class with a laptop and begin recording
data in the form of field notes.
3. No audio nor video will be recorded.
4. The goal is the gather data from the teacher in the form of speech and actions that will
help provide greater detail and enhance data collection.
5. Once the class session is complete, the researcher will leave.
6. Field notes will be kept confidential with the exception of the primary researcher,
dissertation chairperson, the dissertation committee, a data analysis consultant, and two
subcontracted coders responsible for data analyses.
Interview #3:
1. The third interview will take place 3-to-7 days after the observation. Times will be made
by appointment between the lead researcher and the participating teacher.
2. The lead researcher will remind the teacher that the interview will be audio recorded,
however, the audio recording and the transcriptions will be kept confidential with the

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3.
4.
5.
6.

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exception of the primary researcher, dissertation chairperson, the dissertation committee,
a data analysis consultant, and two subcontracted coders responsible for data analyses.
The lead researcher will interview the participant. The questions have been pre-designed
and formulated by the researcher, however, there may be follow-up questions.
Teachers will be asked questions more reflective in nature that are related to content,
delivery, and impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction and interventions. Teachers
will have an opportunity to walk through the observed lesson.
The researcher will label each interview with an identification number protecting the
teacher’s identity.
Audio recordings will be transcribed.

Conclusion of study:
1. The lead researcher will perform a transcendental phenomenological analysis
(Moustakas, 1994) on the data. The data will be reduced (extracting the essential
content), then the content will be grouped according to themes. Both individual and
structural textural descriptions will be composed and the researcher will be able to
determine the essence of mindfulness in the contextual experiences of physical education
teachers.
While data collected is not anonymous, at no point will this information reveal the
identity of the teacher to any person or organization. Your responses will be kept confidential at
all times and when published, all names will be coded according to an identifying number (ID).
Only the researcher, the dissertation chairperson, the dissertation committee, a data analysis
consultant, and two subcontracted coders responsible for data analyses will be able to examine
the collected data.
Risks and Discomforts
Besides some experiences of slight discomfort while in a seated position, there is minimal
risk associated with this study. The discussion of mindfulness or sharing your pedagogical
practice may be uncomfortable to you. We also understand that your time as an educator is
valuable.
It may also be difficult to express your opinion to the researcher for worry of information
identifying you. If at any time, you are uncomfortable speaking with the researcher you may opt
out of the study and the data collected will be destroyed.
Benefits
The benefits to you participating in this study is a greater understanding of your own
personal mindfulness practices which may lead to more reflective teaching. The study may also
lead to a greater interest in studies involving MBSR in educational settings. The research that
you are a part of will also look to be published and will inform the educational and wellness
communities of certain techniques that may prove to be more effective than others. However,
there may be also be no direct benefit from participating in this study.
Payments to Participants
You will not be compensated for participation in this study.
Right to Refuse or Withdraw

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Following your consent, participation in this study remains voluntary. You may also refuse to
answer any questions and may withdraw from participation at any time without penalty.
Anonymity of Published Data and Records
No identifying information will be included in the data you provide. Your signed consent form
will be kept separate from the data, and nobody will be able to link your responses to them.
Confidentiality of Records and Results
The results of this study may be published but identities will not be revealed. Only aggregate
data will be reported and identification numbers. Interview data will be stored online in a secure
location requiring password protection off school premises using a California University of
Pennsylvania cloud account. Only the primary researcher, dissertation chairperson, the
dissertation committee, a data analysis consultant, and two subcontracted coders responsible for
data analyses will have access to the data.
Contacts and Questions
The investigator conducting this study is: Kaman Hung.
If you have any questions about this study now or in the future, you may contact the researcher:
Kaman Hung, Health & Physical Education Department
Faculty and Principal Researcher
Email: hun5255@calu.edu
Tel: (848)-219-5459
Dr. Carol Biddington, EdD
Research Advisor
Email: biddington@calu.edu
Tel: (724)-938-4356
Approved by the California University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. This
approval is effective 04/01/2018 and expires 3/31/2019.
If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant, you may email the IRB at
instreviewboard@calu.edu.

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Acceptance & Signature
I have read the information provided above and all of my questions have been answered. I
voluntarily agree to the participation in this study. I will receive a copy of this consent form for
my information.

______________________________
Participant Signature
______________________________
Date

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Appendix C6
Interview #1 Script and Questions

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245

Interview Script and Questions
PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES AMONG PUBLIC SCHOOL HEALTH AND PHYSICAL
EDUCATION TEACHERS IMPLEMENTING MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS
REDUCTION TO ADOLESCENTS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY
Interview Script #1
Action:
Provide consent form to participant.
Read:
Hello and thank you for meeting me today, I appreciate both your time and participation in this
process.
I must inform you that this interview will be audiotaped and transcribed. First, I will ask you a
few biographical questions to get to know you a little better. The interview should take no longer
than 30 minutes to complete.
During this process, you will be interviewed in person and I may have follow up questions for
you. In the event that I need further clarification on something that was mentioned, I will contact
you directly either by telephone or email. This interview is the first of three interviews that will
be conducted by me—the primary researcher. In addition to the three interviews, you have
consented to allowing me to observe one lesson in which you will be implementing a
mindfulness-based intervention of your choice.
I will be the sole data collector, recorder, and transcriber in all scenarios. No one else will see
the data except for the dissertation chairperson whose contact information is available on the
consent form. At times I may have to consult with my dissertation committee about the data I
collect. However, I will assign you a pseudonym throughout this process so that your real name
is not included.
All field notes, transcriptions, and tape recordings will be stored in a secure off-campus location
on a California University of Pennsylvania Cloud account. At the conclusion of this study and at
the acceptance of my dissertation from my committee, all research materials will be deleted.
Prior to publication, I will ask you to look over your portion of the research notes that I have
taken to check for accuracy prior to publishing the study.
At this point please feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

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PART I: BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE (To be completed by the participant)
Name (will be kept confidential):___________________________________________________
Email: _______________________________________________________________________
Age: ________________________
PART II: ACADEMIC PROFILE (To be completed by the participant)
Highest Degree: BA/BS r MA/MAT/MS/M.Ed r Ed.S/MBA/MPH r Ph.D/Ed.D/JD r
GRADUATE EDUCATION
College/University:_______________________________________ Degree: _______________
Major(s): _______________________________________ Minor(s): _____________________
College/University:_______________________________________ Degree: _______________
Major(s): _______________________________________ Minor(s): _____________________

UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
College/University:_______________________________________ Degree: _______________
Major(s): _______________________________________ Minor(s): _____________________

Total years teaching experience: ________
Grade level teaching experience (years):
9th _________ 10th _________

11th _________

12th _________

Other _________

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PART III: INTERVIEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS (To be asked by the researcher)
The following questions will address the research questions and each research question has been
broken down into smaller sub-questions to help answer the big questions more completely.
INTERVIEW #1
RESEARCH QUESTION #1:
What content do you use for teaching mindfulness?
1. What was your first impression of mindfulness either during training or from colleagues?
a. How was mindfulness introduced to you?
2. What were the facilitators/barriers to engaging in mindfulness practice with your
students?
a. What facilitates the need to teach mindfulness-based activity to your students?
b. What obstacles have you faced it implementing mindfulness-based practices in
your classroom?
c. What are the things that have supported you while implementing mindfulnessbased practices in your classroom?
3. Are you familiar with any other mindfulness-based curricula beyond the training that you
received at school?
a. What curriculum or program have you chosen and why did you select this?
b. Does the school provide you with resources to teach mindfulness? If so, what
resources?
c. Have you sought out additional resources on your own, if so how and why? What
were the resources?
RESEARCH QUESTION #2:
What mindfulness methods of delivery, length, and frequency of delivery do you use?
4. How have you incorporated mindfulness sessions into your classes?
a. What methods do you use to introduce mindfulness to your students?
b. How long do you spend on mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) in your
classes?
c. How do you set the classroom up for an optimal experience?
d. What materials do you use to implement MBIs in your classes and why?
RESEARCH QUESTION #3:

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How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?
5. How are you evaluated on the implementation of a mindfulness program?
a. Are you familiar with any on-going support in the school district which may help
you refine your mindfulness-based teaching practices?

MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES

Appendix C7
Interview #2 Script and Questions

249

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250

Interview Script and Questions
PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES AMONG PUBLIC SCHOOL HEALTH AND PHYSICAL
EDUCATION TEACHERS IMPLEMENTING MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS
REDUCTION TO ADOLESCENTS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY
Interview Script #2
Action:
Send a confirmation email to the participant. Meet participant in his or her office during offschool time.
Read:
Hello again. How are you?
Thank you for meeting me again. I appreciate your time and similar to our last meeting, this
meeting will be tape recorded and transcribed. I may have you check over the transcript of this
interview accuracy later on.
The purpose of this interview it to gather some of your insight as to your past experiences with
mindfulness. This interview should last no more than 20 to 30 minutes.
At this point do you have any questions or concerns before we get started?

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INTERVIEW #2
(Must be completed between 3-7 days after interview #1)
RESEARCH QUESTION #2:
What mindfulness methods of delivery, length, and frequency of delivery do you use?
1. Mindfulness can be taught through three separate approaches: Direct: programs that are
directly implemented to impact students; Indirect: informal activities developed by
teachers who have their own mindfulness practices; and combination of the two
(Meiklejohn et al., 2012).
How do the following approaches inform your teaching practice?
a. Which approaches do you use and how do you use them?
2. What delivery method do you use to teach mindfulness to your students? Teacherguided? student-guided? self-guided? technology-guided? or audio-guided?
a. Why did you select that method?
b. Do you ever change methods from one class to the next? Why?
c. Have you used multiple methods in one class?
3. When you look for a mindfulness-based activity, how important is the length (time of
session) and duration (time of program) of the program/curriculum?
a. How long is a typical session for you?
b. When taking into account the length and duration of an MBI, what are some of
the difficulties for you?
c. What aspects of duration and length contribute positively to the sessions?
d. What classes do you implement MBIs with?
4. Do you implement mindfulness-based trainings more frequently in some classes and not
others? How so and why?
a. Are there times when you select specific activities for one class and not another?
b. What are the benefits to implementing certain activities with some classes and not
others?
RESEARCH QUESTION #3:
How have Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?
5. Describe how you feel when you conduct a mindfulness session with your class:
a. In what ways do you feel that mindfulness has helped your teaching practice?
b. In what ways do you feel that mindfulness has hindered your teaching practice?

MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES
c. What do you enjoy about running mindfulness sessions?
7. How do you perceive that MBIs have contributed positively to your classroom
management?
a. Do students appear more receptive? How?
b. Are students more involved in class? How?

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Appendix C8
Observation Log/Field Note Guide

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Observation Log/Field Note Guide
(Must be completed 3-7 days after interview #2)
ACTIONS AND STATEMENT/QUESTIONS BY TEACHER

SUMMARY

Example

Example

Stands at the front of the room, takes attendance while calling out student
names.

Teacher performs daily administrative
tasks.

“We will be continuing with our units, but first we’ll be doing some
mindfulness. Please turn off your cell phones or place them on silent.”

Teacher sets the environment for the lesson.

Adapted from: Danielson (2008):“Form F: Notes from the Observation”
Danielson, C. (2008). The handbook for enhancing professional practice: using the framework for teaching in your
school. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES

Appendix C9
Interview #3 Script and Questions

255

MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES

256

Interview Script and Questions
PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES AMONG PUBLIC SCHOOL HEALTH AND PHYSICAL
EDUCATION TEACHERS IMPLEMENTING MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS
REDUCTION TO ADOLESCENTS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY
Interview Script #3
Action:
Send a confirmation email to the participant. Meet participant in his or her office during offschool time.
Read:
Hi [Participant Name],
Thank you for allowing me to come and observe your class. I appreciate you opening your
classroom up to me and sharing a lesson with me.
This interview will be more reflective than the last one. I would really like to get a sense of your
experiences teaching and tap into some of your methods you use to assist you with your most
successful mindfulness-based interventions.
This interview follows the same format as the last two but questions were formulated based upon
observation and a review of previous interviews.
This interview should last no more than 20 to 40 minutes and once again, this meeting will be
tape recorded and transcribed later on. I may have you check over the transcript of this
interview to ensure that the content you are giving me is valid.
At this point do you have any questions or concerns before we get started?

MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES
INTERVIEW #3
(Must be completed 3-7 days after classroom observation)
RESEARCH QUESTION #1:
What content do you use for teaching mindfulness?
1. What content has been most successful? Why? Least successful? Why?
2. Thinking back to your mindfulness trainings that you’ve been exposed to:
a. How are you utilizing that content?
b. Why did you adopt the pedagogy you are using now?
3. Based on your goals for your health and/or physical education course:
a. What are the State standards you target?
b. What are the and essential questions you use?
c. What do you want your students to take away?
RESEARCH QUESTION #2:
What mindfulness methods of delivery, length, and frequency of delivery do you use?
4. What delivery method has been most successful? Why? Least successful? Why?
5. What length of session has been most successful? Why? Least successful? Why?
6. What frequency of delivery has been most successful? Why? Least successful? Why?

RESEARCH QUESTION #3:
How have mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) impacted your teaching?
7. How have you evolved as a mindfulness educator?
a. In which areas have you seen the greatest growth as an educator?
b. In which areas have you observed the least growth as an educator?
c. What do you feel is your overarching priority for improvement as an educator
related to MBIs in the classroom?

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MINDFULNESS PEDAGOGICAL EXPERIENCES
8. What elements of your experiences as a teacher:
a. Make you want to continue to teach mindfulness? Why?
b. Make you not want to teach mindfulness? Why?
9. Reflecting on your MBIs, what lessons have been successful? Why?
10. Describe how you feel when you conduct a mindfulness session with your class:
a. Please tell me how you felt as a teacher and in your perspective, what you
experienced.
11. Do you personally practice your mindfulness lessons prior to implementing them with
your students?
a. How does your own practice of mindfulness inform your teaching?
b. What are the benefits, if any, from teaching your students mindfulness?

258