Early Childhood Education and Kōhanga Reo Hauora Health and wellbeing survey

The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa has partnered with the Educator Health and Wellbeing team at Deakin University to conduct longitudinal research on the occupational health and wellbeing of Early Childhood Educators in New Zealand.The research has full ethics approval and adheres to all Deakin University guidelines.

The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa has partnered with the Educator Health and Wellbeing team at Deakin University to conduct longitudinal research on the occupational health and wellbeing of Early Childhood Educators in New Zealand.

The research has full ethics approval and adheres to all Deakin University guidelines.

Through the survey, we establish robust evidence about the occupational health, safety and wellbeing of New Zealand early childhood educators. This evidence is used to promote the interests of early childhood educators (ECEs) and the communities that they work in. As well as contributing to a national picture of early childhood educators’ health and wellbeing, you will receive feedback and support about your own health and wellbeing.

Participation involves completing a confidential online survey. The questions we will ask cover areas such as your working conditions in detail, quality of life information, school of employment, work satisfaction, workplace discrimination, medication use, frequency of alcohol consumption, and other personal information such as diet and exercise. Most of the questions are compulsory, so you cannot choose to answer only some of the questions.

The collection of this data is necessary to allow the research team to holistically understand the the impact that work demands and workplaces have on ECEs occupational health, safety and wellbeing. As such, the information you provide will assist in better understanding of how to promote the health and wellbeing of those working in early childhood environments.

Participant information is kept strictly confidential and no individual or school will be identifiable in any reporting of the results. Your data is not accessible to anyone but the researchers and is de-identified before any analysis.

Full details about the data management of your personal information by the Deakin University team can be found in the plain language statement that will be made available to you when you log on to the survey.

The survey takes about 40 minutes to 1 hour to complete.

You can complete the survey over multiple sessions. You don’t have to fill it out all at once. For every page you complete, and click “Next”, your responses are automatically saved. Therefore, there is no “Back” button. You can leave the partially complete survey at any time and resume your progress by logging back on using your email address and your chosen password.

The data and evidence gathered will be used to inform:

  • Published articles in educational and policy journals as well as reports for industry bodies, organisations, employers, and policymakers.
  • A research report will be available through NZEI Te Riu Roa and may be published on this website once the analysis has been completed.
  • Aggregated results will be used to brief research funding partners, the Ministry of Education, employer bodies or early childhood education groups.

Some of the survey questions are of a personal nature. Should this cause your any distress you may wish to seek help such as counselling. We have published a list of support services and professional organisations on this website to assist you here.

We are using these questionnaires as they have been demonstrated to be reliable and valid tools.

The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire COPSOQ III is an instrument that has been used globally to measure work stress in many occupations. Using the COPSOQ III will allow us to look at job stress and psychosocial health and compare it to a global dataset.

The AQoL-8D is a health-related quality of life instrument developed by researchers at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University. Using the AQoL-8D will allow us to compare your quality of life against public norms.

The Wellbeing-Profile (WB-Pro) is a measure that captures the 15 key dimensions of personal wellbeing. This will allow us to gain an understanding of how your personal wellbeing impacts your work outcomes, and vise-versa.

Participation in this research is completely voluntary. It is up to you whether you choose to participate. Neither the research team nor NZEI Te Riu Roa will know if you choose not to participate in this research.

If you agree to participate, you can withdraw from the survey at any time.

You can request your contact details to be removed from the research so that we do not contact you again, by informing us in writing.

We have published a list of support services and professional organisations available in New Zealand on this website to assist you here.