The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa has partnered with the Educator Health and Wellbeing at Deakin University to conduct longitudinal research on the occupational health and wellbeing of teachers in New Zealand.
Participation in this study involves completing the 2021 Educator Health and Wellbeing Survey for Primary School Teachers, covering areas of working conditions and personal questions about diet, exercise, and quality of life. This information will help us to provide evidence to policymakers about what would make a difference to teachers’ health and wellbeing.
All teachers of state and state-integrated primary schools and area schools, including those acting in their role, or on sabbatical; who are members of NZEI Te Riu Roa and covered by the Primary Teachers’ Collective Agreement and the Area Schools’ Collective Agreement; are welcome to participate in the survey.
New Zealand Surveys 2021
This year’s health and wellbeing surveys will open in July 2021. Your professional association will contact you with information about how to access the surveyIn addition to our survey, we have published a range of useful resources such as wellbeing support services and professional organisations, and our reports.
What is the research and who is conducting it?
The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa has partnered with the Educator Health and Wellbeing team at Deakin University to be part of Professor Phil Riley’s longitudinal research on teacher health and wellbeing.
Professor Phil Riley is a member of Deakin University’s strategic research centre Research for Educational Impact (REDI).
This will be the last year of the research for NZEI Te Riu Roa members.
The survey is internationally comparable consisting of two internationally norm-referenced methodologies, the COPSOQ II and the AQoL-8D. These are included so that comparisons with the general population worldwide can be made. The methodologies are rigorous and robust.
The research has previously been carried out in Australia, Finland, and Ireland.
The research has full ethics approval and adheres to all Deakin University guidelines.
The survey is funded by NZEI Te Riu Roa.
What will I be asked to do?
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 antecedents, and outcomes, of environmental and personal factors relevant to educators’ wellbeing. As such, the information you provide will assist in better understanding how we can create an environment conducive to content and healthy school staff at all levels of the system.
This year we have included new questions related to COVID-19.
If you agreed to participate you will be invited to take part again for one follow-up if you began in 2020/2019 and no follow up if you begin in 2021, unless the research is extended. If the research is extended, we will contact you to invite you to participate.
We will be contacting you in future years to ask you to complete annual updates of the survey, so we ask for your mobile phone number as a secondary means of contacting you if your email address changes. If we are unable to contact you using the email address provided, we may phone or message you a reminder about the annual updates of the survey. Your phone number will be treated as confidential personal information and will be used only to contact you about the survey. It will not be shared or made publicly available in any way.
In the survey, we will ask you to nominate an alternative contact. This person will only be contacted by us only if we lose contact with you in follow-up communications. We will simply inform the alternative contact that we would like to invite you to participate in the research. We will not disclose whether you have previously participated in the research. This is standard practice in longitudinal research. You and your contact person’s privacy are paramount.
How did you get my email address?
The survey launch has been supported by NZEI Te Riu Roa who emailed information about the survey to their members. This organisation did not share your email address with us. When you complete the survey for the first time, you will be asked to provide an email address, which we will keep on record and use to contact you about annual follow-up surveys.
What is the COPSOQ II? What is the AQoL-8D?
The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire COPSOQ II is an instrument that has been used globally to measure work stress in many occupations. Using the COPSOQ II will allow us to look at your job stress and psychosocial health and compare it to a global dataset. You can also read about the scales of the COPSOQ II.
TheAQoL-8Dis 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.
We are using these questionnaires as they have been demonstrated to be reliable and valid tools.
Can I withdraw from the research?
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.
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 privacy of participants 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.
All data is stored in our secure servers in password-protected and encrypted files for at least 5 years. Identified data will never be released or available under any circumstances.
Details about the data management of your personal information at Deakin University can be found in your Plain Language Statement or on the Deakin University Human Ethics website.
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 such as the New Zealand School Trustees Association, and other teacher leader groups.
Some of the questions are of a personal nature. Should participation cause you any distress you may wish to seek help such as counselling. We have published a list of support services and professional organisations to assist you.
You may be contacted by Professor Phil Rileyif your responses indicate that you may require extra support. This communication will arrive via email at the private email address that we ask you to supply at the commencement of the survey. As a registered psychologist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency Professor Phil Riley is bound to act within the guidelines of the psychologists’ Code of Ethics. Therefore, if you disclose an immediate and specified risk of harm to an identifiable person or persons that can be averted only by disclosing information you have supplied, this information will be immediately passed on to the closest local agent legally responsible for the protection of the persons and/or general public.
Alternatively, you may contact Professor Phil Riley to arrange individual assistance. Please note that individual assistance could involve some cost to you, for instance, if you are referred to a service provider who charges fees for their service, like a psychologist.
The Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire COPSOQ II is an instrument that has been used globally to measure work stress in many occupations. Using the COPSOQ II will allow us to look at your job stress and psychosocial health and compare it to a global dataset. You can also read about the scales of the COPSOQ II.
TheAQoL-8Dis 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.
We are using these questionnaires as they have been demonstrated to be reliable and valid tools.
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.
Partners
New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa (NZEI)
nzei.org.nz
NZEI Te Riu Roa members work in every community in New Zealand, leading and advocating for quality public education. We are the 50,000 principals, teachers and support staff who work in primary, area and secondary schools as well as early childhood centres, special education and school advisory services. As the professional voice of New Zealand principals, teachers and support staff we are engaged in building on the high quality education our schools and centres offer our children. As the industrial voice of educators we are committed to securing the best employment terms and conditions possible for all members. We strongly support educational initiatives that align with our values and vision for quality public education and strongly oppose policies and practices that are destructive to our vision and values.
Research for Educational Impact (REDI), Deakin University
deakin.edu.au/redi
Deakin University’s Strategic Research Centre in Education, Research for Educational Impact (REDI) is located within the School of Education. Our research is focussed around four distinctive areas of research, and is led by renowned scholars in collaboration with highly active and successful educational researchers from a number of disciplines.
Instructions and Videos
How do I register as a new participant?
How do I access the survey and my individual health and wellbeing report?
We have an easy-to-use online portal that enables you to log in and complete the survey. On completion of the survey, you will be able to see your results in the form of a confidential, individual health and wellbeing report.
Returning participants can access this year’s survey and log in using the same email and password used last time.You will then be prompted to start the survey.
New participants need to register by clicking on the link in the invitation email sent to you by your professional association. When registering, it is very important that you do not use a general work email address, such as ‘admin@yourschool.nz’ as these types of shared Inboxes are potentially able to be seen by other people, for example, if you leave the school or change roles.
If you have not received an invitation email, please Contact Us letting us know if you are a primary or secondary principal or senior leader in New Zealand, and we will help you to access the survey.
On completion of the survey, you will be able to see your results in the form of a confidential, individual health and wellbeing report. To download your personal report, please log in and click on ‘MyReport’.
How do I change my password?
Visit the Forgot Password page where you can type in the email address that you are registered with and click ‘Send password’. Then, check your email inbox for a ‘one-time password’. Copy and paste the one-time password back into the Forgot Password window, with a new password of your choice (repeated twice). Once this is successful you are ready to log in.
Your password can also be changed in the ‘Profile’ tab once logged in.
What should I do if I have technical difficulties or want to amend my survey answers?
We will help you to troubleshoot and resolve any computer issues related to the survey, or wish to amend your survey answers, please Contact Us.
View Support Services Here
