Lewis, Rebecca; (2025) The impact of Teaching Assistants’ activities on their subjective well-being. Doctoral thesis (D.Ed.Psy), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Teaching Assistants (TA) have diverse roles, ranging from classroom support and delivering interventions to providing pastoral care and fulfilling numerous other tasks and responsibilities. Most research on TAs has concentrated on enhancing their effectiveness. However, factors related to wellbeing which either benefit or hinder their work, often emerge indirectly. Wellbeing is important not only for effective performance but also for their sense of self, motivation, and emotions, among other aspects. TAs are frequently required to use the strategies and interventions recommended by Educational Psychologists (EPs), which may improve in effectiveness if staff are content and motivated. The few studies evaluating wellbeing tend to focus on the overall experience of TAs, with limited attention to how it may vary across daily activities, such as specific tasks and responsibilities. Informed by the Deployment and Impact of Support Staff project and utilising the Simple Model of Subjective Wellbeing, this research aimed to investigate how various dimensions of subjective wellbeing differ across TAs’ activities. A two- phase mixed methods design was adopted; first, a survey was conducted adapting the Day Reconstruction Method, which required TAs to score their subjective wellbeing for each activity on a given day, followed by semi-structured interviews with four TAs to explore wellbeing and related factors in greater depth. Inferences were drawn from descriptive statistics of the survey and thematic analysis of the interviews. TAs derive positive wellbeing from activities that enable them to support pupils in making progress, predominantly in learning, such as facilitating interventions, which are regarded as a core aspect of their job identity. However, activities requiring a high level of responsibility for behaviour management with minimal support, such as teaching classes, were linked to negative wellbeing. In the current system, as TAs are often redeployed to cover classes and manage challenging situations, schools’ risk frequently removing them from activities that provide the most meaning, enjoyment, and a sense of competency. Further discussion and implications are included.

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