Education Students’ Perceptions of Instructors Who Disclose Mental Health and Well-Being Experiences in Post-Secondary Classrooms

Abstract

This mixed-methods study documents the collaborative autoethnographic experiences of two Faculty of Education instructors who disclose mental health and well-being details in their classrooms and reports on the perceptions of 117 education students across six of the instructors’ Bachelor of Education and Master of Education courses. Students completed an online survey concerning their instructors’ approachability, competency, sensitivity to student struggles, and trustworthiness after their mental health disclosures. Interrelated frameworks of well-being, student-teacher relationships, and inclusive learning environments informed the analysis. Findings indicate that students found their instructors to be more competent, understanding, and worthy of respect after disclosing mental health experiences. Students also perceived their instructors as role models, as working to destigmatize mental illness, and recognized their instructors’ disclosures as intentionally contributing to inclusive classroom spaces. Notably, students who had personal experiences with mental illness (over half of participants) shared an increased view of their own competence resulting from their instructor’s disclosures. For students who were already knowledgeable about mental health and held low levels of stigma, perceptions of their instructors were relatively unchanged. Instructors reaffirmed their beliefs about the need to use their positions of power strategically to destigmatize mental illness, and about the benefits of modelling inclusive classroom practices for future teachers.