Online Socio-emotional Dyad Training for School Teachers' Well-being and Social Skills

NCT07637409 | Not Yet Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: Edu:Social School Study 2
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 900
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

The Edu:Social School Study 2 is a randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the effects of an 8-week socio-emotional, partner-based empathy-compassion Dyad training program (EmCo) compared with a mindfulness-based training (MBT) and a waitlist control group (WLC) in school teachers. The primary objective is to assess the efficacy of the adapted 8-week online EmCo Dyad training program across multiple domains of teacher functioning. Seven domains capture individual-level outcomes: (1) mental health, (2) resilience, (3) attention and cognitive processes, (4) social emotions, (5) stress coping and emotion regulation, (6) listening skills, and (7) voice-based emotional expression (DYVA). Two additional domains assess broader contextual outcomes: (8) classroom teaching and (9) organizational/school level outcomes, reflecting how individual-level changes may translate into perceived changes in the teaching and school context. To this end, participants will be randomized into one of three groups: (1) an 8-week EmCo Dyad intervention (EmCo), (2) an 8-week mindfulness-based training program (MBT), or (3) a waitlist control group (WLC) that will receive the EmCo intervention after completion of the initial post-test. Both interventions are delivered online via a dedicated study application to ensure scalability and accessibility. A second aim is to validate the Egocentric Social Network Analysis Paradigm (e-SNAP) as a measure of teachers' perceived social interactions and network structures. This study represents the first randomized controlled trial in teachers to examine whether changes in internal psychological processes are associated with perceived changes in the perception of the quality of interaction between school teachers and their students in the classroom as well as between school teachers and their colleagues in school. A third aim is to introduce and validate objective measures of emotional processing based on AI-based voice analysis in educational field research. Specifically, the study will evaluate two tasks using different parameters of AI-based emotional voice analysis: (a) the Teacher Voice Assessment (TEAVA), in which teachers' voices are recorded during a teaching-related task, and (b) the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA), conducted during the daily partner-based Dyad practice. In both tasks, non-semantic vocal features (e.g., pitch, loudness, speaking rate, intonation) and vocal emotional expressions (e.g., arousal, valence, dominance, and basic emotional categories) will be analyzed using audEERING devAIce software. No speech content will be transcribed or analyzed. A final aim is to investigate the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying intervention-related changes. Based on prior research, the EmCo Dyad training is expected to enhance care- and affiliation-related motivational systems associated with positive affect, social emotions and connectedness, and prosocial behavior, while reducing loneliness, social stress, and other forms of psychological vulnerability. In contrast, mindfulness-based training is expected to primarily strengthen attention- and thought-related processes, including present-moment awareness, calming the mind and executive attentional control. These mechanisms are expected to contribute to improvements in mental health and overall well-being across both intervention groups.

Conditions

Intervention (Training) Condition; Waitlist Control Group

Keywords

Mental Training; Dyad Training; Mindfulness-based Training; Compassionate Listening; Empathic Listening; Empathy; Compassion; Mental-Health; Resilience; Social Emotions; AI-based Voice Assessment; e-SNAP; Perceive Psychosocial Work Environment; School Teachers; Online & App-based Training

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (20)

• Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21)

  A scale measuring depression, anxiety, and stress (Henry \& Crawford, 2005; Nilges \& Essau, 2021). Higher scores indicate more depression, anxiety, and stress.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES)

  A scale measuring burnout (Maslach \& Jackson, 1981; Schwarzer et al., 2000). Higher scores indicate more burnout.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA)

  A scale measuring loneliness severity (Döring \& Bortz, 1993; Russell et al., 1980). Higher scores indicate more loneliness.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC)

  A scale measuring psychological resilience (Connor \& Davidson, 2003; Sarubin et al., 2015). Higher scores indicate more resilience.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Types of Positive Affect Scale (TPAS)

  A scale measuring the frequency and intensity of three distinct types of positive emotions: Activated PA (excitement, energy), Relaxed PA (calm, peacefulness), and Safe/Contentment PA (safety, security) (Gilbert et al., 2008). Higher scores indicate a greater frequency and intensity of experiencing specific types of positive emotions.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Executive control (Flanker Task; FT)

  This task assesses executive control with three indices reaction times (RT), error rates, and the flanker effect (FE) (Trautwein et al., 2016; 2020). Faster RT, lower error rates and FE indicate higher cognitive control.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Mind-Wandering

  These two questions embedded in the flanker task assess mind-wandering during attentional performance (Smallwood, 2015). Lower rates indicate less mind-wandering.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Socio-Affective Video Task (SoVT)

  This task assesses behavioral empathy and compassion using emotional video clips (Klimecki et al., 2014, 2013). Higher scores indicate more empathy or more compassion.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test), after 4 weeks of empathic listening training (mid-intervention) and after the 4 weeks of compassionate listening training (post-test 1 & 2)

• Sussex-Oxford Compassion Scale for Self and Others (SOCS)

  A scale measuring self-compassion (SOCS-S) and compassion for others (SOCS-O; Gu et al., 2020). Higher scores indicate more compassion.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test), after 4 weeks of empathic listening training (mid-intervention) and after the 4 weeks of compassionate listening training (post-test 1 & 2)

• Prosodic Feature Pitch

  Acoustic assessment of the prosodic speech feature pitch (measured in Hz) during participants' daily Dyad practice, analyzed using audEERING devAIce software.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Prosodic Feature Loudness

  Acoustic assessment of the prosodic speech feature loudness (unitless) during participants' daily Dyad practice, analyzed using audEERING devAIce software.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Prosodic Feature Speaking Rate

  Acoustic assessment of the prosodic speech feature speaking rate (measured in syllables per minute) during participants' daily Dyad practice, analyzed using audEERING devAIce software.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Prosodic Feature Intonation

  Acoustic assessment of the prosodic speech feature intonation (unitless) during participants' daily Dyad practice, analyzed using audEERING devAIce software.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Affect Dimensions of Vocalized Emotional Expressions

  Assessment of continuous affective dimensions of vocalized emotional expressions during participants' daily Dyad practice using audEERING devAIce software. The following parameters will be assessed: arousal, valence, and dominance (each ranging from -1 to 1). Based on arousal-valence scores, the following affect-quadrant values will be calculated: high-arousal-high-valence; low-arousal-high-valence; low-arousal-low-valence; and high-arousal-low valence.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Affect Categories of Vocalized Emotional Expressions

  Classification of vocalized emotional expressions intro affect categories during participants' daily Dyad practice, analyzed using audEERING devAIce software. The following parameters will be assessed: angry, happy, and sad, expressed as unitless values ranging from 0 to 1 representing category likelihood.

  Assessed weekly from week 1 to week 8, as part of the Dyad Voice Assessment (DYVA)

• Stress intensity

  Custom item based on the Stress Appraisal Measure (SAM; Delahaye et al., 2015; Peacock \& Wong, 1990) measuring stress intensity. Higher scores indicate more intense stress.

  Assessed using an EMA design with five push-notification measurements per day, distributed across five 3-hour intervals, on four days within a two-week period, at pre-test (Baseline) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-intervention).

• Coping strategies

  Custom items based on the Brief-COPE (Carver, 1997; Knoll et al., 2005) and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski et al., 2001; Loch et al., 2011) measuring Coping Strategies (Acceptance, Positive Reinterpretation, Social Support, Rumination, Self-Blame, Distraction). Higher scores indicate a higher use of the specified coping strategies.

  Assessed using an EMA design with five push-notification measurements per day, distributed across five 3-hour intervals, on four days within a two-week period, at pre-test (Baseline) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-intervention).

• Active Empathic Listening Scale (AELS)

  A scale measuring active empathic listening (Bodie, 2011). Higher scores indicate more active empathic listening.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test), after 4 weeks of empathic listening training (mid-intervention) and after the 4 weeks of compassionate listening training (post-test 1 & 2)

• Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ)

  A scale measuring psychological working conditions (stressors and coping resources) impact employee health and well-being (Kristensen et al., 2005; Nübling, 2005)

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

• Egocentric Social Network Analysis Paradigm (e-SNAP)

  The e-SNAP is a novel assessment paradigm based on the Affect Grid. Teachers rate their interactions with both students and colleagues in terms of frequency and pleasantness in interactions. In addition, teachers rate in both the student and colleague networks the relationships among each other, allowing to assess positive relations and network density. Higher scores indicate more frequent and more positively experienced interactions, as well as more cohesive and positively connected social networks.

  Assessed at baseline (pre-test) and after the 8-week intervention period (post-test 1 & 2)

Secondary Outcomes (20)

• Positive Affect (Affect Grid) (explanatory mechanism)

  Assessed weekly during the course of 8 weeks of intervention

• Emotion Acceptance (EAQ) (explanatory mechanism)

  Assessed weekly during the course of 8 weeks

• Gratitude Questionnaire-6 (GQ-5-G) (explanatory mechanism)

  Assessed weekly during the course of 8 weeks

• Self-Kindness Scale (SCS-SF) (explanatory mechanism)

  Assessed weekly during the course of 8 weeks

• Short Loneliness Scale (SLS) (explanatory mechanism)

  Assessed weekly during the course of 8 weeks

Other Outcomes (5)

• Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; pre-screening)

  Assessed before the intervention, only once, to pre-screen out from the study individuals who have clinical levels of depressive symptoms

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7; pre-screening)

  Assessed prior to the intervention, only once, to pre-screen out from the study individuals who have clinical levels of anxious symptoms.

• Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; pre-screening)

  Assessed before the intervention, only once, to pre-screen individuals' levels of alexithymia.

Study Arms (3)

Empathy- and compassion-based socio-emotional mental training (EmCo)

EXPERIMENTAL

The socio-emotional intervention will consist of two 1.5h online onboarding I and II sessions and then 8 weeks of weekly 1.5-hour online coaching sessions with expert teachers as well as daily dyad practice with a partner over 8 week.

Behavioral: Empathy- and compassion-based socio-emotional mental training (EmCo)

Mindfulness-based Training (MBT)

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

MBT includes onboarding sessions, weekly coaching, and daily mindfulness practice over 8 weeks.

Behavioral: Mindfulness-based Training (MBT)

Waitlist Control Group (WLC)

OTHER

WLC receives EmCo training only after both intervention groups complete their programs.

Other: Waitlist Control Group (WCL)

Interventions

Mindfulness-based Training (MBT) BEHAVIORAL

1. In this intervention, participants will practice 13-minute basic attention-based mindfulness meditation such as the Breathing Meditation (BM). BM is a 13-minute individual exercise that requires participants to focus their attention on the sensations of breathing. Participants have to sustain their attention to breath for long stretches of time, and have to return their attention to their breath when their mind wanders. The key focus is on training attention and interoceptive body awareness. Other practices participants will be taught is mindfulness on sounds (here the object of attention is not the breath but sounds in the environment) as well as open presence meditation. 2. Participants also attend eight 1.5-hour online group sessions led by Expert mindfulness teachers. The coaching sessions help deepen the mindfulness practice and educate teachers about bodily sensations, attention, rumination.

Mindfulness-based Training (MBT)

Waitlist Control Group (WCL) OTHER

1. Initially, participants in the WLC group will not receive the intervention. They will complete pre- and post-test procedures consisting primarily of self-report questionnaires, and behavioral tasks, as well as ecological momentary assessment (EMA) conducted on four days within two weeks at pre-test and post-test 1 \& 2. 2. The WLC will be offered the EmCo training only after both intervention groups have completed their trainings

Waitlist Control Group (WLC)

Empathy- and compassion-based socio-emotional mental training (EmCo) BEHAVIORAL

1. Participants engage in a structured 13-minute partner-based contemplative exercise. Each dyad reflects on two experiences from the previous 24 hours: one involving a difficult emotion and one involving gratitude. Partners take turns speaking while the other listens non-judgmentally. During weeks 1-4, the practice emphasizes empathic listening; during weeks 5-8, compassionate listening. Participants are instructed to attend to bodily sensations associated with the emotions described. The practice aims to improve coping with difficult emotions, empathic and compassionate listening, (self)acceptance, compassion, gratitude, resilience. 2. Participants also attend eight 1.5-hour online group sessions led by Expert Dyad teachers. The coaching sessions help deepen the Dyad practice and educate teachers about body language, coping better with difficult emotions/stress, the benefits of empathy versus compassion and the act of listening from a mindset of empathy versus compassion.

Empathy- and compassion-based socio-emotional mental training (EmCo)

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 68 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• Between 18- and 68-years old.
• Currently working as a school teacher in Germany or Austria; grades 1-12; primary, secondary, special needs, and vocational schools.
• Proficient in German.
• Informed consent.
• No symptoms of psychiatric disease within the past two years; healthy population, non-clinical population.
• Stable internet access and necessary technical equipment (mobile phone with internet access).
• No regular contemplative practice (≤ 50 hours total within the past six months).

You may not qualify if:

• Insufficient German proficiency.
• Lack of stable internet access or required devices (mobile phone with internet access).
• No informed consent.
• Not currently working as a school teacher.
• Regular contemplative practice (\> 50 hours in the past six months (e.g., dyad, mindfulness, compassion-based practices).
• Current psychiatric diagnosis or therapy, or reaching screening cutoffs on:
• Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9; Martin et al., 2006; Löwe et al., 2004; Cutoff ≥ 20; or endorsing suicidality on the item 9),
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7; Löwe et al., 2007; Spitzer et al., 2006; Cutoff ≥ 15),
• Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20; Bagby et al., 1994; Ritz \& Kannapin, 2000; Cutoff ≥ 61)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Max Planck Social Neuroscience Lab: lead

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Psychological Well-Being

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Personal Satisfaction; Behavior

Study Officials

• Tania Singer, PhD

  Social Neuroscience Lab | Max Planck Society

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

• Philipp Beuchel, Ph.D.

  Social Neuroscience Lab | Max Planck Society

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

• Ananda Zeas-Sigüenza, Ph.D.

  Social Neuroscience Lab | Max Planck Society

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Central Study Contacts

Lab Manager Social Neuroscience Lab

CONTACT

+49 30 209346-180; office@social.mpg.de

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: DOUBLE
• Who Masked: INVESTIGATOR, OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Masking Details: After pre-screening and randomized allocation to the three groups via algorithm, participants and coordination staff need to be aware of which intervention arm (EmCo, MBT, or WLC \[waitlist control\] groups) the participant belongs to in order to be able to group into appropriate coaching slots and onboarding I and II sessions prior to starting the actual 8-week online interventions with daily practice. Outcome assessors and investigators remain blinded to participant allocation for the duration of the study.
• Purpose: BASIC SCIENCE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: May 26, 2026
• First Posted: June 9, 2026
• Study Start: June 1, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 20, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): April 3, 2027
• Last Updated: June 9, 2026

Record last verified: 2026-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share