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How Early Childhood Educators Resolve Workplace Challenges Using

Character Strengths and Model Character for Children in the Process

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DOI: 10.1007/s10643-020-01072-2

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Early Childhood Education Journal
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-020-01072-2

How Early Childhood Educators Resolve Workplace Challenges Using

Character Strengths and Model Character for Children in the Process
Michael J. Haslip1   · Leona Donaldson2

© Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract
Character strengths improve performance and well-being but are rarely studied among early childhood educators. This
qualitative study describes how in-service early childhood educators (n = 17, United States) resolved workplace challenges
following a character strength application intervention. During professional development, teachers learned to write action
plans to use character strengths (e.g., perseverance, kindness) to address their challenges. Teachers reported a 71% success
rate in fully or mostly resolving challenges using this method. Another 22% experienced partial success. This study documents
how teachers matched character strengths to personal challenges with children, coworkers and parents. Teachers reported
using certain strengths mostly with children (e.g., love, forgiveness), others mostly with adults (e.g., teamwork, bravery),
and others universally (e.g., kindness, leadership). Teachers reported modeling or teaching character strengths to children
in 31% of cases in which they were seeking to resolve some form of workplace challenge. Teachers perceived that the inter-
vention made it more likely for them to model or teach character strengths to children, particularly kindness, forgiveness,
social intelligence and teamwork. Educators and children are likely to benefit from professional development that explores
the application of character strengths in the workplace.

Keywords  Character strengths · Positive psychology · Character education · Early childhood education ·
Social emotional learning

Introduction/Literature Review
Character strengths (virtues) are positive psychological
traits (e.g., justice, humility) that individuals display through
behavior, thought, and emotion (Park and Peterson 2006;
Person and Seligman 2004). Character strength development
in children is important for increasing healthy behaviors and
decreasing aggression (Schuberth et al. 2019; Shubert et al.
Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this
article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s1064​3-020-01072​-2) contains
supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Michael J. Haslip
haslip@drexel.edu
Leona Donaldson
ld579@drexel.edu
1
Department of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum, School
of Education, Drexel University, 3401 Market Street, Room
3225, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
2
School of Education, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA
2019; Shoshani and Slone 2017; Carter and Dasson 2017;
Kokoszka and Smith 2016). In adults, character strengths
used at work are associated with team functioning, reduced
absenteeism, and increased productivity (Lavy and Littman-
Ovadia 2016; Ruch et al. 2018; van Woerkom et al. 2016).
Healthy behaviors, such as eating healthily and engaging in
physical fitness, are associated with a variety of character
strengths, including self-regulation, hope, gratitude, humor,
appreciation of beauty and excellence, and curiosity (Proyer
et al. 2013).
Although the  benefits associated with character
strengths are well documented, the use of character strengths
by early childhood educators has received very little empiri-
cal attention (Lottman et al. 2017). This oversight is signifi-
cant for two reasons. First, the early childhood workforce
experiences high rates of stress and job turnover related to
managing a complex and demanding work environment,
often with inadequate resources and support (Whitebook
et al. 2018). Developing a systematic, individualized process
for teachers to better apply character strengths in the work-
place could help. However, we are not aware of empirical

13
Vol.:(0123456789)

research investigating the success rate of early childhood
educators at resolving workplace challenges using inten-
tional character strength application  practices. Second,
teacher modeling of character strengths is central to chil-
dren’s character and social-emotional education (Berkowitz
and Bier 2007; Kokoszka and Smith 2016). The relationship
between teachers’ practice of their own character strengths,
for improving their job experience, and the potential this
practice has for modeling these traits for children, as a sec-
ondary benefit, is unexplored.
Character Strengths and Virtues
In the book, Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook
and Classification (Peterson and Seligman 2004), the scien-
tific basis for 24 character strengths encompassing the range
of qualities found to be universally valuable are described,
such as honesty, love, and forgiveness. These 24 strengths
are further categorized into 1 of 6 key virtue areas: (a) wis-
dom, (b) courage, (c) humanity, (d) justice, (e) temperance,
and (f) transcendence (Peterson and Seligman 2004; VIA
Institute on Character 2018). The purpose of Peterson and
Seligman’s project was to identify strengths that were both
measurable and cross-cultural (universal). Fifty-five scien-
tists reviewed historical documents dating back 2500 years
to identify widely valued virtues (Peterson and Seligman
2004). The six virtue areas presented above emerged as
valuable across Athenian philosophy, Buddhism, Christian-
ity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Taoism.
Data from 30 countries were also examined to identify con-
vergence with the aforementioned 24 character strengths.
Later research extended this investigation of cross-cultural
virtues to 54 countries (Park et al. 2006) and again to 75
countries, finding substantial convergence with, or endorse-
ment of, these 24 virtues (McGrath 2015). The current study
adopted these 24 character strengths, also termed the Values
in Action inventory of strengths, as the focus of study with
early childhood educators (viacharacter.org).
Benefits of Character Strengths
Some researchers believe that character development can
empower individuals to become morally driven agents
engaged in altruistic action (Carter and Dasson 2017;
Berkowitz 2011; Berkowitz and Bier 2005, 2007). Inter-
nal states associated with character development are life
satisfaction, happiness, and well-being, and external states
include higher education, financial security, and a stable
society (Weber et al. 2016). The strengths correspond with
productivity in future work (Park and Peterson 2009). Use
of certain strengths is correlated with positive tangible
outcomes such as increased work satisfaction and work
engagement, self-efficacy, vitality, lower perceived stress,
13
Early Childhood Education Journal
and better goal progress (Govindji and Linley 2007; Lin-
ley et al. 2010; Littman-Ovadia and Steger 2010; Proctor
et al. 2011; Wood et al. 2011). The character strengths of
love, zest, and hope have associations with happiness and
less anxiety (Onwuegbuzie 1999; Park and Peterson 2006),
while forgiveness is related to higher self-esteem, subjec-
tive well-being, empathy, friendliness, and low anxiety
(Berry et al. 2001; Kaplan 1992; McCullough et al. 2001).
In young people, using character strengths, such as
self-control and self-regulation, is related to academic suc-
cess, self-efficacy, positive classroom behavior, and secure
interpersonal attachment (Linley et al. 2010). Character
strengths such as perseverance, love, gratitude, hope, and
perspective are related to high grade point averages (Peter-
son and Park 2006).
Behaviors that Manifest Character Strengths
Specific behaviors and actions that display character
strengths for adults include arriving at work on time and
completing one’s responsibilities, preparing for what must
be done, cooperating well on a team, and behaving and
acting ethically (Comer 2003). The specific behaviors and
actions that display character strengths for young children
in school settings may look different from adult behavior.
Prosocial skills in young children as observed in school
settings include helping others, taking turns and sharing
toys, compromising, playing well with others, sharing feel-
ings verbally, completing chores and requests from teach-
ers, and comforting other children who are upset (Lottman
et al. 2017; Mei-Ju et al. 2014; Hyson and Taylor 2011;
Ramaswamy and Bergin 2009; Honig 2004; Beaty 1999).
From this description, character strengths are manifested
in the form of many social–emotional skills.
Nevertheless, Lottman et al. (2017) have emphasized
that it is important for early childhood educators to be able
to recognize their own character strengths to nurture the
development of them among young children. They propose
a character strengths intervention for early childhood edu-
cators consisting of four phases: (1) teachers learn their
own character strengths, (2) teachers recognize character
strengths among young children, (3) teachers nurture those
character strengths among young children, and (4) teach-
ers support parents with developing those skills. These
suggestions reinforce the importance of teachers apply-
ing their character strengths to diverse situations in early
childhood settings. One of the six core principles of effec-
tive character education is for teachers to use and model
(Berkowitz and Bier 2007) the virtues. Such modeling is
described as essential in urban early childhood settings
(Kokoszka and Smith 2016), such as the large city where
the present study was conducted.
Early Childhood Education Journal
Problem and Purpose
Existing research on the use of character strengths by early
childhood educators themselves is scant, despite much
research and practice being devoted to promoting young
children’s character and prosocial behavior (Shoshani and
Slone 2017; Carter and Dasson 2017; Kokoszka and Smith
2016). How early childhood educators recognize their own
character strengths, consciously apply them in their day-to-
day work with children and coworkers, and what outcomes
they experience in doing so, remain important areas for
exploration. Based on research with other samples of adults,
as cited earlier, early childhood educators are likely to expe-
rience increased job satisfaction and reduced job stress after
applying personal character strengths to address workplace
challenges. Furthermore, we wondered if and how the appli-
cation of character strengths by teachers to address work-
place challenges might also create opportunities for mod-
eling and teaching these traits to children.
Research Questions
(1) How do participating early childhood educators match
their character strengths to various types of workplace
challenges?
(2) How successful are participating childhood educators
at resolving workplace challenges using a character
strength application approach?
(3) How are children perceived by participating teachers to
be involved in learning character strengths in relation
to teachers’ own practice of character strengths in the
workplace?
Theoretical Perspectives
To address our questions, this study draws on two theoretical
frameworks, (1) positive psychology, and (2) adult learning
theory. The principles of positive psychology were applied
by investigating the use of character strengths in the early
childhood workplace, while adult learning theory was actu-
alized by using practice-targeted professional development.
Positive psychology is the science of actions and quali-
ties that create well-being, contentment, satisfaction, opti-
mism, and happiness, with a focus on character strengths
and virtues such as love, courage, perseverance, spiritual-
ity, wisdom, responsibility, altruism, moderation, work ethic
and others (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000). Positive
psychology seeks to understand the sources of strength that
people with integrity, purpose, and hope draw upon. Positive
psychology investigates the variables that combine to cre-
ate mental well-being, “making normal people stronger and
more productive and making high human potential actual”
(Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000, p. 8). Positive psy-
chology has been translated into a framework for ‘positive
education’ that focuses on the development of character
strengths in children and their experience of positive emo-
tions, engagement, accomplishment, purpose, relationships,
and health (Norrish et al. 2013).
Positive psychology is actualized by individuals using
their character strengths, which are morally valued psy-
chological traits that have universal recognition (Norrish
et al. 2013; Peterson and Seligman 2004). Each person has
developed these capacities to some degree, or has them
in potential, to promote optimal growth, flourishing, and
performance. Character strengths used at work are associ-
ated with increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, and
improved team functioning (Lavy and Littman-Ovadia 2016;
Ruch et al. 2018; van Woerkom et al. 2016). The charac-
ter strengths of self-regulation, appreciation of beauty and
excellence, curiosity, gratitude, humor, and hope are strongly
correlated with health behaviors such as living an active life,
eating healthily, and engaging in physical fitness (Proyer
et al. 2013).
The Values in Action (VIA) survey (Peterson and Park
2009; Peterson and Seligman 2004) operationalizes 24 uni-
versal character strengths (e.g. bravery, kindness, fairness),
and can be completed online to identify an individual’s
character profile which ranks the extent to which a person
values and applies these traits (viacharacter.org). A body of
research has investigated the efficacy of the VIA classifica-
tion of strengths on life satisfaction, health and wellness,
achievement, mindfulness, relationships, and other out-
comes, in the workplace and with children and youth (Via
Institute on Character [1]). In summarizing this literature,
the VIA Institute on Character describes life satisfaction as
frequently correlated with “zest, hope, gratitude, love, and
curiosity.” The present study operationalized positive psy-
chology by introducing the VIA classification of strengths
to early childhood educators. Educators completed the VIA
survey and then drew upon these strengths to address work-
place challenges they currently faced (see “Intervention”
section).
Knowles’s (1984) adult learning theory describes how
learning is best optimized for adults by applying four prin-
ciples: (1) the topic is applicable to the adult’s professional
or personal life, (2) adult learning takes place by solving
real problems, (3) adults learn through experience and new
instruction considers their previous experience, and (4)
adults need to participate in the planning and evaluation of
their instruction.
The present intervention applied Knowles (1984) adult
learning principles using practice-targeted professional
development recommended as effective for early child-
hood educators (Pianta et al. 2014). For example, educators
reported a variety of real challenges at work that character
13

strength application could assist them in addressing (princi-
ple 1), they had time to apply character strengths to various
work challenges (principle 2), they repeated this activity to
learn through experience and discussed experiences with
colleagues in professional development sessions (princi-
ple 3), and finally, they wrote their own action plans and
reflected on their results (principle 4). The four principles
of adult learning theory (Knowles 1984) were applied using
the Character Strengths Journal Template described in the
“Instruments and Procedures” section.
Methods
Intervention
In 2017, the first author conducted a 12-week professional
development course for in-service early childhood educators
to understand and support children’s social–emotional learn-
ing (SEL) and moral development (Haslip et al. 2018). Stu-
dents in the course, entitled Social and Emotional Learning
and Child Guidance, earned 20 professional development
hours but not college credit. They were not required to attend
the course. The current study investigates a component of
that course which asked teachers to apply their personal
character strengths to real workplace challenges and reflect
on the results. Doing so would prepare them to model and
teach character strengths to children, a goal of the course.
The character strength intervention consisted of three
activities. First, participants completed a valid and reli-
able online assessment, the Values in Action Inventory
of Strengths (VIA-IS) (Peterson and Park 2009; Peterson
and Seligman 2004) to identify their unique ’VIA char-
acter strength profile,’ a ranking of the extent to which
they value and practice 24 unique strengths (e.g., persever-
ance, teamwork, humility). Second, participants discussed
their VIA character strength profile, identifying their top
strengths, middle strengths, and lower strengths. During
each class session we discussed the meaning and impor-
tance of several character strengths, gradually working
through a discussion of all 24. Participants discussed how
the application of these strengths could support their work
and the importance of modeling them for children. The
intervention assumed that teachers who identify and use
their own character strengths can in turn support students
to appreciate and develop similar strengths (Gradišek
2012). Third, participants completed the researcher-cre-
ated Character Strength Journal Template (CSJT) as a
repeating assignment to facilitate their practice applying
character strengths to workplace challenges (Appendix
A). Participants were asked to write their personal char-
acter strengths onto the CSJT based on the results of the
VIA assessment they completed, containing 24 specific
13
Early Childhood Education Journal
strengths, or to write about other strengths not listed on
the VIA classification. Time was given to participants dur-
ing several class sessions to write and submit the charac-
ter template, a one-page document which doubled as this
study’s data collection instrument, described further in the
“Methods” section.
Our pedagogical approach to coaching teachers in the
identification and use of their character strengths fol-
lowed techniques used in Mindfulness-Based Strengths
Practice (MBSP; Niemiec 2014) which has been applied
with early childhood educators (Lottman et  al. 2017).
MBSP is a positive psychology intervention that combines
mindfulness (self-regulating one’s attention to the present
moment while being curious, accepting and open towards
it) with character strength application and has been found
to increase well-being (Ivtzan et al. 2016).
Participants
Participants included 17 early childhood educators from
a large city in the northeastern US who were enrolled the
SEL course described above. Table 1 shows that 16 of the
educators were working actively with children for at least
10 h/week as lead or assistant teachers, center directors
or family care providers. One participant was a mentor to
other teachers and therefore worked with children for less
than 9 h/week. The majority were at least 40 years old
(65%), female (100%), Black or African-American (53%),
held a bachelor’s or master’s degree (65%), worked as a
lead or assistant teacher (70%), had 10 or more years of
teaching or child care experience (59%), worked full-time
teaching children (82%), and taught at least 2 age groups
of young children (94%).
We recruited participants by personally meeting local
early childhood center directors in the city to discuss their
teacher needs regarding SEL training. We then emailed fly-
ers about the course to center directors with a request that
they share the opportunity to attend this free course with
their teachers. Incentives to participate included receiv-
ing 20 professional development hours, free textbooks,
materials, and an Amazon gift card after course com-
pletion ($99.00). Twenty-four early childhood educators
completed the course. Among the 24 course completers,
17 participated in the character strength application activ-
ity by submitting the CSJT (data collection instrument)
at least once and were included in the present study. The
other seven educators attended the course, participating in
related discussions and other course activities, but chose
not to submit the CSJT. The course was funded by a grant
provided by a university. The study was approved by an
Institutional Review Board and informed consent was
obtained.
Early Childhood Education Journal

Table 1  Participant characteristics (N = 17) Table 1  (continued)

Characteristic n % Characteristic n %

Age at time of survey (years)  3 2 12

 25 of younger 3 18  4 2 12
 26–32 2 12  5 2 12
 33–39 1 6  6 2 12
 40–46 5 29  7 (Ages 0–6 and school aged children) 1 6
 47–53 1 6 a
 16 Teachers taught more than 1 age group
 54–60 3 18 b
 An age group is like a grade level (i.e. 3–4 year olds, 5–6 year olds)
 61–67 2 12
Gender
 Female 17 100 Instruments and Procedures
 Male 0 0
Race/ethnicity The first author created a planning and reflection worksheet
 Black or African-American 9 53 for early childhood educators to fill out called the CSJT. As
 White 4 24 shown in Appendix A, the template facilitates (1) identifica-
 Asian or Asian-American 2 12 tion of a current workplace challenge, (2) matching character
 Hispanic or Latino/a 1 6 strengths to the challenge, (3) writing an action plan to apply
 Other 1 6 identified strengths to the challenge, and (4) describing the
Highest education level completed results experienced after addressing the challenge. Draw-
 High school diploma/GED 0 0 ing inspiration from Mindfulness-Based Strengths Practice
 Some community college 0 0 (Niemiec 2014) and related work in early childhood edu-
 Completed CDA or other certificate (not 2-year 2 12 cation (Lottman et al. 2017), participants were encouraged
degree)
to practice applying character strengths to the resolution of
 Associates degree 4 24
workplace challenges each week and to facilitate this pro-
 Bachelor’s degree 7 41
cess by completing one CSJT weekly for the duration of
 Master’s degree 4 24
the course. This worksheet doubled as the data collection
Job title/type of teacher
tool for the study. Templates were collected by the course
 Lead teacher 6 35
instructor at the end of each class session. A total of 87
 Assistant teacher 6 35
CSJTs were collected during the intervention period from
 Director of early learning center 1 6
17 teachers. Teachers on average submitted 5 templates
 Family care provider (at-home child care) 3 18
each (range 1–11), meaning they typically completed the
 Coach/mentor 1 6
activity 5 times. Most teachers (13/17) submitted at least
Years of teaching or child care experience
3 templates. Prior to the assignment of the repeating CSJT
 0–5 2 12
activity, participants identified and discussed their character
 6–9 5 30
strengths using the VIA-IS (Peterson and Park 2009; Peter-
 10 or more 10 59
son and Seligman 2004) which they completed online and
Hours per week teaching children
brought to class for discussion.
 30 or more (full-time) 14 82
 10–29 (part-time) 2 12
Data Analysis
 9 h or less 1 6
Age(s) of children you t­each a
Content analysis (Dey 1993; Gray 2018) and thematic
 0–1 years old 7
analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) approaches were used to
 1–2 8
classify, connect, describe, and interpret data reported by
 2–3 10
early childhood educators to investigate how they applied
 3–4 14
character strengths to their current workplace challenges and
 4–5 13
answer the research questions. Raw data (handwritten tem-
 5–6 7
plates submitted by participants) were transcribed verbatim
 Other (school aged) 3
into a table. Quantitative content analysis was then used to
Number of age groups you t­eachb
summarize the frequency of character strength terms used on
 1 1 6
the templates. This allowed us to identify the range of vari-
 2 6 35
ous character strengths being used and the frequency with

13

which each strength (e.g. fairness) was used.1 The template
provided categories for further analysis (e.g. challenges,
strengths, action plan, results). These sections of the tem-
plate were analyzed using open coding to produce subcat-
egories, paying attention to both properties (e.g., challenges
with coworkers versus challenges with children) and dimen-
sions (e.g., the level of difficulty of a challenge/the extent to
which a challenge was resolved).2
A thematic analysis approach was then used to identify
patterns within the data whereby codes were clustered into
themes related to each subcategory. For example, within the
category of “challenges,” pre-determined by the researchers,
we asked participants to describe a current challenge or need
they were facing at work which they would plan to resolve
by applying personal character strengths. The subcategories
of ‘challenges with coworkers’ or ‘challenges with children’
were inductively derived and specific types of challenges
were labeled and clustered by theme, such as the challenge
of teaching social–emotional skills to children. Axial cod-
ing was then used to recognize relationships between the
types of challenges teachers described and the character
strengths used to address them, paying attention to con-
text, actions, interactions, and consequences (Gray 2018).
We created a data matrix to match challenges with corre-
sponding strengths and recognize relationships. We support
the validity (trustworthiness) of the findings by providing
detailed (thick) descriptions (Altheide and Johnson 1994)
and participant quotations. Appendices B and C demonstrate
how we matched raw data to codes within categories and
along dimensions.
Findings
RQ 1: Matching Character Strengths to Challenges
We were interested in examining whether there were patterns
in how strengths were matched to challenges and whether a
strength was used alone, or in a cluster with other strengths,
to address a challenge. To identify patterns, we matched all
strengths used at least four times in the dataset with their
corresponding challenges.
Kindness was used widely to help address all types of
challenges at work. Kindness was never used in isolation but
was always paired with at least one other strength to address
a challenge. Kindness was paired with a wide range of other
1
 The frequencies of character strengths used by educators will be
reported elsewhere, due to space limitations in the current paper.
2
  The difficulty level of challenges (high, moderate, low), with exam-
ples and frequencies, is also being reported elsewhere  due to space
limitations.
13
Early Childhood Education Journal
strengths. Leadership was also used widely, and usually
in combination with several other strengths to address a
challenge. Fairness was also applied frequently, usually in
combination with at least two other strengths. Fairness was
frequently used to help address coworker challenges. Hope
was used frequently and always in combination with at least
two other strengths. Love was used widely with children in
combination with at least one other strength. However, par-
ticipants only reported using love once to help address a
coworker challenge.
Self-regulation/self-control was always mentioned in rela-
tion to a challenge with children. In almost all instances, the
teacher was controlling her own frustration with children’s
behavior. For example, one teacher described being in the
toddler classroom where a child was “kicking, biting and
hitting me to get her way. I demonstrated patience, tolerance
and self-control for about ten minutes.”
Perseverance was used universally with challenges
involving both coworkers and children, usually in combina-
tion with at least one other strength. Forgiveness was always
mentioned in relation to a challenge with children, either as
children needing to learn and practice forgiveness towards
their peers or as the teacher needing to practice forgiveness
towards a challenging circumstance with children. Forgive-
ness was usually used in combination with at least one other
strength when addressing a challenge. One teacher described
a lack of children sharing and the need for children to learn
fairness and forgiveness in the following way:
I need to teach a few children in my classroom to take
turns and not grab things from one another.[The plan].
I will use the puppet theatre to put on a short skit about
taking turns and sharing. I will ask open ended ques-
tions and explain and teach the children the meanings
of sharing, fairness and forgiveness.[The resolution].
I put on a nice little skit with the puppets. The children
loved it. They were laughing and had a nice time talk-
ing about treating each other nicely, being fair and
having forgiveness.
Humility was used widely, in challenges with children and
coworkers, usually paired with at least one other strength.
In one instance, a teacher reported needing to be kinder and
humbler to establish better communication between herself
and her coworkers, including her director.
With one exception, creativity was used by teachers to
address challenges with children rather than coworkers and
always in combination with at least two other strengths. In
the following example, a teacher finds a creative way to help
a student fall back to sleep during naptime.
A student starts screaming, talking and getting up
when it’s nap time. I allowed her to read books. I told
her a story and asked her what name I should use in
Early Childhood Education Journal
the story. I told her she had to close her eyes to see the
story. She was engaged. She was happy and fell asleep.
Gratitude was used to help address a range of challenges,
and usually in combination with other strengths. When
challenged to “convince a coworker to work as a team” and
“change her outdated techniques to teach cognitive skills,”
one teacher used gratitude to be “grateful for the resources
she brings” while also practicing bravery (“courage to
approach a sensitive matter”), love (“show love”) and lead-
ership (“validate her opinions and feelings”).
Judgement was used during challenges with children and
coworkers alike when careful thought and consideration
was needed before deciding how to proceed. For example,
a teacher described needing to use judgement to assume a
temporary leadership role while the director was out for
the week. Another teacher described how she was going
to approach a coworker who did not feel respected by her.
Judgement was also related to more challenging circum-
stances with children, such as how to best support a child
with an individual education plan (IEP).
Patience was used almost exclusively in relation to chal-
lenges with children and was always combined with another
strength. Patience was used in relation to children’s transi-
tion behavior, self-care behavior, tantrums, and language
development. A teacher also reported using patience to
respond to an angry parent.
With one exception, perspective was used with children
rather than coworkers. Perspective was used to understand
challenges from the child’s point of view. For example, one
teacher described needing to put herself into the children’s
shoes by asking them more questions about their feelings
and why something had happened before “removing them.”
Another teacher used perspective to help understand why
a child was screaming during naptime. Perspective was
also seen as an important but challenging skill to teach to
children.
With one exception, teamwork was used with challenges
related to coworkers rather than children. Sometimes the
nature of a challenge required coworker teamwork to address
(e.g., calling a team meeting to discuss developmentally
appropriate lesson planning or responding to the week-long
absence of the director). In other cases, the challenge was a
lack of teamwork among coworkers (e.g., a teaching assis-
tant was socializing rather than contributing; a new teacher
was gossiping with volunteers; colleagues were in conflict).
Spirituality was used across various challenges and cir-
cumstances with children and coworkers. Spirituality was
an important strength when the challenge was particularly
frustrating. For example, one teacher described her challenge
in these terms:
[I am] feeling frustrated a lot with my job. I feel as if
I work alone when I’m not. It’s very discouraging to
see others have no passion for the job. This affects
my performance when they work with me. I’m losing
hope. I try to hold on and remember why I am here.
I try to focus just on my job but it’s hard when you
work with a team. The coworkers are probably burnt
out and have lost passion for what they are doing.
I pray that people will come to work and do their
jobs and I will pull on my strengths to help me keep
myself under control and not lose it when I become
frustrated. I will continue leading by example and
being honest about the way I feel. I will continue
to be brave and express how I feel.[The resolution].
Some relief came when I was paired up with people
who love their jobs and do what they are paid to do.
I was also able to work with a smaller group, some-
thing I find works well for me.
In the example above, the teacher listed spirituality first
in a list of strengths she was applying to address the frus-
tration she felt with her disengaged coworkers. She also
reported using the strengths of hope, leadership, honesty
and bravery to address this challenge.
Bravery was used to address challenges with both cow-
orkers and parents, when a necessary action was push-
ing the teacher out of her comfort zone, particularly when
needing to confront a challenge directly with other adults.
One teacher described her use of bravery to “convince a
coworker to work as a team” and also to change her teach-
ing methods, saying bravery gave her “courage to approach
a sensitive matter.” Another teacher reported drawing on
bravery (as well as kindness and honesty) to speak with
parents about their child’s behavior:
I plan on trying to talk to the parents more about their
child’s behavior because I tend to let my co-teach-
ers do the difficult tasks. I don’t like giving negative
reports.[The resolution]. I talked to a parent whose
child had a rough day. I started with some positive
things before letting her know he was constantly
pushing his friends and when I tried talking to him
he ignored me. The parent had him apologize to me.
Honesty was applied to challenges with children, cow-
orkers, and parents and always in combination with at
least one other strength. When honesty was used it usu-
ally meant that the teacher needed to speak about a sensi-
tive and important issue directly with children (e.g., not
making and shooting toy guns) or adults (e.g., talking to
parents about a child’s behavior).
Love of learning was applied to a range of challenges
that included working with children, coworkers, and one-
self. For example, one teacher related her love of learn-
ing to her effort to attend an early childhood conference
despite not having a car to drive there.
13

Table 2  Applicability of character strengths to workplace challenges by audience type
Character strengths
Kindness, leadership, fairness, hope, perseverance, humility, gratitude, Universal. These strengths were used frequently to address challenges
judgement, spirituality, honesty, love of learning, prudence, social
intelligence
Love, self-regulation, forgiveness, creativity, patience, perspective,
appreciation of beauty and excellence
Teamwork, bravery
Appreciation of beauty and excellence was used to
address challenges related to the arts (e.g., encouraging a
group of children to appreciate excellence as they perform
songs for parents; keeping a child interested in an art activ-
ity) and in one instance it was taught to a coworker who was
insensitive towards children’s artwork.
Prudence was used in combination with other strengths
to address challenges with both children (having peers help
a child refusing to go outside) and coworkers (convincing
one coworker to teach concepts at children’s developmental
level by developing lesson plans as a team).
Finally, social intelligence was used with children and
coworkers, often related to interpersonal challenges (e.g.,
repairing one’s reputation with colleagues; teaching children
to share and think of others or follow instructions).
Table  2 summarizes how universally each character
strength was applied. Some strengths were applied to chal-
lenges involving both children and adults (coded universal),
but other strengths were primarily used when the challenge
involved either children or coworkers. These strengths were
coded as either child-focused or coworker-focused.
RQ 2: Resolving Workplace Challenges
To what extent do early childhood educators succeed in
resolving workplace challenges after applying character
strengths? The final section of the CSJT asked educators to
describe the result of their efforts to resolve the challenge.
Using dimensionalization, result data were coded for the
extent to which the challenge was successfully resolved
using the following codes: fully resolved, mostly resolved,
partially resolved, and not resolved. Appendix B matches
teacher statements to corresponding resolution codes to
exemplify the coding process used. Teachers reported
fully resolving the majority (63%) of challenges in the
workplace using the character strength planning and action
method (Table 3). The method was at least partially suc-
cessful in resolving 93% of challenges that included results
data (56/60). We do not know how many of the partially or
mostly resolved challenges may have been fully resolved
with the passage of time as teachers continued to address
13
Early Childhood Education Journal
Applicability
with both children and adults
Child-focused. These strengths were almost entirely used to address
challenges with children. They were rarely reported to address chal-
lenges with coworkers
Coworker-focused. These strengths were almost entirely used to address
challenges with coworkers
the challenge. Challenges with missing results data were
coded unknown resolution (n = 10) and not included in the
percentages provided because we could not determine to
what extent they were resolved.
RQ 3: Children Learning Character Strengths
As we immersed ourselves in the data we found that chil-
dren were also observing, learning, or practicing char-
acter strengths, as reported by teachers. Some examples
of teachers using character strengths with children are
reported under RQ 1. Therefore, we coded the data again
to identify instances where the teacher was modeling or
directly teaching a character strength for children and
found 22 examples out of 70 analyzed (31%). We identi-
fied 25 character strengths that children appeared to be
learning in relation to educators’ own practice applying
character strengths. Table 4 shows that the most frequently
learned character strengths among children were forgive-
ness, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, fairness,
love, self-regulation, and responsibility. Examples illus-
trating how these character strengths were being learned
by children are provided in Appendix C.
Table 3  Frequency resolving workplace challenges
Categories Number of challenges Percentage
resolved
Fully resolved 38 63
Mostly resolved 5 8
Partially resolved 13 22
Not resolved 4 7
Totals 60a 100
a
 Seventy challenges were submitted but 10 reported no results data
and were therefore excluded from this resolution analysis
Early Childhood Education Journal
Table 4  Character strengths Character strengths learned by children
children were learning,
organized by frequency Forgiveness, kindness
Social intelligence, teamwork
Fairness
Love, self-regulation
Responsibility
Care, empathy, patience, peacefulness, perseverance, perspective
Courtesy, dependability, gratitude, hope, humility, independence, initiative, judgement, lead-
ership, love of learning, order
Discussion
This study found that completing a character strength plan-
ning, action, and reflection activity multiple times during a
12-week course appears to be effective in helping participat-
ing in-service early childhood educators (1) match relevant
character strengths to specific circumstances, (2) practice
applying character strengths to workplace challenges, (3)
resolve a wide range of workplace challenges, and (4) model
and teach character strengths to children. The fact that edu-
cators used such a wide range of strengths at work implies
that the body of challenges they addressed was diverse and
that the VIA classification of strengths (Peterson and Selig-
man 2004) and related in-class discussions about each of
these strengths stimulated their widespread use among early
childhood educators. Previous scholarship has shown that
using the VIA classification of strengths helps adults adapt
to the demands of different situations resulting in improved
happiness (Proyer et al. 2015).
McGovern and Miller (2008) describe how profession-
als need to apply their “signature strengths” (top character
strengths) in the workplace to reduce burnout and improve
job satisfaction. The activity studied here allowed educa-
tors to articulate challenges of varying difficulty, create a
plan to address the challenges, use a positive psychology
intervention practice to apply one’s character strengths to the
challenge, and reflect on results. Quantitative content analy-
sis revealed that 93% of challenges were at least partially
resolved by early childhood educators when they employed
this practice, suggesting it is a valuable activity to include
in professional development related to social, emotional and
character development.
According to Gradišek (2012), teachers who identify and
use their character strengths can in turn support students
to appreciate and develop similar strengths. The current
study found that children were learning character strengths,
through observation or practice, in 22 of the 70 cases ana-
lyzed (31% of the time). While we assumed that teachers
should first apply character strengths to their own challenges
before being expected to teach character strengths to chil-
dren, we nevertheless discovered that many teachers were
Frequency
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
eager to use the activity we presented as a springboard to
model and teach character strengths. A personal character
strength application practice likely helps early childhood
educators to focus increasingly on the character develop-
ment of children because it provides educators with repeated
first-hand experience in connecting the resolution of impor-
tant challenges to the application of character strengths.
Although further research is needed, the current study sug-
gests that a focus on children’s character development in
the early years should pay special attention to the develop-
ment of forgiveness, kindness, social intelligence, and team-
work, as these were the traits most frequently repeating in
teacher–child interactions.
Implications
Research
Researchers may wish to consider how character strengths
are used by early childhood educators to complete nor-
mal tasks, absent a specific challenge. For example, while
educators reported using curiosity only three times to
address a challenge, they likely use curiosity much more
frequently when planning and delivering lessons dur-
ing circle time and when preparing center-based activi-
ties. While 63% of teachers’ workplace challenges were
reported as fully resolved on the character strength tem-
plates in the current study, 37% of challenges remained
either mostly resolved, partially resolved, or not resolved
at all. The current study was not able to determine if,
when, or how these more entrenched challenges were
eventually resolved, and the extent to which the applica-
tion of character strengths contribute to resolving such
challenges over time. Therefore, future research should
investigate how early childhood educators address
entrenched challenges at multiple time points to better
understand the dynamics of problem solving as character
strengths are applied to an ongoing challenge over time in
the workplace. Researchers may also wish to measure the
effect of a character strength intervention used with early
childhood educators on other outcomes, beyond resolving
13

workplace challenges and modeling character strengths
for children, such as at reducing job stress and increas-
ing work satisfaction. Later research could also seek to
correlate character strength usage among teachers with
measures of classroom quality and teacher effectiveness.
Pre‑service and In‑service Teacher Education
We recommend that teacher preparation programs and pro-
fessional development (PD) for in-service educators incor-
porate the VIA classification of strengths (VIA Institute
on Character; Peterson and Seligman 2004) into activities
and discussions related to professionalism, positive dis-
positions, social–emotional learning, and classroom man-
agement to help prepare teachers to address job stressors,
problem-solve, collaborate effectively with colleagues,
manage their own emotions, and serve as role models for
children. We found that using the VIA classification of
strengths as an educational tool was effective for several
reasons: (1) educators consistently applied the strengths
on the VIA classification to their real work challenges,
(2) the range of challenges that educators addressed using
the VIA classification did not appear limited, (3) chal-
lenges of varying difficulty were most frequently resolved
by applying at least two strengths to the issue, and (4)
teachers described modeling and teaching related character
strengths to children about 30% of the time when address-
ing their own challenges.
In particular, pre-service teachers may benefit from
knowing how the application of specific character
strengths, like kindness, leadership and fairness, apply to
a wide variety of future work situations. Teacher educators
can share related anecdotes and examples presented in this
study with their students. Students should also be asked
to engage in strength-spotting (Niemiec 2014) during
observation assignments, which involves identifying and
documenting how character strengths are being practiced
by cooperating teachers. We also recommend that teacher
preparation programs and in-service PD incorporate char-
acter strength reflection assignments, like the CSJT activ-
ity we presented and studied here, in internship experi-
ences such as student teaching or as an on-the-job learning
activity. This would involve using a template (Appendix
A) to write a work challenge(s), listing ones’ character
strengths relevant to the challenge, writing a plan of action
to apply the listed strengths to the work situation, and then
reflecting on results. Teacher preparation programs have
occasionally made efforts to incorporate character educa-
tion into early childhood degree programs (Priest 2007).
The wider adoption of positive psychology interventions
like strength-spotting and strength-to-challenge reflections
would stimulate these efforts.
13
Early Childhood Education Journal
Limitations
This study was conducted with one group of experienced
in-service early childhood educators in a large, urban city
in the northeastern US. The results may not be transferable
to other contexts and populations. Furthermore, the rela-
tively small number of participants (n = 17) precluded our
ability to arrive at data saturation which is important for
justifying the end of qualitative data collection (Anderson
2010). Additional types of challenges and interrelationships
between workplace challenges, character strengths, and chil-
dren’s character development would likely be identified by
a larger study.
Conclusion
This study found that participating early childhood educators
draw on many character strengths when addressing chal-
lenges related to working with coworkers, children, parents
and self-management. With professional development about
the VIA classification of strengths (Peterson and Seligman
2004; VIA Institute on Character 2018), educators applied
virtues such as kindness, leadership, fairness, hope, love,
self-regulation, perseverance, forgiveness, and humility to
address workplace challenges. After writing a plan of action
to apply character strengths to current challenges, partici-
pating teachers report a 71% success rate in fully or mostly
resolving the challenge identified. Guiding early childhood
educators to intentionally apply character strengths to work-
place challenges also appears to encourage the modeling
and teaching of character strengths to children, particularly
kindness, forgiveness, social intelligence, and teamwork.
Early childhood educators, and the children they serve, both
appear to benefit from an intentional effort to foster character
strengths in the workplace.
Acknowledgements  The authors wish to thank Dr. Ayana Allen-Handy
for her helpful suggestions.
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