Below please find each of my publications from most to least recent, with links to full text:
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Inter-Physician Weight Bias: A Cross-Sectional Observational Survey Study to Guide Implicit Bias Training in the Medical Workplace.
McLean, M. E., McLean, L. E., McLean-Holden, A. C., Campbell, L., Horner, A., Kulkarni, M. L., Melville, L., Fernandez, E. A. (in press). Inter-Physician Weight Bias: A Cross-Sectional Observational Survey Study to Guide Implicit Bias Training in the Medical Workplace. Academic Emergency Medicine.
For the past few years I have served as a quantitative methods & psychometric consultant on a team comprised of physicians, medical researchers, and academics. Together we have investigated the prevalence and implications of weight-based bias among physicians in emergency medicine, with some fascinating results! This paper describes our initial study where we examine the relations among implicit, explicit, and professional bias among physicians, and some demographic characteristics that relate to bias.
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Teachers’ Well-Being: Sources, Implications, and Directions for Future Research.
McLean, L., & Sandilos, L. (in press). Teachers’ Well-Being: Sources, Implications, and Directions for Future Research. In T. L. Good & M. McCaslin (Eds.), Educational Psychology Section: D. Fisher (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Education (Online). Taylor & Francis: New York.
A contribution to the upcoming new edition of Routledge’s Encyclopedia of Education focusing on the latest and most significant findings surrounding teacher well-being, with calls for future directions in this area. I was thrilled to be invited to contribute to this edition, and wrote this piece with Dr. Lia Sandilos, a fantastic colleague and accomplished expert in teacher well-being.
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Students’ Problem Behaviors and Teacher Warmth/Responsiveness as Factors Influencing First Graders’ Classroom Instructional Experiences
McLean, L., Sparapani, N., Connor, C.M., & Day, S.L. (2020). Students’ Problem Behaviors and Teacher Warmth/Responsiveness as Factors Influencing First Graders’ Classroom Instructional Experiences. Contemporary Educational Psychology.
We know that when parents have high levels of both support and demand, their children have better outcomes. But what about teachers and students? And how might teachers’ support and demand influence the experiences of students most at risk for missing out on important instructional opportunities? My co-authors and I took a close look at these factors in this study.
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The Influence of Adverse Classroom and School Experiences on First Year Teachers’ Mental Health and Career Optimism
McLean, L., Abry, T. Taylor, M., & Gaias, L. M. (2020). The Influence of Adverse Classroom and School Experiences on First Year Teachers’ Mental Health and Career Optimism. Teaching and Teacher Education.
We know that teachers experience multiple sources of stress, be it from interactions with challenging students, inadequate resources in the classroom, or larger issues with the school they work in. However, less is known about the relative influence of these factors on teacher outcomes. In this paper, co-authors and I looked at some common stressors among early-career teachers and tried to identify which ones accounted for the most variance in depression, anxiety, and intention to remain in the field.
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The Influence of Multiple Life Stressors in Teacher Training on Burnout and Career Optimism in the First Year of Teaching.
Taylor, M., McLean, L., Bryce, C., Abry, T., Granger, K. (2019). The Influence of Multiple Life Stressors in Teacher Training on Burnout and Career Optimism in the First Year of Teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education.
We know that teachers, and especially early-career teachers, are at risk of experiencing stress on the job. But in reality, teachers’ stress starts before they even enter the classroom. In this paper, lead author Michelle Taylor and the investigative team explored how stress experienced during pre-service training translated to teachers’ burnout and intentions to remain in the field once in the career.
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Career-Choice Motivations in Teacher Training as Predictors of Burnout and Career Optimism in the First Year of Teaching
McLean, L., Taylor, M., & Jimenez, M. (2019). Career-Choice Motivations in Teacher Training as Predictors of Burnout and Career Optimism in the First Year of Teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 85, 204-214.
After investigating the external sources of influence on teacher outcomes, I became interested in how internal factors contribute to teachers’ experiences. Teachers become teachers for many reasons, and I suspected these motivations might have bearing on some key teacher outcomes. In this study, I looked at how teachers’ career choice motivations related to their burnout and career optimism once in the career.
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Profiles of Foundational Learning Skills among First Graders
Sparapani, N.E., Connor, C.M., Day, S.L., Wood, T., Ingebrand, S.W., McLean, L. & Phillips, B. (2018). Profiles of Foundational Learning Skills among First Graders. Learning and Individual Differences, 70, 216-227.
Many important studies have described the skills in children that are foundational to academic success. However, in reality it is likely more helpful to look at constellations of skills and how those constellations contribute to student growth. This study identifies profiles of skills and behaviors present in first grade students, and connects these profiles to academic achievement patterns.
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Associations among Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms and Students’ Classroom Instructional Experiences in Third Grade
McLean, L., Abry, T., Taylor, M., & Connor, C.M. (2018). Associations among Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms and Students’ Classroom Instructional Experiences in Third Grade. Journal of School Psychology, 69, 154-168.
This is one of my absolute favorite papers! It combines my experience in in-depth classroom observation methods with my interest in teachers’ mental health. With these central foci, I investigated how teachers’ depression surfaced in the classroom to impact the instruction students experienced. We found some really interesting areas of teacher practice that seem particularly vulnerable to the effects of depression.
Link to Full Text PDF
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Direct and Reciprocal Effects among Social Skills, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension in First Grade
Sparapani, N., Connor, C. M., McLean, L., Wood, T., Toste, J., & Day, S. (2018). Direct and Reciprocal Effects among Social Skills, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension in First Grade. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 53, 159-167.
The element of my colleague Dr. Nicole Sparapani’s work that I most love is her recognition that development is complex and nuanced, and her commitment to capturing this in her studies. With that in mind, I was thrilled to contribute to this piece that takes a deep dive into how young children’s literacy and social skills develop in relation to each other via reciprocal effects.
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Challenges, Benefits, and Considerations When Conducting Classroom Video Observation Research
McLean, L., & Connor, C. M. (2018). Challenges, Benefits, and Considerations When Conducting Classroom Video Observation Research. SAGE Publications Ltd.
I enjoy contributing publications that others can use to enrich their own research efforts, and in that spirit have written for the Sage Research Methods Cases series. This series serves as a reference for student and early-career researchers who are applying methods they may not be familiar with. This piece discusses some of the ins and outs of classroom observation - which is very much my favorite method!
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Relations between Third Grade Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms and their Feedback to Students, with Implications for Student Mathematics Achievement
McLean, L., & Connor, C. M. (2017). Relations between Third Grade Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms and their Feedback to Students, with Implications for Student Mathematics Achievement. School Psychology Quarterly, 33(2), 272.
This paper is the published version of my dissertation work in which I created a novel observational measure of teachers’ feedback and then applied it in a study. I was interested in how teachers’ depressive symptoms impact the ways in which they interact with their students, and decided to look at these relations in the context of teachers’ feedback. Perhaps the most interesting part of this experience to me was coding teachers’ affect and seeing how well-being relates to affective expression during instruction.
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Teachers’ Mental Health and Perceptions of School Climate across the Transition from Training to Teaching
McLean, L., Abry, T.A., Taylor, M., Jimenez, M. & Granger, K. (2017). Teachers’ Mental Health and Perceptions of School Climate across the Transition from Training to Teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 65, 230-240.
This paper represents some exciting “firsts” in my program of research: my first foray into investigating pre-service/early-career teachers, and my first time considering the profound impacts of school climate on teachers’ experiences and outcomes. I looked at how pre-service teaching candidate’s depressive and anxious symptoms changed as they entered the career, and described the role of school climate as an important buffer in this transition.
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Classroom Quality as a Predictor of First Grader’s Time in Non-Instructional Activities and Literacy Achievement
McLean, L., Sparapani, N., Toste, J. & Connor, C.M. (2016). Classroom Quality as a Predictor of First Grader’s Time in Non-Instructional Activities and Literacy Achievement. Journal of School Psychology, 56(3), 45-58.
This paper is the published version of my master’s thesis and the first time I got an opportunity to lead a study using data from PI Dr. Carol Connor’s groundbreaking Individualizing Student Instruction project. In this project, we coded at the individual student level the types and amounts of instruction each student experienced across multiple days of video observation. I used these data in my thesis to examine how overall classroom quality related to the ways students spent their time in the classroom, and how these patterns changed across the year. My favorite finding: in higher quality classrooms, transitions between activities start off longer in the fall and then become more efficient throughout the year!
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Depressive Symptoms in Third‐Grade Teachers: Relations to Classroom Quality and Student Achievement
McLean, L., & Connor, C. M. (2015). Depressive Symptoms in Third‐Grade Teachers: Relations to Classroom Quality and Student Achievement. Child Development, 86(3), 945-954.
My first study on teacher mental health, and my first first-authored publication! In this paper I looked at how teachers’ depressive symptoms related to the quality of their classroom, and what implications these factors had for student achievement. We found particularly profound effects on students’ mathematics achievement, especially for students who were already struggling in math. This set of findings inspired my interest in how teachers’ emotions might shift depending on what they are teaching, and/or whether content areas can be more or less “vulnerable” to a teachers’ negative emotions. Please see Project TEAS in the “Active Projects” section to see the larger study that developed from this!