Australian teacher stress, well‐being, self‐efficacy, and safety during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

The 2020 COVID pandemic radically altered the way in which individuals live and work. For teachers, this entailed a shift in their teaching practice, with large numbers of schools around Australia and the world closing for prolonged periods of time and moving to an “online” format. This required teachers to quickly adapt their teaching practices adding further stress to an already stressful environment. In this article, we examine the relationships between teachers' stress, teachers' self‐efficacy, and teachers' well‐being during the COVID pandemic. The study presents the results from a quantitative survey undertaken in June and July 2020 with 534 teachers around Australia. While the study found that, overall, most teachers (77.29%) reported that they were not feeling anxious in their teaching role, teachers' responses indicated that they were experiencing high levels of stress and low levels of positive feelings such as joy, positivity, and contentment in their work during the COVID‐19 pandemic negatively impacting their well‐being and self‐efficacy.

Medical education during the coronavirus disease pandemic and students’ mental health: A one-year follow-up

“…It was assumed that such positive changes were initially associated with the period of adaptation and the disorganization of the university's online educational services. The workload on the teaching staff has especially increased, as follows: (1) adaptation to new methods of teaching and assessing students, (2) mastering electronic gadgets, (3) increasing the scope of checking written works and constantly checking them for anti-plagiarism, (4) the severity of evaluating practical and communication skills, and (5), because some teachers joined the front line in the fight against COVID-19, the hourly workload on the remaining teachers increased (Johnson and Coleman, 2021;Lizana et al, 2021;Billett et al, 2022;Rǎducu and Stanculescu, 2022;Westphal et al, 2022;Klusmann et al, 2023). On the other hand, stressors were also observed among students through (1) buying the necessary gadgets to participate in classes and (2) adapting to new learning environments and technologies (O'Byrne et al, 2021).…”

“I couldn't do what I needed to do for my own family”: Teacher-parents during COVID-19 lockdowns

“…While not wishing to downplay the pressure that this requirement put on principals and their school leadership teams, our focus in this article is on teachers as frontline workers ( Beames, Christensen, & Werner-Seidler, 2021 ; Pressley, Ha, & Learn, 2021 ), that is, those who were charged with teaching on a daily basis. Studies of teachers early in the pandemic reveal high levels of uncertainty, anxiety and frustration ( Allen, Jerrim, & Sims, 2020 ; Beames et al, 2021 ; Billett, Turner, & Li, 2022 ; Education Review Office, 2021 ; Kim & Asbury, 2020 ; Mutch & Peung, 2021 ; Pressley et al, 2021 ). In later studies, some of these intense emotions appeared to level out as schools and parents reduced expectations and teachers settled into a delivery rhythm ( Kim & Asbury, 2020 ; Sharma et al, 2022 ) but exhaustion increased, and mental health and physical wellbeing decreased ( Beames et al, 2021 ; Education Review Office, 2021 ; Kim et al, 2022 ; Letzel, Pozas, & Schneider, 2020 ; Mutch & Peung, 2021 ; Pellerone, 2021 ).…”

“…1–16; Kim & Asbury, 2020 ; Maitland & Glazzard, 2022 ). As well as the intensity of learning about new pedagogies and platforms, teachers faced limited preparation time, a lack of suitable resources, increased workload, guilt about the quality of their teaching, and the loss of their former teacher identity ( Billett, Turner, & Li, 2022 ; Flack, Walker, Bickerstaff, & Margetts, 2020 ; Hood, 2020 ; Kim et al, 2022 ; Leech et al, 2020 ; Letzel et al, 2020 ; Mutch and Peung, 2021 ; Van Bergen & Daniel, 2022 ; Weißenfels, Klopp, & Perels, 2022 ; Marshall et al, 2020 ). Many teachers missed the face-to-face interactions of teaching, the buzz of a busy classroom, and their individual students ( Leech et al, 2020 ; Letzel et al, 2020 ; Truzoli, Pirola, & Conte, 2021 ; Van Bergen & Daniel, 2020 ).…”

“…Many teachers missed the face-to-face interactions of teaching, the buzz of a busy classroom, and their individual students ( Leech et al, 2020 ; Letzel et al, 2020 ; Truzoli, Pirola, & Conte, 2021 ; Van Bergen & Daniel, 2020 ). Their feelings of competence, usefulness and optimism tended to decline ( Allen et al, 2020 ; Billett, Turner, & Li, 2022 ; Kim et al, 2022 ; Maitland & Glazzard, 2022 ; Mutch & Peung, 2021 ;).…”

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on risk of burn-out syndrome and recovery need among secondary school teachers in Flanders: A prospective study

“…In comparison with other at-risk groups, such as healthcare workers and youngsters, research on mental health of teachers during the pandemic is scarce. Previous studies focusing on mental health in teachers during the pandemic mainly used a cross-sectional design (10,(27)(28)(29)(30)(31), and thus precluding comparison with data collected prior to the pandemic. In general, these studies found increased levels of depression, anxiety and high levels of stress during the pandemic (27,(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37).…”