Greek teachers' resilience levels during the COVID‐19 pandemic lockdown and its association with attitudes towards emergency remote teaching and perceived stress

Abstract

The mandatory closure of schools due to the Covid‐19 pandemic affected the mental health, and, by extension, the personal and professional life of teachers. This study explored their level of resilience during the pandemic and its association with attitudes towards emergency remote teaching and perceived stress. Data were collected through the administration of three self‐report instruments: (a) the “Teachers' Professional Attitudes and Behaviors Scale”, (b) the “Teachers' Resilience Scale”, and (c) the “Perceived Stress Scale”. The sample consisted of 1415 general teachers from central Greece. Teachers were found to possess neutral attitudes towards emergency remote teaching, moderate levels of resilience, and experienced slightly increased levels of stress. The examined constructs were largely influenced by some of the teachers' demographic and professional characteristics. Teachers' perceptions of resilience predicted their attitudes to emergency remote teaching and stress levels during the pandemic. The study has reaffirmed the importance of holding sufficient levels of resilience to cope with adverse circumstances and has offered clear directions about which groups of teachers are in most need for counselling and professional support so that their resilience is strengthened.

Resilience in Teachers: Validation of the Spanish Version of the CD-RISC10© Scale in Early Childhood, Primary and Special Education Teachers

“…The correlations between the level of teacher resilience measured with the CD-RISC-10 with the beliefs, knowledge and resources that teachers possess in resilience (C-DPR) confirm the relationship between the resilience measure and the competencies of teachers as resilient professionals. This is in line with studies that highlight that resilience is not a fixed trait or attribute, but a state variable that can be developed so it is considered important that teachers receive training in resilience [ 19 , 20 , 47 ].…”

“…Despite not finding significant differences, with respect to the sex variable, a higher mean resilience was obtained in men. In the literature, there are some studies that obtained a higher level of resilience in men [ 59 ] and other studies in women [ 47 ], so we can intuit that sex does not have a direct relationship with the development of resilience, although further research is needed.…”

“…Despite the benefits of resilience, research on teacher resilience is at an early stage [ 44 , 45 ]. Some recent studies that have focused on analyzing teacher resilience reveal moderate to high levels [ 25 , 46 , 47 ]. Regarding the sociodemographic variables of teachers that have been analyzed to examine their relationship with resilience, some studies did not observe significant differences as a function of gender, age, years of experience and educational level at which teaching is provided [ 13 , 25 , 48 ].…”

“…Regarding the sociodemographic variables of teachers that have been analyzed to examine their relationship with resilience, some studies did not observe significant differences as a function of gender, age, years of experience and educational level at which teaching is provided [ 13 , 25 , 48 ]. On the contrary, there are studies that found a higher level of resilience in women than in men [ 47 ], higher level of resilience in teachers with a greater number of years of teaching experience versus novice teachers [ 46 , 49 ] and higher level of resilience in teachers who had higher or additional studies (master’s vs. bachelor’s degrees or with doctoral studies) [ 25 , 50 ]. Thus, the need for further exploration into variables that may influence the development of teacher resilience arises.…”

A preliminary comparison study of teachers' resilience in Greece and Poland

“…Studies have found that Greek teachers have demonstrated moderate to high levels of resilience (e.g., Botou et al, 2017;Daniilidou, 2018Daniilidou, , 2023Hatzichristou et al, 2017;Papazis et al, 2022;Stavraki & Karagianni, 2020).…”