Sociodemographic and work-related differences in teachers’ attitude towards and perceived stress from emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim was to investigate the attitude towards and perceived stress from emergency remote teaching (ERT) among teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Germany-wide online survey was conducted among teachers from all school types in March 2021. Data from 31,089 teachers entered analysis. ANOVAs or Welch’s t-tests with post-hoc analyses were performed to determine sociodemographic and work-related group differences in teachers’ attitude towards and perceived stress from ERT. The mean attitude towards ERT was 3.47 (± .84) out of 5 and the mean perceived stress was 5.03 (± .62) out of 6. Regarding the attitude towards ERT, we revealed significant differences for gender, age groups, number of children, occupational group, school management membership, and employment status (p < .05). Regarding perceived stress, significant differences were obtained for gender, age groups, and employment status (p < .05). A more positive attitude towards ERT seems to be associated with lower stress levels. Being female, a higher age, a higher number of children living in the own household as well as working full-time might hinder an effective implementation of remote teaching in school settings in Germany. Policy-makers and schools should think of strategies to improve the attitude towards and decrease perceived stress from remote teaching. This could include subgroup-specific training on the use of digital media, adapted to the work environment.