Teachers’ emotional exhaustion before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: Neither emotional exertion nor vacation feeling

Abstract

PurposeIn this paper, we use latent change models to examine the changes in in-service teachers’ emotional exhaustion before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, teachers are confronted with challenging tasks, which can lead to stress and burnout. Resultingly, teachers’ stress experiences have been examined in different studies. However, often the change in those experiences remains unclear. Against this background, we investigate longitudinally how the emotional exhaustion of a cohort of German teachers changes. In addition, we examine whether gender, age, teaching degree studied, or the amount of time spent in distance learning affected the change during the pandemic.MethodsWe surveyed German veteran teachers (N = 382) about their emotional exhaustion at three measurement points. The first two surveys were before the COVID-19 pandemic (t1: winter 2016/2017; t2: spring: 2019), and the third measurement point was after the first lockdown Germany in summer 2020 (t3). To answer the research questions, we used neighbor-change models.ResultsEmotional exhaustion increased between the first two measurement points (t1, t2) but decreased in the following period (t2, t3). The changes in the two periods did not differ significantly from each other. Neither gender, age, nor the teaching profession studied influenced the change in emotional exhaustion. The hours spent in distance learning were also not a significant predictor.ConclusionIn summary, the COVID-19 pandemic does not appear to be associated with higher emotional exhaustion across the veteran teachers. However, there are some teachers whose emotional exhaustion rises to high levels. Those teachers deserve special attention.

Teachers’ Emotional Exhaustion and Teaching Enthusiasm Before Versus During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…In contrast, Hilger et al (2021) reported a small but significant decrease in work-related fatigue between January and May 2020 and no change in teachers’ job satisfaction. Finally, using longitudinal data from 2016, 2019, and summer 2020 (assessed between July and October), Bleck and Lipowsky (2022) did not find an increase in veteran teachers’ emotional exhaustion from 2019 to 2020.…”

“…As an exception (with a baseline measure) and in contrast to our findings, Weißenfels et al (2022) found no significant increase in teachers’ emotional exhaustion at the onset of the pandemic: Their results indicated a significant increase in depersonalization and lack of accomplishment, but no increase in emotional exhaustion. Additionally, Bleck and Lipowsky (2022), also with a baseline measure, found no increase in emotional exhaustion among German teachers. One explanation for the different results between their study and ours might be that they investigated highly experienced teachers from nonacademic track schools during the first lockdown, whereas we surveyed mid-career teachers from both academic and nonacademic track schools in 2021 at the end of the second lockdown.…”

Teachers’ well-being and their teaching quality during the COVID-19 pandemic: a retrospective study

“…Research conducted in Germany provides a nuanced perspective. While Bleck and Lipowsky (2022) and Weißenfels et al (2022) found that teachers' emotional exhaustion remained stable during the initial months of the pandemic, Federkeil et al (2020) have reported an increase in teachers' emotional exhaustion.…”

“…The potential decline in teachers' well-being during and following the pandemic is a significant concern, as it may have implications for their self-efficacy and commitment (Bardach et al, 2019), which in turn can affect students' learning outcomes. As also stated by Bleck and Lipowsky (2022), research efforts should prioritize examining this matter. In that sense, well-being interventions for teachers have been proposed, but empirical evidence of their effectiveness is still scarce (Dreer and Gouasé, 2022).…”

Musculoskeletal disorders and quality of life for Chilean teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic at the academic year-end

“…In this context, reports during the COVID-19 health crisis indicated that schoolteachers saw significant QoL decreases compared to before the pandemic, due to longer work hours and deteriorated work-family balance (8,10). Remote working among teachers was also reported as a factor associated with increased burnout, stress, and high emotional demands (11,12) together with reports of significant mental health deteriorations like higher levels of distress, worsened lifestyle quality, and increased emotional exhaustion (13)(14)(15). In this regard, pre-pandemic reports indicated high rates of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) among schoolteachers linked with significant QoL particularly their mental QoL (16)(17)(18).…”