Teacher stress in the era of COVID-19: A changed learning environment?

Abstract

Impacts of COVID-19 have required teachers to rapidly adapt their teaching practices. This is especially the case when schools experience lockdowns and face-to-face learning is replaced with online learning. In this mixed methods study, pre-COVID teacher stressors associated with school climate and learning environments were explored in a national network of 48 independent Australian schools, following an examination of these stressors during and after the 2020 school lockdowns which occurred in response to the first wave of the pandemic. Open-ended survey questions revealed the primary issues of concern for teachers were workload, time management, well-being/mental health, concern for students, quality of learning, parents and school leadership. Likert-scale survey questions revealed four main clusters of stressors based on the trend in stress levels before COVID-19 to after the school lockdowns. Typically, stress levels were highest during school lockdowns. Analysis of the quantitative data reflected more positivity than was evident in the qualitative results, with teachers reporting more favourable perceptions about their schools’ leadership than has been identified in other COVID-19-related studies. Overall, this study reveals teachers’ perspectives on the stressors they face in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and as such, provides insight into areas where teacher well-being needs to be better managed.