Project description:BackgroundFor many physical education teachers, being suddenly forced to switch from traditional face-to-face teaching to online teaching without adequate mental preparation posed numerous challenges and difficulties. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to validate the use of distance teaching behavior models for physical education teachers under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodThe unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model was employed to explore the use intention and use behavior of distance teaching. The model contains four independent variables: performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), and facilitating conditions (FC), two dependent variables: behavioral intention (BI) and use behavior (UB) and three moderating variables: gender, age, and experience. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to elementary and junior high school physical education teachers with 364 valid responses. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the relationships among variables.ResultsThe results found PE, EE and SI had significant influences on BI and FC and BI had significant influences on UB. Experience had moderating effects among SI and BI.ConclusionsBased on the results, recommendations for physical education teachers and schools are proposed. Furthermore, research limitations and future directions are discussed.
Project description:PurposeDue to the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19), teachers during the pandemic have had to adapt to online teaching at short notice. This study aims to investigate the voice symptoms and their environmental risk factors as well as the work ability associated with distance teaching and to compare these with symptoms in previous contact teaching.MethodsWe conducted a survey of 121 primary and secondary school teachers across Finland. The survey was advertised online through social media and the replies collected from voluntarily participating teachers.ResultsDuring distance teaching vocal symptoms appeared less often than in school with 71% teachers experiencing them in regular teaching and 44% in distance teaching, VHI result decreased from 7.88 in school teaching to 4.58 in distance teaching. Acoustic conditions were reported to be more suitable in distance teaching with 73% of teachers finding them adequate during distance teaching in comparison to 46% for those in regular teaching. Background noise was the most disturbing factor for a teacher's voice in the classroom and in distance teaching and this was even more conspicuous in the classroom. Also, subjectively experienced poor indoor air quality at school influenced the voice negatively. Further, voice problems were associated with increased subjective stress levels and reduced ability to work.ConclusionDistance teaching has affected teachers' voices in a positive way compared with regular teaching. This difference is likely to be due to better acoustics and indoor air quality in distance teaching conditions.
Project description:Recent revisions to the Conservation of Resources theory have not only reclassified categories of resources, but have also acknowledged the conceptual importance of "gain spirals" and "resource caravans" in enriching the theoretical understanding of resources. Given that teachers' assessment literacy is a prominent yet underexplored personal constructive resource in teaching, this paper examines its role in teaching efficacy. In addition, personal energy resources (e.g., psychological capital and professional identity) are studied as antecedents to teaching efficacy. To this end, a survey based on the Chinese versions of the Teacher Assessment Literacy Scale, the Teaching Efficacy Scale, the Psychological Capital Scale, and the Teacher Professional Identity Scale was administered to secondary school teachers in Henan Province, China, and 351 completed, valid surveys were returned. The findings indicated that the teachers' assessment literacy and teaching efficacy were positively correlated, verifying that assessment literacy can influence teaching efficacy through the separate and chain mediation effects of psychological capital and professional identity. The identification of such mediating pathways has confirmed that resources owned by teachers can lead to gain spirals and full resource caravans, thus expanding the Conservation of Resources theory by positing that resources can be nested within one another. This study has theoretical implications for teaching efficacy research and the Conservation of Resources theory as well as practical implications regarding how to boost teachers' constructive and energy resources and professional development.
Project description:Providing high-quality education for students with emergent proficiency in the language of instruction (referred to here as multilingual students) presents a challenge to inclusion for educational systems the world over. In Austria, a new German language support model was implemented in the school year 2018/19 which provides language support in separate classrooms up to 20 h a week. Since its implementation, the model has been strongly criticized for excluding multilingual students from the mainstream classroom, which is argued to reinforce the educational disadvantages that they face. The study presented here provides unprecedented qualitative insight into how schooling for students within the so-called German language support classes (GLSC) was organized during the COVID-19 pandemic. It builds on results of a previous large-scale quantitative study (n = 3,400 teachers), which was conducted during the first lockdown (spring 2020) and indicated a high risk of exclusion for marginalized students, especially for multilingual students in GLSC. To gain deeper insights into the situation of these students during school closures, 37 teachers who work in these classes at both primary and lower-secondary schools in Vienna were interviewed, of which 18 interviews were considered for analysis. The interviews focus on the situation during the first and second school closures in the city of Vienna. A thematic analysis of the interview data reveals teachers' perceptions of aspects which harmed or promoted inclusion for students in GLSC during these periods of school closure. Teachers' perceptions of the most harming factors for students included strong language barriers between teachers and students, restricted access to technical equipment and supportive learning spaces, and low parental engagement. A development that promoted inclusion of these students was the option to allow them to come to school during the second school closure. Since existing studies on the schooling of students during school closures have hardly addressed the situation of students in GLSC, this study contributes to closing this research gap.
Project description:The sudden global outbreak of COVID-19 in late 2019 has led to thriving online teaching, including the teaching of languages, across the world. As the online teaching of English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) in Chinese universities is facing new challenges, EFL teachers have been positively exploring new solutions. To understand how EFL teachers were coping with the challenges, we set up this research as part of a larger study to examine EFL teachers’ cognitions about online teaching in response to the disruption of normal teaching plans. We did so by taking a qualitative approach through analyzing in-depth interviews with three EFL teachers from a Chinese university. Through thematic analysis we found that teachers had clear cognitions about features, advantages, and constraints of online EFL teaching and that they acquired information and communication technology (ICT) literacy through understanding students’ learning needs, online teaching practice, and the necessity of integrating traditional classroom teaching methods into online delivery. We conclude this study with a discussion on its pedagogical implications for similar contexts or colleagues facing similar challenges in other parts of the world.
Project description:Teaching often is listed as one of the most stressful professions and being a language teacher triggers its own unique challenges. Responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have created a long list of new stressors for teachers to deal with, including problems caused by the emergency conversion to online language teaching. This article examines the stress and coping responses of an international sample of over 600 language teachers who responded to an online survey in April 2020. The survey measured stressors and 14 coping strategies grouped into two types, approach and avoidant. Substantial levels of stress were reported by teachers. Correlations show that positive psychological outcomes (wellbeing, health, happiness, resilience, and growth during trauma) correlated positively with approach coping and negatively with avoidant coping. Avoidant coping, however, consistently correlated (rs between 0.42 and 0.54) only with the negative outcomes (stress, anxiety, anger, sadness, and loneliness). In addition, ANOVA showed that although approach coping was consistently used across stress groups, avoidant coping increased as stress increased suggesting that there may be a cost to using avoidant coping strategies. Stepwise regression analyses using the 14 specific coping strategies showed a complex pattern of coping. Suggestions for avoiding avoidance coping strategies are offered.
Project description:The feeling thinking talking (FTT) intervention was designed because early childhood seems to be a prime time for fostering young children's language skills. This intervention involved teaching teachers from N = 28 kindergarten groups in N = 13 German kindergartens language support strategies (LSS) to be used in everyday conversations with the children in their care. The FTT intervention was evaluated in a business-as-usual control group design with N = 281 children (mean age = 49.82 months, range = 33-66 months at T1, mixed SES) who were individually tested using objective tests on grammar, vocabulary and working memory before (T1) and after the FTT intervention (T2), and in a follow-up about one year after T1 (T3). After propensity matching was applied, multilevel models demonstrated that the children taught by the intervention group teachers made faster progress in their understanding of sentences, their application of morphological rules, and their memory for sentences when numerous covariates (child age, gender, behavioral self-regulation, multilingual upbringing, and family SES) were controlled. Results suggest that complex language processing abilities in young children can be promoted by a teacher-led intervention in early childhood education. Improved language skills will further all children's academic and social success in school.
Project description:With the educational revolution driven by COVID-19, traditional face-to-face teaching methods have rapidly been transformed into accessible, reliable online distance education. This has meant revisiting and reinventing existing technology-based educational processes and models. This study investigates whether teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are confident that they have the requisite knowledge of how particular technologies are used for remote teaching, both during COVID-19 and as they look to the future. By adopting a mixed-method approach, this paper investigates teacher practices and perceptions regarding teaching online during Covid-19's emergency remote teaching. One hundred and twenty-nine participants were recruited through an online survey. All analyses were carried out using SPSS version 25. Data was based on ranking and non-parametric tests were used. Qualitative data from the open-ended question were analyzed using data-driven thematic analysis. Teachers reported significantly increased reliance on self-teaching, colleagues' knowledge, staff tutorials, and online school support. The gap between knowledge and usage of digital tools was found to be associated with the challenges facing EFL teachers with distance learning. Teachers who reported knowing more or roughly the same about the tools compared to their usage of them knew how to incorporate their knowledge into their practical teaching, took control over the management of their instruction, and had higher pupil engagement and motivation. However, teachers whose knowledge of digital tools was lower than their usage encountered technological difficulties that impaired their teaching. Some implications can be drawn from the study, such as the need for teacher education programs to improve teacher awareness of new pedagogical-technological learning methods, and the importance of providing opportunities to acquire digital competence and encourage teachers to adapt personally to new digital technologies within specific disciplinary contexts. Our findings have both theoretical and practical implications for pre- and in-service teacher training.
Project description:This study applies system-focused resilience and collaborative professionalism to examine how teachers in Korea collectively developed resilience and transformed teaching during COVID-19. Using qualitative data from seven individual interviews and four focus groups, we found Korean teachers navigated complex challenges (rapidly changing policies, online teaching, exacerbated learning gaps, and excessive social pressure) and utilized contextual resources (collective autonomy and flexibility, solidity and solidarity, and collective responsibility) to develop strategies (collaborative inquiry, timely communication, and envisioning the future of schooling). The study extends teacher resilience toward more collective and communal, from the individual level, by linking resilience to collaborative systemic changes.
Project description:The COVID-19 pandemic has struck many countries globally. Jordan has implemented strict nationwide control measures to halt the viral spread, one of which was the closure of universities and shifting to remote teaching. The impact of this pandemic could extend beyond the risk of physical harm to substantial psychological consequences. Our study aimed at assessing 1) psychological status, 2) challenges of distance teaching, and 3) coping activities and pandemic-related concerns among university teachers in Jordan in the midst of COVID-19-related quarantine and control measures. We conducted a cross-sectional study using an anonymous online survey. The measure of psychological distress was obtained using a validated Arabic version of the Kessler Distress Scale (K10). Other information collected included sociodemographic profile, methods used to handle distress, motivation to participate in distance teaching, and challenges of distance teaching as well as the most worrisome issues during this pandemic. Three hundred eighty-two university teachers returned completed surveys. Results of K10 showed that 31.4% of respondents had severe distress and 38.2% had mild to moderate distress. Whereas gender was not associated with distress severity, age had a weak negative correlation (Rho = -0.19, P < 0.0001). Interestingly, most teachers had moderate to high motivation for distance teaching. Engagement with family was the most reported self-coping activity. More than half of the participants were most concerned and fearful about SARS-CoV-2 infection. In conclusion, university teachers have shown to exhibit various levels of psychological distress and challenges during the implementation of precautionary national measures in the battle against COVID-19 in Jordan.