COVID-19: Investigation into Stress Adaptation for K-12 Teachers during the Pandemic

Royal Roads' Wendy Rowe and Jennifer Walinga received an SSHRC Grant in 2020 for research on how K-12 teachers are coping with COVID-19 stress.

The proposed research will investigate how K-12 teachers are coping with the stress of COVID-19. We will explore COVID-19’s impact on their professional roles and surface narratives of reaction and coping in order to locate instances where strategies of adaptation were adopted to transform the stressful situation into resiliency, recovery, and thriving.

The researchers will partner with B.C. School District 62 (SD62) on Vancouver Island to ask the question: How are K-12 teachers coping and adapting to the changes in their professional teaching roles in response to workplace disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic?

The investigators, Drs. Wendy Rowe and Jennifer Walinga (Walinga & Rowe, 2013) argue that working professionals who are successful in navigating stressful and challenging work environments transition through a process of reaction, adjustment, recovery, and strategic action, to experience a sense of thriving and well being. Thriving is defined as personal sustainable energy, learning, and growth, resulting in a positive impact in the workplace, in the face of adversity, crisis or stressful conditions (Gerbasi et al., 2015; Spreitzer et al., 2005, 2012). Thriving professionals distinguish themselves by acknowledging and adapting their emotional reactions, reframing the challenge as opportunity for learning, taking a systems perspective, problem solving and taking action collaboratively, attending to individual well being and generating beneficial outcomes for organization and others. Thriving professionals tend to exhibit confidence, have a personal sense of power and empowerment, and are noticeably more "we" oriented.

The researchers will adopt a mixed methods action research approach to the study based on a framework articulated by Piggot-Irvine and Zornes (2016) involving six phases: 1) preparation; 2) reconnaissance; 3) data collection and analysis; 4) interpretation and review; 5) report achievements, recommendations, knowledge mobilization; and 6) continued action for improvement. At each stage, learning will be shared with SD62 for their participation in subsequent stages and for SD62 development of teacher resources. An anonymous survey will be sent by SD62 to all 1000 K-12 teachers in the district. Teachers will also be invited to participate in a one-on-one interview, developed using the Walinga and Rowe (2013) stress transformation theory, to explore six domains: emotional reactions, systems framing, collaborative problem solving, action taking strategies, learning and growth, and outcomes for others.

The significance of this research to the educational system and SD62 will be in learning more about the impact of the COVID-19 situation on the personal and work lives of their teachers, and how they might, as a school district, support them to cope and potentially thrive, despite challenging demands. The deleterious impact of COVID-19 on the school teaching and learning environment will continue well into fall 2020 and into 2021(e.g. staggered classrooms, social distancing at school, on line learning for part of the curriculum, etc.) to create a "new normal". Through this study SD62 will have an opportunity to learn how to better support all educators over the coming year and to promote better health, wellness, growth and development of the teachers to deliver successful ongoing learning environments for their students. The results of the study will translate into coaching and mentoring supports for teachers in the district, and new strategies, policies, and practices across the school district as a whole.

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Gerbasi, A., Porath, C., Parker, A., Spreitzer, G., & Cross, R. (2015). Destructive de-energizing relationships: How thriving buffers their effect on performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(5), 1423-1433. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/apl0000015

Piggot-Irvine, E., & Zornes, D. (2016). Developing a framework for research evaluation in complex contexts such as action research. SAGE Open, 6(3). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2158244016663800

Spreitzer, G., Porath, C. L., & Gibson, C. B. (2012). Toward human sustainability: How to enable more thriving at work. Organizational Dynamics, 41(2), 155-162. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2012.01.009

Spreitzer, G., Sutcliffe, K., Dutton, J., Sonenshein, S., & Grant, A. (2005). A socially embedded model of thriving at work. Organization Science, 16(5), 537-549. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1050.0153

Walinga, J., & Rowe, W. (2013). Transforming stress in complex work environments: Exploring the capabilities of middle managers in the public sector. International Journal of Workplace Health Management, 6(1), 66-88. https://doi.org/10.1108/17538351311312420