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The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student
coping and appraisal of situational impact
Michał B. Paradowski & Magdalena Jelińska
Institute of Applied Linguistics, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
The current COVID-19 pandemic has both exposed and exacerbated existing societal
disparities. Ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, geographical location, underlying health
condition have—in combination with, but also controlling for other confounds—been
responsible for significant differences in both infection risk, rates of ICU admittance, need for
respirator treatment, and deaths. While many reports and studies have been devoted to these
factors, much less systematic research is available on how inequalities among teachers and
students have impacted online instruction and stakeholder wellbeing during the school
disruptions.
This study addresses this gap by investigating how disparities among teachers and students,
as well as awareness thereof, have influenced educators’ psychological overload after the
transition to emergency remote teaching. To this end, we examine the responses of 1,944
teachers from 106 countries to an online questionnaire administered between April and
September 2020. We focus on investigating how inequalities among educators (related to
demographics, family support, access to resources and infrastructure, and anxieties about the
future) influenced their psychological overload, and how this influence was mediated by their
perception of student coping. The resultant model explains 43% of the variance, with practical
implications for more effective pandemic pedagogy.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Keywords: educational psychology, COVID-19 pandemic, emergency remote teaching, school
closure, distance learning, psychological overload, disparities, logistics, perception of student
coping, future anxiety, situational coping
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Background: The impact of disparities on COVID-19 risks and outcomes
The COVID-19 pandemic that by the time of the writing of this paper (Jan. 2021) has claimed
nearly 2.2 million lives, was in its initial stages sometimes seen as an “equaliser”, with no
individual impervious to infection. Quite quickly, though, it has become evident that the risks
are anything but equal to everyone, with different groups affected to radically different degrees.
The disparities have been observed across a range of variables – usually in combination, but
also with their influence remaining after adjustment for other confounds:
Ethnicity. While the increased risk of both infection and death among minority ethnic
populations (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic – BAME in the UK; Black, American Indian
and Alaskan Native, Latinx, and Pacific Islanders in the US; Aldridge et al., 2020; APM
Research Lab, 2021; Azar et al., 2020; Bixler et al., 2020; Gross et al., 2020; Millett et al., 2020;
PHE, 2020a, b; The COVID Tracking Project, 2021; Vahidy et al., 2020; Wadhera et al., 2020)
could be explained by occupation (minorities being disproportionately overrepresented in
essential service and public-facing industries; Anderson, 2016; US Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2019; CDC, 2020; Lawrence, 2020), housing conditions and household composition (minorities
being more likely to live in over/crowded settings such as public housing; Eggers, 2017;
Cabinet Office, 2020a, and in multigenerational households; Lofquist, 2012), poverty
(including higher reliance on public transportation and more difficulty obtaining individual
child care; Rodriguez et al., 2019; PHE, 2020b), pre-existing conditions (Chaturvedi et al.,
2003; Kuppuswamy & Gupta, 2005; NHS, 2019b), part of the excess risk “remains
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
unexplained” (HM Government, Race Disparity Unit, 2020) and could be due to both structural
factors such as social injustice and discrimination (e.g., poorer access to primary care
physicians, Newacheck et al., 2003; Stevens & Shi, 2003; Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, 2011; potential inequitable advertisement and allocation of testing and differential
provision of referrals, Goyal et al., 2020; previous experiences with bias and discrimination,
which can lead to distrust of the health care system and delays in seeking care; Armstrong et
al., 2013; PHE, 2020b – and thus to the spread of infection to household members, or neglecting
to speak up when they have concerns; PHE, 2020b), additional barriers faced due to language
and culture differences and/or immigration status (and avoiding testing for fear of deportation;
Maldonado et al., 2013; Rodriguez et al., 2019; Cabinet Office, 2020b) as well as biological
causes. The effect of racial and ethnic differences influenced COVID-19 infection rates not
only in adults, but also among children: in one study in the US (Goyal et al., 2020), Latinx and
Black children had several times the infection rates of non-Hispanic white children. At the same
time, the pandemic has widened disparities employment-wise. In the US, Black and Latina
women were disproportionately working in some of the hardest-hit sectors (Kurtz, 2021).
Age. COVID-19 has taken a particularly excessive toll among the elderly, with people 80 or
older seventy times more likely to die than those under 40 (PHE, 2020c).
Gender. Risk of need for advanced respiratory support and dying of COVID-19 has been higher
in males than females, with age-matched men twice as likely to die (e.g., ICNARC, 2020, 2021;
PHE, 2020c; Zhou et al., 2020). Some of these differences could be due to behavioural,
occupational, or biological factors. On the other hand, when since February 2020 US men lost
4.4 million jobs, women lost a million more. In December 2020 alone US men gained 16,000
jobs, whereas women lost 156,000 (Kurtz, 2021). This may be partly due to the fact that the
three sectors with steepest losses were altogether female-dominated: education, hospitality, and
retail (particularly clothing and accessories stores). Moreover, as many of the jobs occupied by
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
women lack flexibility, with the closures of schools and day cares many were forced to exit the
workforce (ibid.). Emerging studies from the pandemic generally tend to indicate higher levels
of COVID-generated stress in women (Cao et al., 2020; Qiu et al., 2020; Taylor et al., 2020),
who perceived the emergency as more serious than males did (Commodari & La Rosa, 2020;
Li et al., 2020).
Housing conditions. Cramped accommodation and multigenerational households increase the
risk of secondary exposure, especially for older, more vulnerable adults. Another group at risk
are people with no fixed abode. Finally, care homes have accounted for a visible proportion of
COVID-19 deaths.
Geographic location. Areas with the highest numbers of positive diagnoses as well as death
rates are mostly urban (de Lusignan et al., 2020; possibly due to higher population density and
ethnically diverse populations; Bray et al., 2020) as well as more deprived (Buchanan et al.,
2020), with more than double the mortality rates (ONS, 2020a), possibly due in part to high
proportions of workers in essential as well as exposed occupations (PHE, 2020c). Phone
location data in the US have shown that residents of higher-income neighbourhoods had limited
their movements—and thereby exposure—both more and earlier than poorer areas; for instance,
while ridership on the NYC subway plummeted, stations in poorer boroughs remained crowded
(Valentino-DeVries et al., 2020; Goldbaum & Rogers Cook, 2020).
Occupation. Essential service industries such as health care and transportation, as well as others
such as the food service industry, construction, or retail usually do not permit retreating to work-
from-home arrangements (Valentino-DeVries et al., 2020) and sheltering in place, thus carry
higher risk of exposure (Koh, 2020; ONS, 2020b) as they tend to require both commuting, and
working in close proximity with others—often in face-to-face interactions. At the same time,
many of the lower-paid jobs are casual and insecure, on precarious contracts offering no sick
pay, furlough or unemployment benefit eligibility, while requiring longer working hours.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Consequently, in the UK the highest death rates were registered among hospitality,
construction, manufacturing, social and care workers, taxi, minicab, bus and coach drivers,
chauffeurs, security guards, and sales and retail assistants (PHE, 2020c; Schraer, 2021).
Other socioeconomic determinants. Households spending a fair share of their budget on
essentials and bills are less resilient to falls in income (IFS, 2020). They may face delays in
seeking and accessing health care services because of lack of insurance, child care—some
testing sites were only open during working hours (Goyal et al., 2020)—or transportation (CDC,
2020). In both adults and children, infection rates were found to increase with each subsequent
median family income quartile (Goyal et al., 2020; ICNARC, 2021). Meanwhile, globally it is
estimated that this year 67 low- and lower-middle income countries will only get vaccines for
a tenth of their population (Oxfam International, 2020), while those which have managed to
secure the jab may be being charged much steeper rates (e.g., South Africa reportedly being
quoted nearly 2.5 times more than EU member states; AFP, 2021).
Obesity and comorbidities. Increased risk of severe outcomes from COVID has been associated
with higher prevalence of medical conditions such as obesity (Holman et al., 2020; Qingxian et
al., 2020; Simonnet et al., 2020; Williamson et al., 2020), diabetes, hypertension and
cardiovascular disease (National Health Library and Knowledge Service, 2020; NHS, 2020).
Their occurrence is significantly higher in some BAME groups (NICE, 2011; Ntuk et al., 2014;
NHS, 2019a; PHE, 2020c) as well as—especially diabetes—in more deprived areas (PHE,
2020c).
Immigrant status. The UK has observed a larger increase in deaths among people born outside
the country (PHE, 2020c). Among other reasons, some that have been likely to play a role are
barriers in access to services, discrimination, and lack of linguistically and culturally competent
health promotion, education and prevention messages (Bixler et al., 2020:1329; PHE, 2020b).
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
We can thus see how the pandemic has shone a spotlight on and amplified pre-existing
disparities. While the causes of disproportionate incidence and death rates in the various groups
are often multifactorial, they tend to remain after controlling for other determinants.
Unequal impact of the epidemic on teachers and students
Much less work and attention has been devoted to the impact of disparities on teachers and
students. While luckily current figures from e.g. England and Wales suggest that teachers are
not at a measurably higher risk of death from COVID-19 than the general population, the UK
Office for National Statistics revealed elevated but not statistically significant risk for secondary
education teaching professionals (Schraer, 2021). The situation definitely exerted a heavy stress
toll on the profession, with teachers reporting living in constant fear of catching the virus,
feeling abandoned by the government, exhausted and overstretched, while having to deal with
parents’ frustrations, pupils’ anxieties, dropping attendance and deteriorating behaviour
(Weale, 2020). The experience has been reported to be particularly distressing for newly
qualified teachers (ibid.). Similar sentiments have been shared by university lecturers, who have
been reporting burnout, the unsustainable demands of teaching both in-person and remotely,
fears over health safeguards, and being overwhelmed by dealing with student concerns (Batty,
2020; Singer, 2020).
The abrupt shift to remote instruction appeared to be the most difficult experience for
educators overseeing lower education levels (Hvas & Aller, 2020; Jelińska & Paradowski,
2021). Female teachers have also scored lower on the coping scale than males, as did teachers
from developing countries (Jelińska & Paradowski, 2021). Interestingly, though, the latter
turned out to be more engaged in the remote teaching process (ibid.).
In the learner population, large-scale reports in the US found that most of the students were
between 4 and 12 instructional weeks behind in maths, and that the learning losses affected in
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
particular Black, Latinx, and Native American students, those who attend schools serving high
poverty populations, students in public (state) schools, and those in rural or small towns
(Renaissance, 2020). Black and Latinx pupils as well as those attending high-poverty schools
additionally fell behind in reading (Kuhfeld et al., 2020). The school disruptions also deprived
special education needs students and second language learners of educational accommodations
and services (Korman et al., 2020; Einhorn, 2020). It has also been estimated (Korman et al.,
2020) that the school closures may have irreversibly displaced over 3 million most vulnerable
students – pupils with disabilities, English learners, students in foster care, migrant and
homeless students.
Many students lacked the devices and Internet access to fully participate in online learning
(Herold, 2020). 2018 data suggested that as many as 16.9 million children—disproportionately
living in low-income households and more likely to be Black, Latinx, or Native American—
lacked Internet access at home and 7.3 million did not have a computer (Future Ready, 2020).
A series of photos from the Philippines (Lopez, 2021), where less than a fifth of households
have internet access, and many lack mobile devices, depicted how students—to catch an
internet signal—have to climb onto the roof, trek up a mountain, or stay up late doing online
schoolwork as the signal is stronger at night. Some are carrying on their learning at typhoon
evacuation centres, makeshift homes in a cemetery, or had to get a part-time job in order to
afford a smartphone for the virtual classes. Here, too, the pandemic thwarted some students’
plans for an independent life, and instilled fears among students of losing their scholarships.
Regarding higher education, one report (Casey, 2020) traced the steps of several students
from one college class in Pennsylvania, revealing how the coronavirus exposed America’s class
divide. While in normal times some colleges acted as “equalisers” letting students forget about
inequalities, with the students from different socioeconomic backgrounds sharing the same
cafeterias and dormitories, the epidemic subverted this. When the college shut down and most
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
students got evicted from the residence halls, one student retreated to a vacation home in an
area with a low infection rate, another struggled to keep her mother’s food truck—the family’s
sole livelihood—supplied and running, and was considered getting a part-time job, and a third
could not afford a plane ticket to return to her mother in Russia before her country was to close
its borders. Studies carried out among university students in China found that living in urban
areas and family income stability were protective factors against anxiety (Cao et al., 2020; Li
et al., 2020). The latter factor has been explained with the imbalance of economic, cultural, and
educational resources and sanitary conditions (Li et al. 2020:11). Also, female students scored
higher in trait and emotional anxiety than their male counterparts (Alemany-Arrebola et al.,
2020). More generally, a topical analysis of tweets (Duong et al., 2020) revealed that negative
sentiments towards the central issues of COVID-19 were significantly higher among the student
than in the general population.
However, to the best of our knowledge no study has attempted to systematically investigate
the way in which different dimensions of inequality among teachers, as well as their awareness
of or oblivion to disparities among students, have influenced the psychological toll they
experienced during emergency remote instruction. This is the aim we set out to investigate in
the current study.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The aim of this study is to investigate how inequalities among teachers and their awareness of
and empathy to such among students after the shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT;
Hodges et al., 2020) during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic affect teachers’
psychological overload. The study is guided by the following exploratory research questions:
RQ1: Which aspects of teachers’ inequalities predict their psychological overload during
the transition to emergency remote instruction?
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
RQ2: What is the relative contribution of the respective predictors?
RQ3: Is there a more complex mediating relationship between the psychosocial predictors,
in particular the teachers’ perception of the pandemic’s impact on the students?
We answer these questions basing on the findings from a custom-made multinational survey
study carried out from April until September 2020.
MATERIALS AND METHOD
Participants
6,582 educators took part in our study investigating how teachers adapted to emergency remote
instruction during the COVID-19 epidemic, conducted from April through September 2020.
Here we analyse the results from 1,944 participants who completed the entire questionnaire and
met the inclusion criteria.
The teachers represented different education levels. Almost 40% of them reported working
in higher education institutions such as graduate school, community college, or university,
24.3% taught at secondary and 29.2% at primary stages of education. The respondents came
from 6 continents and 106 countries and autonomous territories. 33.5% of them worked in the
USA and 18.5% in Poland. As their place of teaching, almost equal proportions of the teachers
indicated Europe (41.6%) and North America (40.6%). 89% worked in economically developed
countries, classified by the World Bank on the basis of gross national income per capita,
whereas the remining 11% represented developing countries. The locations of the respondents
are plotted in Figure 1.
[Figure 1 near here]
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Figure 1. Locations of the respondents
The overwhelming majority of the participants, i.e., 83% were female. The mean age of the
respondents was 43.6 years (SD = 11.9). The most numerous (51%) were teachers aged between
25 to 45, whereas 44% declared to be over 45 years old. Approximately 74% of all the study
participants reported living with their partner or their families, whereas almost 25% declared to
be single.
More than 31% had been teaching their subject for less than 5 years, and a similar proportion
declared to teach it up to 15 years. Approximately 85% had not participated in any form of
training or workshop that would prepare them for remote teaching. According to 53%, the
pandemic situation affected teachers and students equally, while 33% estimated that the
pandemic situation was worse for the students than the teachers.
[Table 1 near here]
Table 1. Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants (N=1,944)
Frequency (n)
Percent (%)
Stage of education handled
K–primary
568 29.2
secondary
472
24.3
tertiary
772 39.7
other
27
4.2
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
not reported 51 2.6
Continent
Europe
809
41.6
North America 789 40.6
Asia
200
10.3
Oceania 72 3.6
South America
38
2.0
Africa 36 1.9
Countries
USA
652
33.5
Poland 360 18.5
UK
1
136
6.9
Canada 119 6.1
Australia
61
3.1
Germany 47 2.4
France
35
1.8
Spain 26 1.3
Japan
24
1.2
South Korea 23 1.2
Italy
19
1.0
China, India 17 each 0.9 each
Thailand, Turkey
13 each
0.7 each
Belgium, Ireland, Switzerland 12 each 0.6 each
Argentina, Montenegro, New Zealand, South Africa
11 each
0.6 each
Austria, Hungary, Mexico, United Arab Emirates 10 each 0.5 each
Netherlands, Portugal
9 each
0.5 each
Czech Republic, Greece, Sweden 8 each 0.4 each
Brazil, Israel, Russia
7 each
0.4 each
Algeria, Colombia, Finland, Hong Kong, Norway, Qatar,
Serbia, Trinidad and Tobago 6 each 0.3 each
Cyprus, Lithuania, Macao, Malta, Pakistan 5 each 0.3 each
Bulgaria, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia
4 each
0.2 each
Albania, Bangladesh, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Egypt,
Iraq, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Malaysia,
Philippines, Puerto Rico, Romania, Slovakia, Sri Lanka,
Ukraine, Vietnam
3 each 0.2 each
Bahamas, Bahrain, Belarus, Cambodia, Denmark,
Georgia, Ghana, Oman, Palestine, Peru, Singapore,
Slovenia, Taiwan, Tunisia, Venezuela 2 each 0.1 each
Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Cameroon,
Estonia, Fiji, Jersey, Kenya, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho,
Macedonia, Malawi, Mauritius, Nepal, Senegal, Uganda,
Uruguay, Zimbabwe
1 each 0.1 each
Country economic classification
developed 1,735 89.2
developing
209
10.8
1 Including participants who reported England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Gender
female 1,610 82.8
male
320
16.5
not listed/non-binary 14 0.7
Age groups (years)
<25 years
95
4.9
25 – 35 397 20.4
36 – 45
595
30.6
46 – 55 533 27.4
56 – 65
282
14.5
>65 years 40 2.1
not reported
2
0.1
Relationship status
single 483 24.9
in relationship
1,437
73.9
not reported 24 1.2
Living conditions
alone
333
17.13
with partner 1068 54.94
with family
543
27.93
Trained in remote teaching before the pandemic
no 1646 84.7
yes
298
15.3
Appraisal of relative situational impact
students affected more than teachers 644 33.1
teachers and students affected equally
28
53.2
teachers affected more than students 113 5.8
not reported
153
7.9
Measures
A custom-made online survey composed of 441 items was designed to verify educators’
adaptation to and coping with emergency remote teaching 2 (Appendix 1). It covered questions
concerning respondents’ sociodemographics, the circumstances surrounding their transition to
emergency remote instruction, personal experiences, behaviours, attitudes, feelings, physical
and mental health, as well as personality traits. In order to measure psychological constructs,
23 short scales were developed from IPIP items and based among others on the in-depth
analyses of Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), Life Orientation Test – Revised (Scheier, Carver &
2 The current paper analyses data from a much larger project https://schoolclosure.ils.uw.edu.pl .
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Bridges, 1994), Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR; Kashdan, Disabato,
Goodman & McKnight, 2020), Individual Adaptability I-ADAPT-M (Ployhart & Bliese, 2006),
and Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews & Kelly, 2007). Given the rather general nature
of these existing questionnaires, they are less capable of capturing more situation-specific
circumstances. For this reason, we developed custom-made scales, single-items indicators, as
well as open-ended questions consulting them with academics with experience in the field and
piloting with teachers and students.
In this contribution we investigate how inequalities among teachers and their awareness
of disparities among students influence their health and well-being during the transition to
emergency remote instruction. To this end, we analysed the results of five short scales (see
Appendix) and two specific single-item indicators complemented by sociodemographic factors
such as gender, age, and education stages handled. Four scales assessed aspects of disparities
among teachers, such as their access to resources, anxiety about the future, family support
during remote teaching period, and their awareness of inequalities among learners, whereas one
scale measured teachers’ psychological overload. Given the global nature of the survey, we did
not ask about respondents’ ethnicity. Nor did we probe socioeconomic status (other than asking
about future anxieties).
Anxiety about the future was measured with a 5-item scale assessing to what extent
teachers expressed concern about different aspects of their livelihood such as their future, job
stability, housing conditions, and economic situation (e.g., “I worry about my job stability”, “I
am afraid of an approaching economic crisis”). The scale showed satisfactory internal
consistency of Cronbach’s α = .76, McDonald’s ωh = .76 and Guttman’s λ6 = .77. Its positive
correlation (r = .49, p < .05) with perceived stress measured with the Perceived Stress Scale
(PSS; Cohen et al., 1988) indicates relatively good convergent validity of the developed scale.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Access to resources was measured with 3 items assessing to what extent the instructors
had experienced difficulties when teaching remotely caused by the limitations of their devices
and software (“My computer is too slow for the remote teaching software”), inaccessible
hardware (“I haven’t been able to fully utilise the potential of remote teaching because of lack
of access to hardware”) and other resources including printed materials needed to prepare or
manage classes (“I lack access to printed materials and resources to prepare my classes”). The
items in this and all the remaining scales were answered on a six-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 (completely disagree) to 6 (completely agree). The scale reported satisfactory internal
consistency of Cronbach’s α = .72, McDonald’s ωh = .72 and Guttman’s λ6 = .63.
Family support was assessed with 3 items measuring to what extent the teachers felt the
support and closeness of their families and significant others (e.g., “I have good relations at
home”, “I feel comfortable having my family/partner/roommates/flatmates around during this
time”). The scale reported good internal consistency of Cronbach’s α = .73, McDonald’s ωh =
.78 and Guttman’s λ6 = .70.
Perception of student coping was assessed with 5 items measuring teachers’ perception
of inequalities among the students and in particular the extent to which the latter coped with the
transition to remote learning (e.g., “I feel that some of my students have been left behind/fallen
through the cracks in the shift to remote teaching”), reacted positively to remote teaching (“My
students have responded positively to my remote teaching”), and experienced difficulties such
as lack of concentration and/or attention (“The students have trouble with concentration and
staying focused during the online classes”). An awareness of students’ problems constitutes an
indicator of teachers’ empathy to students’ needs and difficulties during remote instruction.
Three of the items were reverse worded indicating occurrence of issues. The internal
consistency of this scale was satisfactory (Cronbach’s α = .76, McDonald’s ωh = .77 and
Guttman’s λ6 = .75).
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Lastly, psychological overload was measured with 11 items assessing the extent to
which the teachers felt negative emotional, behavioural and physical states, which indicate
decreased or reduced wellbeing during the period of lockdown, such as sadness (e.g., “I have
been sad”), irritation (e.g., “I have been feeling irritable”), strain (e.g., “I feel building up
pressure”), emotional instability (e.g., “I have been having bouts of anxiety/panic attacks”), and
loneliness (“I feel lonely”) as well as symptoms of fatigue (e.g., “I feel tired during the day”)
and decreased motivation (“I feel no motivation to do anything”). The scale reported very high
internal consistency of Cronbach’s α = .92, McDonald’s ωh = .92 and Guttman’s λ6 = .93.
Positive correlations (r = .76, p < .05) with perceived stress measured by the Perceived Stress
Scale (PSS; Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein, 1988) and negative (r = –0.47, p < .05) with self-
compassion measured with the short form of the Self-Compassion Scale (Raes, Pommier, Neff
& VanGucht, 2011) indicate that the scale has good convergent validity.
The other aspects of inequalities among teachers were assessed with single-item
indicators, such as appraisal of the relative situational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
teachers and students in the educational context. This item indicates how instructors perceived
the impact of the situation on the different stakeholders of the education process: as affecting
teachers more than students, students to a greater extent than teachers, or influencing both
groups to a similar extent. The single-item indicator measuring situational coping brings insight
into how teachers perceive their handling of the pandemic compared with other people.. We
also included indicators related more specifically to working conditions such as class size
(“What size is the (average) class you are teaching?) and student absenteeism after the
transition to remote instruction (“What % of your students have not been taking part in the
remote classes?”). Apart from the single-item indicators, we also collected basic
sociodemographic information such as teachers’ age, gender, relationship status, living
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
conditions (i.e. living alone, with partner or family), and education stage handled (K-primary,
secondary and tertiary).
Procedure
The study was conducted during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, from April to
September 2020. The custom-made questionnaire was activated on a commercial survey
software platform (to make it readily available to respondents from countries where solutions
such as Google Forms are inaccessible without a VPN). To ensure representativeness, a quasi-
snowball sampling technique was applied based on several channels including the researchers’
direct personal contacts, mailing lists and websites of professional associations, as well as
relevant thematic groups and pages on social media. The respondents were informed about the
purpose of the survey and they participated voluntarily. The protocol had obtained IRB approval
from the University of Warsaw Ethics Committee for Research Involving Human Participants
(#57/2020).
Transition from regular face-to-face classes to online teaching as part of the response to
the COVID-19 epidemic was a prerequisite to participate in this study. On the basis of the
opening filter question more than 13% of the initial survey takers were excluded from the study
due to the fact that they either reported to continue teaching face-to-face, or had already been
teaching online before the school closures happened.
Data Analysis
In order to verify which aspects of the inequalities among teachers influence their psychological
overload as a factor of decreased wellbeing, we conducted multiple linear regression using
STATISTICA’s General Regression Models (GRM) module, which applies the methods of
general linear models and allows building models that combine categorical and continuous
predictor variables (analysis of covariance design). However, as such a regression model gives
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
more of a general overview of the predictors of different categories (such as sociodemographic
variables and more individual-related psychosocial factors), to examine how some of these
psychosocial factors mediate the influence of sociodemographics on psychological overload,
we conducted a mediation analysis.
The linearity assumption was tested on the basis of a visual inspection of scatterplots
indicating that the variables and the residuals of the regression (i.e. the errors between observed
and predicted values) were normally distributed. Lack of multicollinearity was verified by
checking the variance inflation factor (VIF) and tolerance. For the variables included in the
model, the VIF did not exceed 1.5, whereas tolerance value ranged from .70 to .97. These
indicators confirm lack of collinearity. It was also examined by means of a matrix of Pearson’s
bivariate correlations among all the predictors. The highest correlation coefficient obtained was
r = –.34, which again proved lack of multicollinearity in the data. The assumption of
homoscedasticity, verified by means of a scatterplot of residuals versus predicted values, was
also met. It was additionally confirmed by the Durbin-Watson statistic (d = 1.97).
To examine the mediation models with multiple mediators operating in parallel, we used
Hayes’ Conditional Process Analysis PROCESS in SPSS (Hayes, 2018), which is a
nonparametric bootstrapping procedure using a path analysis framework similar to the approach
characterised by Edwards and Lambert (2007). This procedure does not require the assumption
of normality of the distribution. The bootstrap procedure is applied to generate confidence
intervals for significance testing. Non-normality is assumed when the model or its single path
is tested. The significance of the indirect effects was computed using the Sobel test and
bootstrapping procedures based on 10,000 resamples (which enhance the statistical power of a
mediation analysis). The results are reported as unstandardised coefficients.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
RESULTS
To identify the aspects of the inequalities among teachers influencing their psychological
overload after the transition to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we built a 10-
step multiple linear regression model based on forward selection using an ANCOVA design
(Table 2). The entire regression model is significant (F14,1977 = 99.02, p < .001) and predicts
43% of variance in teachers’ psychological overload.
[Table 2 near here]
Table 2. The regression results of the effects of the variables investigated on psychological
overload
Dependent variable R R2 Adj. R2 df 1 df 2 F ηp² 95%CI
Psychological overload
.66
.44
.43
14
1,799
99.02
.44
.40
.46
The results, presented in Table 3, indicate that the teachers’ psychological overload after
the transition to remote teaching depends most on their anxiety about the future (β = .35, t =
18.09, p < .001). Other important predictors of decreased wellbeing are related to teachers’
situational coping (β = –.27, t = –114.13, p < .001) as well as their perception of student coping
with distance learning conditions (β = –.14, t = –6.50, p < .001). It is also determined by
teachers’ age (β = –.14, t = –7.95, p < .001). The next important predictor turns out to be
hindered access to resources such as printed materials, software or adequate hardware (β = .09,
t = 4.23, p < .001), which is immediately followed by teachers’ appraisal of the relative impact
of the pandemic situation on teachers and students (respectively students more affected by the
pandemic context than teachers: β = –.08, t = –3.99, p < .001 and teachers more affected than
students: β = –.04, t = –2.15, p < .001). Teachers’ psychological overload was also predicted
by the education level handled (primary: β = .06, t = 3.09, p < .001 and tertiary: β = –.04, t = –
2.22, p < .001). It also depends on the availability of family support (β = –.06, t = –3.47, p <
.001) and to a much lesser extent on teachers’ gender (β = –.05, t = 1.75, p < .001). Interestingly,
more personal variables such as relationship status or living conditions as well as country
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
classification (developed or developing), which is related to teachers’ incomes, do not
contribute to the regression model and were thus excluded from further analyses.
[Table 3 near here]
Table 3. 10-step multiple linear regression model with ANCOVA (forward selection) for
variables predicting teachers’ psychological overload during after the transition to remote
teaching
Step Independent variables b SE β t R2 F ηp² 95%CI
1
Future anxiety
.39
.02
.35*
18.09
.16
327.17
.15
.13
.18
2 Situational coping −.53 .04 −.27* −14.13 .11 199.64 .10 .08 .12
3
Perception of student coping
−.18
.03
−.14*
− 6.50
.30
42.27
.02
.01
.04
4 Age −.02 .00 −.14* −7.95 .03 63.24 .03 .02 .05
5
Access to resources
.08
.02
.09*
4.23
.24
17.93
.01
.003
.02
6
Appraisal of the situational
impact
11.12 .02 .008 .03
teachers more affected
than students
−.13 .06 –.04* −2.15 .16
students more affected
than teachers
−.17 .04 −.08* −3.99 .22
teachers and students
affected equally
.06 .04 .03 1.62 .15
7 Education level handled 5.95 .01 .003 .02
primary
.13
.04
.06*
3.09
.12
secondary .06 .04 .03 1.51 .06
tertiary
−.09
.04
−.04*
−2.22
.11
8 Family support −.01 .02 −.06* −3.47 .04 12.01 .01 .002 .01
9
Gender
5.04
.01
.00
.01
female .01 .09 .00 .15 .68
male
−.17
.10
−.05
−1.75
.67
−
Class size
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
− Country classification − − − − − − − − −
−
Relationship status
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
−
− Living conditions − − − − − − − − −
b – unstandardised regression coefficient; SE – standard error; β – standardised regression coefficient
The predictors of teachers’ psychological overload combine two kinds of variables:
sociodemographic and psychosocial. Among the latter factors determining decreased wellbeing
in teachers, the most important were future anxiety and situational coping. Their influence was
almost twice as strong as that of the other variables. Partial eta2 indicates that anxiety about the
future predicted 15% of variance in teachers’ psychological overload. Similarly, the way
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
teachers estimated how they coped with the pandemic explains 10% of variance in their
decreased wellbeing. Thus, we next examined to what extent they may affect psychological
overload directly and indirectly through presumed influence of other selected psychosocial
factors such as perception of student coping and appraisals of the situational impact (the latter
only in the case of the impact of situational coping). To gain a more detailed insight, we
conducted mediation analysis verifying two models.
The results from the first mediation model predicting the effect of situational coping on
psychological overload indicated that how teachers perceive their coping during the COVID-
19 pandemic is indirectly related to their lowered wellbeing. All single mediation relationships
turned out to be statistically significant. Teachers who felt that they coped better than others
were more convinced that the current situation caused greater difficulties for the students than
for the instructors (a1 = –.13; t(1,1942) = –4.78; p < .001). This belief, in turn, inflated teachers’
psychological overload (b1 = .21; t(3,1940) = 6.35; p < .001) and had a small but significant
indirect effect on teachers’ decreased wellbeing (a1b1 = –.03; SE = .008; 95% CI [–.04, –.01]).
Teachers who found themselves coping better than others perceived that their students handled
remote learning difficulties better and had their special needs met more successfully (a2 = .23;
t(1,1942) = 6.06; p < .001). A high perception of student coping resulted in a lower psychological
overload (b2 = –.35; t(3,1940) = –14.91; p < .001). It transpires that the perception of student
coping significantly mediates the relationship between the teachers’ belief how they manage
with COVID-19-related reality and their psychological overload, though its indirect effect is
relatively small (a2b2 = –.06; SE = .01; 95% CI [–.09, –.04]). All three mediators constituted
13% of the total effect of situational coping on psychological overload. The mediation model
is presented in Figure 2.
[Figure 2 near here]
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Figure 2. The mediating effects of the appraisal of situational impact, perception of student
coping and access to resources in the relationship between situational coping and psychological
overload.
Notes. *p < .001; All presented effects are unstandardised: a1 is the effect of situational coping on the appraisal of
situational impact; a2 is the effect of situational coping on the perception of student coping; b1 is a the effect of the
appraisal of situational impact on psychological overload; b2 is the effect of the perception of student coping on
psychological overload; c is the total effect of future anxiety on psychological overload, c’ is the direct effect of
future anxiety on psychological overload, when the mediators are included in the model.
The results of the second mediation analysis reflecting the direct and indirect impact of
anxiety about the future on psychological overload showed that both types of effect were
significantly predictive. All single mediation relationships in this model were statistically
significant. Perception of student coping mediated the relationship between teachers’ anxiety
about the future and psychological overload (ab = –.07; SE = .09; 95% CI [–.04, –.07]).
Teachers more concerned about their own future found their students to be coping worse with
distance learning and found themselves less able to satisfy students’ special or individual needs
(a = –.25; t(1,1942) = –11.98; p < .001). The more positive was their perception of student coping
with educational demands, the better was their wellbeing (b = –.28; t(2,1941) =–11.66; p < .001).
Situational coping
Appraisal of
situational impact
Psychological
overload
a
1
=
–.13*
b1 =.21*
Perception of
student coping
a
2
=
.23*
b2 = –.35*
c’=
–.72*
(c = –.83*)
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
The total indirect effects in this model corresponded to 18.4% of the total effect. The mediation
model is shown in Figure 3.
[Figure 3 near here]
Figure 3. The mediating effect of access to resources and perception of student coping in the
relationship between anxiety about the future and psychological overload.
Notes. *p < .001; All presented effects are unstandardized: a is the effect of effect of future anxiety on perception
of student coping; b is the effect of the perception of student coping on psychological overload; c is the total effect
of future anxiety on psychological overload, c’ is the direct effect of future anxiety on psychological overload,
when the mediators are included in the model.
Discussion
The COVID-19 pandemic introduced revolutionary changes in numerous aspects of people’s
social and professional lives. Education systems were particularly affected, exposing and
amplifying many inequalities between its main groups of stakeholders – teachers and students.
This study investigated some of the disparities among the former group, taking into account
sociodemographic and ecological/logistic factors that are plausible important in the teaching
context. These included gender, age, education stage handled, living conditions, relationship
status, family support, (constraints in) access to resources, and country of employment
classified with respect to income, but also a set of more psychosocial factors such as situational
coping with the pandemic, appraisal of its relative impact, and anxiety about the future. The
results revealed how inequalities in these aspects among teachers and their awareness of how
c’ = .47*
a = –.25*
Psychological
overload
Perception of
student coping
Future anxiety
b = –.28*
(c = .54*)
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
students are handling—or failing to cope with—the new educational and situational challenges
affect teachers’ psychological overload after the shift to emergency remote teaching.
The results permit distinguishing among and characterising the relative effect of those
measured aspects that predict teachers’ psychological overload. Interestingly, among all the
variables included in this study, the strongest predictors of teachers’ psychological overload
were anxiety about the future as well as situational coping. Teachers who felt they were
handling the new reality and who were less concerned about their future work stability, living
or economic conditions, experience fewer emotional, behavioural and physical symptoms of
stress and fatigue. These results are in line with those by Alemany-Arrebola and colleagues
(2020) conducted among Spanish teachers, showing that less successful coping with lockdown
(than in business-as-usual conditions) were related to worse adaptation to the situation which
involved sleeping difficulties, feelings of rising pressure, feeling unhappy or depressed.
MacIntyre, Gregersen and Mercer (2020) also found that the strategies used by teachers to cope
with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic determined positive psychological outcomes such
as wellbeing or health.
Unsurprisingly, perception of students’ handling of the online learning challenges was
another important factor that differentiated teachers’ psychological overload. Educators who
found their students coping worse with remote instruction perceived themselves as more
restrained in or less able to meet special or individual needs. They also appraised their own
coping as worse compared with other people. This belief could induce frustration and a sense
of helplessness, leading to a vicious circle of even higher emotional strain. In consequence,
individual difficulties in coping together with perceived worse students’ coping result in a
higher psychological overload.
Teachers’ wellbeing during school closure depended on sociodemographic factors such as
age and—to a lesser extent—gender. Older teachers tended to experience greater psychological
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
overload. This result partly corresponds with those found in a meta-analysis by Brooks et al.
(2020), who with regard to previous pandemics noticed that older people were more worried in
lockdown conditions. Contrary to that work, however, this study does not confirm that the older
teachers adapt better to the pandemic reality. Increased psychological overload in this group
indicates the reverse tendency. Moreover, female teachers experienced a lowered wellbeing
compared with their male counterparts. This result is in line with the findings of Morales-Vives
et al. (2020), Jelińska and Paradowski (2021), and the review of Brooks et al. (2020). It may
suggest that women are more emotionally vulnerable. They may be more anxious and cope
worse with daily hassles and everyday duties.
Teaching in a country other than one’s own did not influence the results. This may be
because teaching jobs, especially in the K–HE track, tend to offer better employment stability
than many other, stereotypical migrant jobs. This might also explain the lack of an effect of the
economic status of the country (which has been found to impact aspects of functioning more
directly connected with remote instruction, that is coping with and engagement in ERT; Jelińska
& Paradowski, 2021). Interestingly, living conditions did not make a difference for
psychological overload, either.
The findings offer practical indications for teachers, administrators, and policymakers by:
highlighting:
i. the particularly vulnerable groups (older teachers, women, and educators in lower stages
of education), and
ii. stressors which can be mitigated (limited access to resources, future anxiety, appraisal
of situational impact, and perception of student coping).
The availability of both necessary and adequate hardware (computers, webcams, headsets,
graphic tablets, WiFi routers, printers, scanners, etc.) as well as printed materials can be
facilitated by schools lending out their resources (not only to teachers, but also students where
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
possible) as well as enabling physical access to the on-site facilities. Uncertainty about the
implications and consequences of the outbreak creates natural concerns (Brooks et al., 2020).
Future anxiety is often contingent on the employment contract; here, educational institutions
should forgo the temptation to save a little money by hiring the teaching staff on precarious
contracts (e.g. as adjuncts), and instead offer contracts that guarantee better financial stability,
social security, sick leave and furlough/unemployment benefits. Negative appraisal of
situational impact may be mitigated by helping teachers see things in perspective – despite the
heavy psychological toll, current numbers do not seem to suggest that the profession is at a
higher risk of catching or dying from COVID than others (Schraer, 2021). Still, given that
teachers have to work in environments that are inherently crowded, in order to minimise
disruptions to education and provide them with more reassurance, prioritising them for
vaccination is highly advised. Finally, the important mediating role of perception of student
coping highlights the bidirectionality of the teacher-student relationship and the necessity to
support the well-being of both groups.
Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank the volunteers who generously completed and provided feedback
on the pilot versions of the survey, all the participants who took the time to fill in the
questionnaire despite other commitments, as well as friends, colleagues, professional
associations, the Librus platform, and administrators of the thematic groups on social media for
publicising and/or enabling to share information about the survey. The authors are supported
by SONATA-BIS grant № 2016/22/E/HS2/00034 from the National Science Centre of Poland.
MBP also acknowledges support from COST Actions 15109 COSTNET, 15130 SAREP and
18232 MAT-DYN-NET.
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Appendix 1
Table 1a. Access to resources scale – means, standard deviations, and item-total score-
corrected correlations of the items (N = 1,944, α & ωh = .72, λ6 = .63)
Items M SD rtt
My computer is too slow for the remote teaching software.
2.43
1.50
.56
I lack access to printed materials and resources to prepare my classes.
3.01
1.76
.48
I haven’t been able to fully utilise the potential of remote teaching because of
lack of access to hardware (computer/webcam/tablet/printer/scanner …).
2.85 1.67 .58
Scale
8.29
3.94
.46
Table 2a. Perception of student coping scale – means, standard deviations, and item-total score-
corrected correlations of the items (N = 1,944, α & ωh = .77, λ6 = .75)
Items M SD rtt
I feel that some of my students have been left behind/fallen through the cracks
in the shift to remote teaching.
2.48 1.51 .55
My students have not coped well with remote learning.
3.42
1.39
.66
My students have responded positively to my remote teaching. 4.23 1.18 .38
The students have trouble with concentration and staying focused during the
online classes.
2.83 1.45 .56
I feel that remote teaching reduces my possibility to meet students’ individual/
special needs.
2.46 1.47 .55
Scale 15.43 5.05 .40
Table 3a. Anxiety about the future scale – means, standard deviations, and item-total score-
corrected correlations of the items (N = 1,944, α & ωh = .76, λ6 = .77)
Items M SD rtt
I feel anxious about my future. 3.83 1.58 .65
I worry about my job stability.
3.39
1.74
.65
I worry about housing instability. 2.54 1.56 .52
The current crisis will further social inequalities.
4.98
1.20
.32
I am afraid of an approaching economic crisis.
4.79
1.21
.51
Scale
19.53
5.26
.39
Table 4a. Family support scale – means, standard deviations, and item-total score-corrected
correlations of the items (N = 1,944, α = .73, ωh = .78, λ6 = .70)
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]
Items M SD rtt
I feel comfortable having my family/partner/roommates/flatmates around
during this time.
4.69 1.54 .36
I have good relations at home. 4.55 1.99 .67
I enjoy being able to spend more time with my family/children/partner.
4.80
1.97
.65
Scale
14.04
4.44
.48
Table 5a. Psychological overload scale – means, standard deviations, and item-total score-
corrected correlations of the items (N = 1,944, α & ωh = .92, λ6 = .93)
Items M SD rtt
My dreams have been more emotional/anxious.
3.23
1.67
.51
I feel I have been losing my sanity. 2.63 1.49 .71
I find it harder to get out of bed in the morning.
2.91
1.66
.66
I feel tired during the day. 3.74 1.60 .71
I am feeling exhausted all the time.
3.21
1.66
.74
I have been feeling irritable. 3.36 1.54 .76
I feel building up pressure.
3.40
1.61
.77
I have been sad. 3.54 1.60 .76
I have been having bouts of anxiety/panic attacks.
2.85
1.69
.71
I feel no motivation to do anything. 2.85 1.55 .68
I feel lonely.
2.83
1.67
.55
Scale
34.55
13.26
.52
Paradowski, M.B. & Jelińska, M. (under review). The impact of disparities and awareness thereof on educators’ psychological overload
during emergency remote teaching: The mediating roles of logistics, perception of student coping and appraisal of situational impact.
Teachers and Teaching [special issue "The Drive for Equity and Quality in the Time of Covid-19: Considerations and Implications
for Teachers and Teaching"]