Teacher victimization and teachers' subjective well-being: Does school climate matter?

Systematic review of teacher well-being research during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction

The COVID-19 period posed great challenges to global education systems, especially teachers even after lock-down. Teachers' wellbeing has been a concern because they have to balance health with work. Since the role of teachers is pivotal in education, there is increased in research on their wellbeing status.

Method

The current systematic review aims to analyze the distribution of research on teacher wellbeing from 2020 to mid-February 2024 using a quantitative method. It focuses on yearly distribution of studies, the research methods adopted by scholars, and the group of teachers investigated over the period. The PRISMA guidelines were followed, and 103 empirical studies were selected for the analysis.

Results

The review shows notable increase in research, particularly in 2022 and 2023, representing 37.9% and 35.9% of studies, respectively. This suggests a growing interest in teacher wellbeing among educational researchers. The findings also indicate that researchers mostly adopted quantitative methods in form of surveys (79.6%) for studies on teacher wellbeing. However, there has been an increase in qualitative and mixed-methods research recently, with qualitative research accounting for 9.7% and mixed-method research accounting for 10.7%. The review also identified a greater focus on teachers in general than on specific group of teachers.

Predicting Teaching Enjoyment from Teachers' Perceived School Climate, Self-Efficacy, and Psychological Wellbeing at Work: EFL Teachers

We tested an assessment model, by which teacher self-efficacy, perceived school climate, and psychological wellbeing at work, might predict teaching enjoyment. We invited a convenience sample of 355 teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) to respond to four online questionnaires. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to check the scales' construct validity and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test associations among the variables. Our results showed that teacher self-efficacy, perceived school-climate, and psychological wellbeing were direct predictors of foreign language teaching-enjoyment (FLTE). Teacher self-efficacy affected FLTE indirectly, as induced by psychological well-being. School climate also indirectly influenced FLTE, as mediated by teacher self-efficacy and psychological wellbeing, with school climate a direct predictor of teacher self-efficacy and psychological wellbeing. Teacher self-efficacy directly affected psychological wellbeing. We discuss implications of these findings for teacher-education programs.

What Levers to Promote Teachers’ Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Lessons Learned from a 2021 Online Study in Six Countries

To highlight effective levers to promote teachers’ wellbeing worldwide, particularly during difficult times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated work-related factors associated with teacher wellbeing, across borders and cultures. In six countries/territories, we examined the factors that were most consistently and strongly associated with two indicators of wellbeing at work: (i) job satisfaction; and (ii) work/life balance, and three indicators of general wellbeing: (i) subjective health; (ii) mental health; and (iii) life satisfaction. Between May and July 2021, after 18 months of the pandemic, 8000 teachers answered the first edition of the International Barometer of Education Personnel’s Health and Wellbeing (I-BEST): 3646 teachers from France, 2349 from Québec, 1268 from Belgium, 302 from Morocco, 222 from The Gambia, and 215 from Mexico. For each country/territory and each wellbeing indicator, we used a forward stepwise regression procedure to identify important determinants among a carefully selected set of 31 sociodemographic, private, and professional life factors. Aside from healthcare access, the factors most consistently and strongly associated with teacher wellbeing in France, Québec and Belgium (samples whose size were ≥1000) were related to the psychosocial and the organizational dimensions of work, namely: feeling of safety at school, autonomy at work, and the quality of relationships with superiors and quality of relationships with students. In the smaller samples of teachers from the three remaining countries (Morocco, The Gambia and Mexico), exploratory analyses showed that the feeling of safety and autonomy at work were, there too, consistently associated with wellbeing indicators. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the factors most consistently associated with teachers’ wellbeing across countries were related to security and autonomy at work, supporting the importance to consider these aspects in a continuous, structural way at school. Factors associated with teachers’ wellbeing in very different contexts require further cross-cultural study.