Constraints and Consequences of Online Teaching

Mentorship reconsidered: A case study of K-12 teachers' mentor-mentee relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study critically examined the impact of a crisis context (COVID-19 pandemic) on K-12 teachers by placing emphasis on the mentor-mentee dyad through the perspective of the mentee in a large United States public school system. A phenomenological case study was undertaken that used semi-structured interviews to examine 14 early career teachers (mentees) participating in a formal mentoring program during the 2020-2021 school year. The study focused on mentor-mentee relationships by accounting for the single most traumatic and transformative event of the modern era of K-12 public education. The analysis yielded three findings highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on the mentor-mentee dyadic experiences of first- and second-year teachers engaged in a mentoring relationship. The findings indicate that (a) e-mentoring allowed for avoidant behaviors from mentors (b) successful mentoring involves the development of personal relationships between a mentor and mentee, and (c) peer and reverse mentoring became commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. Public school systems can use these findings to help develop positive mentor and mentee relationships that go beyond the traditional dyadic roles and help reduce stress in a crisis context, while developing a culture where superiority bias is improved. Research implications offer mentoring literature a view to pay more attention to temporal influences during environments of high stress, which may provide more explanatory power on mentorship roles, cultural influences, and social interactions in the course of mentor-mentee practices.

How much do we care about teacher job insecurity during the pandemic? A bibliometric review

In this study, a descriptive bibliometric analysis of the scientific production in the Web of Science on job insecurity perceived by teachers in pandemic situations was carried out. The result shows the growing interest in the topic with an upward trend with an annual growth of 41.52%. Forty-seven papers from 41 journals with 2,182 cited references were considered, with 149 researchers from 30 countries publishing at least one article. The country with the most publications was the United States, followed by Germany and Spain. The United States was the country with the most collaborations. A total of 95 institutions published papers, and the universities with the most registrations were Miami University and the University of the Basque Country, although York University and the University of the Basque Country had a higher overall citation coefficient (102 and 40, respectively). Of the 41 journals that have published on the topic, Frontiers in Education and the British Journal of Educational Psychology stood out in terms of their article numbers. However, this last one was superior in terms of the overall number of citations per year, followed by Frontiers of Psychology.

Coping with the unexpected: A job demands/resources study exploring Italian teachers’ remote working experience during the COVID‐19 lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic caused school systems to adapt very quickly to a variety of demands for change, and teachers, as frontline workers in the education system, were tasked with rapidly implementing new teaching practices in ways that promoted student learning while maximizing student safety. The aim of this study is to investigate how Italian teachers experienced the first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, managing the difficult balance between job demands and personal resources to reduce the negative effects of this condition in terms of stress and burnout. Following the J-D/R model, the study analysed the role of personal resources, such as resilience and self-efficacy as components of Psychological Capital, in the relationship between job demands (work-life interface), job resources (principal's leadership support and participative decision-making), and emotional exhaustion. Participants were 606 Italian teachers working in different educational ranks. Results showed that personal resources play an important role to reduce the effects of job demands on emotional exhaustion and to buffer the effects of job resources on emotional exhaustion

Teacher Views on Teaching Sustainability in Higher Education Institutes in Australia

Higher education for sustainable development (HESD) plays a key role in achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This research study specifically examined HESD in terms of eLearning initiatives in Australian private higher education providers from the perspective of teachers. A qualitative structured interview method was adopted wherein 10 teachers were interviewed in order to gain an understanding of their general knowledge of HESD, their attitudes and experience towards HESD, their teaching practices related to HESD, and their understandings of strategy as well as planning initiatives for their institution. The main findings suggest that (1) teachers in private higher education providers tend to have a limited knowledge of sustainability concepts and limited experience in teaching sustainability; (2) eLearning can be a valuable approach in teaching sustainability, but this approach presents teachers with challenges such as student engagement; and (3) private higher education providers require proper resources and governance frameworks in order for any sustainability initiative to be successful. This research highlights the resourcing aspect of private higher education providers in training staff, developing learning materials, and developing practical guidelines to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Effective Teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic? Distance Learning and Sustainable Communication in Romania

Telecommuting in education field, enforced by Romanian Government measures as policy responses to COVID-19 pandemic, has had a tremendous effect both on teaching professionals and on students. This paper investigates the first group, namely the teachers and their perception of online education versus students’ academic performance during distance learning, with a particular focus on the negative factors impacting educational activities: objective ones, such as the limits of technology, and personal subjective ones, as in the phenomenon of negative affect. The study is based on quantitative research that assesses the relationship between personal subjective factors (skills, affect, difficulties in adapting, level of preparedness, professional satisfaction) and technological objective factors (inadequate electronic devices, faulty internet services), with a view to establishing if online education is genuinely sustainable as a valid educational system in the long run. 881 teachers from Romania were subjected to reflect on the effectiveness of online education during the pandemic, resulting in a correlational study with some interesting conclusions and directions highlighted as characteristic for a sustainable educational program. All in all, it can be concluded that when teachers become experienced in online teaching, the efficiency of online teaching is set to improve and when improvement happens, online teaching becomes sustainable as a proper method of training via online-facilitated means of communication.

Implementation of a Remote Instrumental Music Course Focused on Creativity, Interaction, and Bodily Movement. Preliminary Insights and Thematic Analysis

In a newly designed collaborative online music course, four musical novices unknown to each other learned to play the clarinet starting from zero. Over the course of 12 lessons, a special emphasis was placed on creativity, mutual interaction, and bodily movement. Although addressing these dimensions might be particularly challenging in distance learning contexts, a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with the learners revealed how the teaching approach proposed has generally facilitated learning. Qualitative findings highlight the importance of establishing meaningful relationships with the musical instrument as well as with other students to build musicality, and of the interplay between creativity and control in individual and collective music-making activities. We suggest that remote music tuition with a small group can be a valuable resource to start learning music and that a creative, collaborative, and movement-based approach can contribute to musical growth.

Current Discussions on Employees and Organizations During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Literature Review

New concerns have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic that greatly impact employees and many other aspects in organizations. We have highlighted the major organizational issues during COVID-19 and classified the relevant research findings based on 45 recent articles. Main themes identified include (1) work setting, (2) perceptions of COVID-19, (3) employee wellbeing, (4) organizational strategies, and (5) influences on career behaviors. Employees have faced challenges due to work conditions that have shifted from traditional commuting to telework. Employees have also become aware of the negative current situation, so their overall wellbeing has been threatened. In response, organizations have strived to promote positive psychological capital for employees as they attempt to cope with this crisis. Organizations have tried to maintain and manage both their employees and their business. People tended to adjust their career-related behaviors based on how they perceived their own wellbeing and organizational strategies.

Perceived Organizational Support and Career Satisfaction among Chinese Teachers: The Mediation Effects of Job Crafting and Work Engagement during COVID-19

Recently, scientific theories on career satisfaction (CS) have been promoted worldwide. Research on the subject has become more and more popular, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study adds to the existing literature by investigating the impact of organizational support on career satisfaction through the mediation role of job crafting and work engagement among Chinese teachers. A diverse sample of teachers (n = 3147) was drawn from various schools in Zhejiang province (P.R. China), from June to September 2021. SPSS 26 software with PROCESS macro and JASP was used to analyze the data. The findings demonstrate that perceived organizational support (POS), job crafting (JC), and work engagement (WE) have a significant and positive relation with teachers’ career satisfaction. POS was serially associated with JC (b = 0.34, p = 0.001), CS (b = 0.40, p = 0.001), and WE (b = 0.49, p0.001). The residual direct pathways for JC → CS (b = 0.55, p = 0.001, 95% CI = [0.51, 0.60]) and for WE → CS (b = 0.47, p = 0.001, 95% CI = [0.44, 0.50]) were significant. Sequentially, JC and WE mediated the relation between POS and CS. The multiple mediation model supported our general hypothesis that JC and WE mediate the relationship between POS and CS.

Using Neural Networks in Order to Analyze Telework Adaptability across the European Union Countries: A Case Study of the Most Relevant Scenarios to Occur in Romania

Our study addresses the issue of telework adoption by countries in the European Union and draws up a few feasible scenarios aimed at improving telework’s degree of adaptability in Romania. We employed the dataset from the 2020 Eurofound survey on Living, Working and COVID-19 (Round 2) in order to extract ten relevant determinants of teleworking on the basis of 24,123 valid answers provided by respondents aged 18 and over: the availability of work equipment; the degree of satisfaction with the experience of working from home; the risks related to potential contamination with SARS-CoV-2 virus; the employees’ openness to adhering to working-from-home patterns; the possibility of maintaining work–life balance objectives while teleworking; the level of satisfaction on the amount and the quality of work submitted, etc. Our methodology entailed the employment of SAS Enterprise Guide software to perform a cluster analysis resulting in a preliminary classification of the EU countries with respect to the degree that they have been able to adapt to telework. Further on, in order to refine this taxonomy, a multilayer perceptron neural network with ten input variables in the initial layer, six neurons in the intermediate layer, and three neurons in the final layer was successfully trained. The results of our research demonstrate the existence of significant disparities in terms of telework adaptability, such as: low to moderate levels of adaptability (detected in countries such as Greece, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Italy); fair levels of adaptability (encountered in France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, or Romania); and high levels of adaptability (exhibited by intensely digitalized economies such Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.).

Challenges and Opportunities for Telecommuting in the School System: Building a Sustainable Online Education in the Context of the SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic

The main idea of this investigation is to identify a series of challenges and opportunities presented by telecommuting within the school system as a result of the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. The objective of the paper is to identify key elements which are able to provide concrete assistance in building a sustainable online education system, with particular reference to Romania, as a system that can be used beyond the timeframe of the current pandemic. The methodology used for our scientific investigation is quantitative, based on an eight-item data collection instrument/questionnaire with 459 respondents (bachelor, masters, doctoral, and postdoctoral students—which makes this research a study from the perspective of the students’ perceptions) with ages ranging from 18 to 53. In terms of results, the eight items were evaluated on a Likert Scale from 1 to 5, leading to the formulation of seven hypotheses (H1 to H6), of which six were accepted and one was rejected (H7) (the questionnaire has a margin error/confidence interval of ±4.5% and a confidence level of P = 95%). We concluded from the six validated hypotheses, coupled with the one which was invalidated, that telecommuting to online education was not only successful but also garnered a system characterized by sustainability. Despite the swiftness of telecommuting to online education and the perceptions of the student population, online learning can be efficient and sustainable, in which case further government policies can only improve a system that has already been proven to work.

Sustainable Education through E-Learning: The Case Study of iLearn2.0

The present paper studies a blended learning approach provided by a university in central Taiwan from 2018 to 2020. In this approach, a Moodle E-learning platform called iLearn2.0 was used along with an onsite classroom. iLearn 2.0 has four major features, including cloud services, mobile learning, flipped classroom, and data analysis. The platform was used during 2018–2020 in the Citizen Participation course, helping the researcher/teacher to design an interactive course content and aiding students to complete classroom activities through their devices. In total, 127 students enrolled in citizen participation courses were taught during 2018–2020, using different teaching methods. In 2018, students studied in a physical classroom. iLearn2.0 was integrated with the physical classroom for the 2019 course; lastly, the iLearn2.0 platform was used alone in 2020. To evaluate the effect of virtual teaching on the students’ performance, the researcher used summative assessment as the dependent variable. The findings show that the class that received the iLearn2.0- assisted teaching had a significantly better learning performance than the other two classes. However, when researchers used iLearn2.0 alone, both the scores and the feedback from students were lower than those in blended and face-to-face teaching. The results suggest the effectiveness of iLearn2.0 assistance, while learners’ performance did not show any significant change in a totally online class. Results were assessed in the view of sustainability, and three sustainability dimensions were found to be improved in the hybrid classroom. The researcher suggests that iLearn2.0 be integrated with other learning tools for maximum results, as it allows students to have a more diverse learning experience, strengthen sustainable learning, and grasp the progress of their courses and learning activities in a timely manner.

Gender Differences in Work Satisfaction, Work Engagement and Work Efficiency of Employees during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case in Slovenia

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown has caused massive economic disruption, leading businesses to make a rapid transition and take a new approach to business strategy. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to examine if there are statistically significant gender differences in work satisfaction, work engagement, and work efficiency among employees who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the paper aims to identify the importance of individual dimensions of work satisfaction, work engagement, and work efficiency, and gender differences perspective. The research is based on a survey of 785 employees in Slovenian companies. The factor analysis and the t-test for two independent samples were used to test the research hypotheses. Findings: The results show significant gender differences in work satisfaction, work engagement, and work efficiency among employees who work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper provides change management insights and recommendations to assist companies in minimizing the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their employees.

One Year of Online Education in COVID-19 Age, a Challenge for the Romanian Education System

The study tried to analyze the implication of one year of online education in the Romanian education system. To achieve this goal, the authors of this study analyzed all the levels of education, primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education, and even the early childhood system, but also one of the smallest Romanian universities, considered representative for grade 1 universities representing 60% of the Romanian universities. The study is based on four online questionnaires for investigation, first with more than 2500 respondents from the primary and secondary Romanian education system, and the other three applied to more than 800 students and professors from the University of Petroșani. The investigation took place during 29 January 2021 and 11 February 2021. The authors had investigated the main feature of a standard online or a classical e-learning solution, such as the meeting solution or the video conference software, the collaborative work, such as homework or projects, and the testing method or the quizzes from both perspectives of the students and of the professors. The study results could influence the expected future hybrid educational system because these results were not covered in the previous literature but proved to be necessary for relevant knowledge strategies to be implemented in the new pandemic and also in the future context.

Eco Trends, Counseling and Applied Ecology in Community Using Sophia

The study investigates the current trends that manifest themselves in two areas that have common origins in antiquity, found in the Hellenistic concept of Sophia: present in philosophy, where it expresses the love of wisdom, but also in theology where it represents divine love. Looking at this approach, the Sophia has manifested various orientations, either toward the field of ecology and the environment through the emergence of new concepts, such as ecophilosophy and ecotheology, but also toward the practice applied to the person, through the philosophical counseling or spiritual or pastoral counseling. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the applied trends, ecophilosophy and ecotheology, through their comparative analysis, along with a bibliometric study on papers published on these topics in indexed databases in the last 45 years. The paper presents the openness to innovation, through the emergence of the two concepts analyzed which created methods and tools specific to philosophical or spiritual counseling, and adaptations of these practices to the needs of contemporary society. Therefore, the innovation is sustained by creating a new specialization in community counseling practice, called eco-counseling for community (EC4com), with the new ecological trend, which can be included in the philosophical and spiritual practices applied in communities through individual counseling, for groups or community.

E-Learning vs. Face-To-Face Learning: Analyzing Students’ Preferences and Behaviors

Educational life worldwide has been shaken by the closure of schools due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The ripple effects have been felt in the way both teachers and students have adapted to the constraints imposed by the new online form of education. The present study focuses exclusively on the beneficiaries of the educational process and aims to find out their perceptions of face-to-face and e-learning and their desire to return, or not, to the traditional form of education. These perceptions are represented by 604 students of the Politehnica University of Timisoara, who were asked to respond anonymously to an 8-question questionnaire between December 2020 and February 2021. The results show the respondents’ levels of desire to return to school (especially of those who have only benefited from e-learning) and their degree of involvement during online classes. The results also specify the advantages and disadvantages of the two forms of education from a double perspective, namely that of first-year students (beneficiaries of e-learning exclusively), and of upper-year students (beneficiaries of both face-to-face and e-learning). The study points out key information about e-learning from the students’ perspectives, which should be considered to understand the ongoing changes of the educational process and to solve its specific problems, thus ensuring its sustainability.

Analysing Students’ Reasons for Keeping Their Webcams on or off during Online Classes

Since, in some higher education institutions, it is not mandatory for students to turn their webcams on during online classes, teachers have complained that their students have adopted this behaviour once the educational activities moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Considering this, the present research aimed to identify the reasons behind students’ choice to hide their faces during online classes and find possible solutions to remedy the situation to enhance the educational process’s sustainability. Thus, this article presents the results obtained by applying an online questionnaire between December 2020 and January 2021 among the students pursuing an academic degree, recording 407 responses. The results highlighted the fact that more than half of the students participating in the study reported that they do not agree to keep their webcams on during online classes, the main reasons being anxiety/fear of being exposed/shame/shyness, desire to ensure privacy of the home/personal space, and chances that other people might walk into the background. The relevance of the research, besides the scarcity of studies on the topic, is also given by the fact that finding and understanding the reasons for this behaviour are, in fact, the first steps in undertaking regulatory interventions on it.

A Model of Stress Change under the First COVID-19 Pandemic among the General Public in Japanese Major Cities and Rural Areas

Research on stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic has been dominated by the cases of healthcare workers, students, patients, and their stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined the relationship between the amount of stress change under the COVID-19 pandemic and demographic factors (age, sex, occupation, etc.) in residents of a large city and a rural area of Japan. A total of 1331 valid responses were received in June 2020 from residents of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagano registered with a private research firm. We were able to identify 15 statistically significant variables out of 36 explanatory variables, which explained the significant increase in stress compared to the pre-pandemic period. Multiple-factor analysis showed that the relationship with people is a more significant explanatory variable for the level of increase in stress than the difference in environment between big cities (Tokyo, Osaka) and rural areas (Nagano), the type of housing, and the decrease in income compared to the pre-pandemic period.

Can Narrative Advertisement and eWOM Influence Generation Z Purchase Intentions?

Digital platforms have made Generation Z able to listen to the story from both sides, i.e., the brand’s promotional messages, and the consumers’ experiences. To capture an audience’s attention on endless entertainment and informational platforms, narrative advertisement is deployed to trigger emotions and feelings. As digital communities continue to grow, both brands and consumers are using narrative advertising to share their opinions. Hence, the purpose of this research was to investigate how the upcoming generation of consumers will be affected by the two information sources, i.e., the brands via narrative advertising, and peer consumers through electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Furthermore, the mediated role of persuasion knowledge was examined among the constructs. Theoretical foundations were empirically tested using quantitative research analysis. The data was collected from a sample of 304 Generation Z respondents from Pakistan. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS 22.0 was executed to determine cause and effect relationships. This study offers new evidence regarding the effective mobilization of eWOM and narrative advertising in the context of Generation Z. The results indicate narrative advertising to have strong effects on Generation Z purchase intentions as compared to eWOM.