Indicators of Social Emotional Health (SEHS-T) and Resilience in the Latvian Teachers’ Sample

Abstract

In crisis situations, on the one hand, teachers must be resilient, know not only how the didactic of the subject works, but also technologies, the psychology of pupils, classroom management, self- regulation, time management, self-compassion etc. Research on teachers’ social emotional health and resilience is important for quality learning and well-being at school, especially during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The following paper provides a description of the study that was carried out in Latvia on the problems of teachers’ social and emotional health distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the context of an international study in the Erasmus + project research “Teacher resilience: problems and solutions. Supporting teachers to face the challenge of distance teaching’’. Therefore, the samples are denoted by N1 = 23, N2 = 635, N3 = 380, N4 = 245. The main question of the paper is: Which of the variables (burnout, work engagement strategies) most significantly predict teachers’ social-emotional health indicators? The results showed that there were statistically significant positive correlations between teachers’ SEHS-T, teacher engagement, and emotional burnout rates. The other results show low scores from SEHS-T which could indicate that teachers’ self-confidence could be problematic, which could be explained by their uncertainty about their work during distance learning in a stressful COVID-19 crisis and that they need support for developing their strengths. The other results show that Resilience are moderate medium, but about 18% of the sample demonstrates the lowest Resilience scores. Results from SEHS-T: the subscale of teacher work engagement Cognitive engagement (p< 0.001) is significant in predicting SEH-T indicators.