How the COVID-19 Pandemic Changed Swiss Primary School Teachers' Perceptions of Job Stress, Emotional Exhaustion, and Personal Resources – Insights from a Longitudinal Study

As in other countries around the world, teachers in Switzerland have been under great strain since the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to teaching in Switzerland being conducted entirely in distance learning mode for two months, followed by a phase with a hybrid form of teaching and half-class settings. In this context, teachers experienced numerous challenges and the need for constant adaptations. This study investigates changes in pre-primary and primary teachers’ perceived stress and personal resources in the distance and hybrid learning phase compared to before the pandemic. Data from 91 teachers in the canton of Zurich were analysed longitudinally using four measurement points before and after the distance education phase.
The results of the analysis of variance with repeated measures show a decrease in job satisfaction and teacher self-efficacy in distance education compared to the previous time points. In contrast, teachers assessed their self-regulation more positively than before the pandemic, while their work overload and emotional exhaustion did not change during the distance education phase. However, our analysis revealed differential trajectories of work overload during distance education. Teachers with a high work overload and emotional exhaustion two years before the pandemic perceived a decrease in work overload while those with low work overload and emotional exhaustion showed an increase respectively. Using latent profile analysis, we identified two profiles, each with a different change in work overload during the distance education phase: teachers with higher resources before the pandemic again showed an increase, whereas the second low resource class showed a decrease in work overload. We conclude that the same job characteristics can be perceived as a demand or as a resource, depending on teachers’ personal resources and personality.