Educators' online teaching self-efficacy and compassion fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic: The dual roles of "connect".

Abstract

Guided by the job demands-resources model and social-cognitive theory, we examined how educator perceived school connectedness and their attempts to connect with school members (i.e., administrators, staff, students, and families) concurrently and interactively influenced educators' compassion fatigue and online teaching self-efficacy during distance learning in the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Participants were 321 educators in a large, urban school district in northern California. Results of linear regression modeling suggested that educators with longer years of working in education and White educators reported higher levels of compassion fatigue than their counterparts. White educators also reported a lower level of online teaching self-efficacy than their counterparts. With the control of educators' gender, race/ethnicity, and years of teaching in education, educators' self-reported school connectedness is negatively associated with compassion fatigue. Educators' attempts to connect with students not only positively associated with compassion fatigue but also intensified the negative association between school connectedness and compassion fatigue. Moreover, educators' school connectedness and attempts to connect with administrators and staff both positively associated with online teaching self-efficacy. Also, educators' attempts to connect with families mitigated the positive association between school connectedness and online teaching self-efficacy. The findings highlight the importance of promoting educators' school connectedness in improving educators' occupational wellbeing. It also highlights that educators' school connectedness and their attempts to connect with certain group of school members mutually and interactively influence educators' compassion fatigue and online teaching self-efficacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).