Effectiveness of the Teacher Resilience Distance Support Programme in Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia

Abstract

As society becomes more modern, the economic and social significance ofteleworking is increasing. This trend has been particularly accelerated by theCovid-19 pandemic. Teleworking, as distance education/learning, has also beenapplied in the education system. However, there are limitations to such work, oneof which is the loss of communication between teachers and students. Schooleducators are in need of emotional resources and resilience when workingremotely. There is a lack of targeted distance support programmes for teachers. Aimof the study. To investigate the effectiveness of the Teacher Distance ResilienceSupport Programme. Study participants. 161 teachers from different schools inLithuania, Latvia and Slovakia. Methodology. Feedback questionnaire for theTeacher Resilience Support Programme (Svence, 2022); supervision of the trainingprogramme and focus group. Results. Relatively high Cronbach alpha values for thequestionnaire modules were established. It was found that teachers in the wholesample have a positive perception of the effectiveness of the distance supporttraining programme. Statistically significant differences were found in evaluationsof individual modules submitted by teachers from Lithuania, Latvia, and Slovakia.The age and experience of teachers did not show statistically significant difference.Conclusions. Teachers in all the three countries have positive perceptions of theeffectiveness of the distance support programme based on the feedbackquestionnaire and the supervision and focus group. In order to strengthen theresilience of teachers who work distance, it is recommended that the remotesupport programme is applied in school communities and included in teachertraining studies.