Digital Pandemic Stress in Higher Education in Venezuela

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had a great impact on the process of integrating digital technologies in higher education and caused digital stress among professors, mainly in countries with a lower level of digitalization. In this work, quantitative research was carried out on the stress of professors in Venezuela due to the digitalization of their teaching activities caused by the pandemic, and gender gaps were identified in this regard. This digital stress was compared with that of professors in other countries with a low level of digitalization. For this purpose, a questionnaire designed by the authors was used. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 129 Venezuelan professors and 132 professors from countries with low digitalization levels. As a result, it was found that Venezuelan professors have lower digital competence and lower digital stress than their colleagues in weakly digitized countries, and that digital stress decreases as digital competence increases. Moreover, among Venezuelan professors, there was a strong gender gap in digital stress, which was higher among females in all subject areas, except for Health Sciences. This gender gap is specific to Venezuela since it differs from that in countries with low digital levels. According to the results, we urgently recommend investing resources in the digital training of faculty members, especially in regards to the integration of female professors.

On the Influence of the University Tenure on the Digital Pandemic Stress in Higher Education Faculty

“…It is also found that female professors both in private and public universities manifest slightly higher levels of pandemic digital stress than male professors, with no significant difference in the behavior of this gender gap by university tenure ( Table 5 ). This is consistent with the results obtained by previous work in the specific setting of Venezuela, but not with the results obtained in countries with low levels of digitization in Latin America, such as Guatemala, Honduras, and Bolivia [ 51 ]. Therefore, the results suggest that there is a strong variability between countries with respect to the behavior of gender gaps in private and public universities, which offers the results presented here as an average.…”

“…However, it has been observed that the variability of Latin American and Caribbean professors’ responses in terms of pandemic digital stress levels is high compared to the other response families (1.25 out of 5), indicating that there is much divergence among professors’ stress levels. This strong variability is consistent with the results of other work on pandemic digital stress carried out on samples of professors from more restricted geographical areas such as Venezuela [ 51 ]. The originality and novelty of the present work lies in the finding that strong unevenness of pandemic digital stress is found throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region.…”

“…The triggers for the high levels of stress caused in professors by the abrupt digitalization process derived from the pandemic have been very diverse [ 50 , 51 ]. Some of them are derived from the pressure imposed by the use of online educational methods, such as increased working hours, difficulties due to the lack of physical contact, problems in reconciling personal and work life [ 52 , 53 ], the complexity of digital migration due to technical circumstances [ 26 ], the inadequate equipment to cope with online teaching, the limited digital competence of teachers and students [ 5 ], the absence of competencies related to the evaluation of educational practice [ 54 ], the weakness of the online teaching infrastructure, the environment not conducive to home learning for some students, and how all of these affected academic equity and excellence [ 42 ].…”

Daily stress, and mental health of professional degree graduate students in Chinese traditional medicine universities: the mediating role of learning career adaptation

“…Daily stress has a more significant negative effect on career confidence. Studies suggested that chronic stress can lead to burnout, which can lower career confidence, and even lead to quitting in turn [ 71 ]. Therefore, Compas [ 72 ] concluded that both primary, and secondary controlled participation coping are associated with adaptive mental health, including enhancement of positive emotions, and reduction of negative emotions, and effective coping occurs when the positive effects of coping or protective factors outweigh the negative effects of stressors [ 73 ], thus improved adaptation.…”

Evaluation and Comparison of Relaxation-Related Workplace Interventions Among Office Workers at an Insurance Institution: An Intervention Study

“…Increasing job demands especially in digital work contribute to increasing work-related stress, 7 , 8 but can also have positive effects. 8 In addition, work-family conflict due to remote work can increase stress.…”