"Does anyone even notice us?" COVID-19’s impact on academics’ well-being in a developing country

Hardman, Joanne; Watermeyer, Richard; Shankar, K.; Suri, Venkata Ratnadeep; Crick, Tom; Knight, Kyle; McGaughey, Fiona; Chung, Roger Yat‐Nork

doi:10.20853/36-1-4844

Cited by 14 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Examples of managerialism showed in the focus on organizational policies, daily reporting, increased meetings, a focus on the financial bottom line, and the like. Thus, it appears that beyond the low influence and lack of shared governance already present (Parker, 2011), a further erosion in academic autonomy took place during the lockdown phases of the COVID-19 pandemic (as confirmed in a study by Hardman et al, 2022). In contrast to universities worldwide, South Africa experiences a shortage of academic staff and, in light of that reality, it is concerning that management did not involve academics more directly but instead mainly issued topdown directives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women academics and the changing psychological contract during COVID-19 lockdown

2022

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This study examines the psychological contract between academics and their institutions during a time of great stress—the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that relationships between these parties have been found to be deteriorating prior to the pandemic, we believed it pertinent to explore how environmental changes brought about through lockdown conditions may have shifted the academic-institution relationship. Through a qualitative research design, our data is from 2029 women academics across 26 institutions of higher learning in South Africa. The major shifts in the psychological contract were found to be workload and pressure, provision of resources, top-down communication, as well as trust and support. Whilst these shifts altered the transactional and interactional nature of the psychological contract, violation, rather than breach, occurred since the emotional responses of participants point to incongruence or misalignment of expectations between academics and their institutions during this time of crisis. We offer recommendations for rebuilding trust and negotiating the psychological contract to re-engage academics in the institution.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women academics and the changing psychological contract during COVID-19 lockdown

2022

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“…Students' home conditions were completely different [19,16]. Many students could not access the internet [2] when they were at home because of unavailability of network connection [20] and electricity [2], and sometimes unaffordability of data [19] after what was offered by the university was depleted. The findings suggest that the early depletion of data could be attributed to computer illiteracy of the student and inefficient pedagogical approach of the lecturer.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unintended Pedagogical Consequences of Emergency Remote Teaching at a Rural-Based University in South Africa

Pika¹,

Reddy²

2022

Preprint

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In this empirical article, we argue that, while emergency remote teaching (ERT) may have achieved its goal of saving the academic years during the COVID-19 pandemic, it also constructed unintended pedagogical consequences that were possibly overlooked at the time of advocating it. The research question that the article attempted to answer is, what unintended pedagogical consequences did students and lecturers suffer because of the move to ERT at rural-based universities (RBUs) in South Africa? Drawing on students' and lecturers’ lived experiences of ERT, this article foregrounds unintended pedagogical consequences that arose at one RBU in South Africa during the transition from face-to-face teaching to ERT. Underpinned by the tenets of critical realism philosophy, as well as student integration theory, in-depth interviews with three lecturers and six students were conducted. The findings of the study indicate that home conditions, individual characteristics, pre-COVID-19 blended learning experiences, university training and support, and teaching, learning, and assessment practices and policies altogether contributed to the construction of unintended pedagogical consequences of ERT presented in this article. These consequences include (1) exclusion of low-income students in active teaching and learning, (2) equipping middle-class students with better chances of success than working-class students. (3) distressing female students and lecturers more than their male counterparts, and (4) unproductive assessment practices. This study may be beneficial to academics and policymakers from similar contexts in their plight to continue with remote teaching and assessment (RTA) beyond the pandemic.

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“…A search carried out using PUBMED, EBSCOHOST, and ERIC found no articles that dealt specifically with this topic in the South African context. A local South African journal published one article that focused on universities globally, not specifically on South African universities (Hardman et al, 2022). Very few studies researched the impact o f COVID-19 on gender and well-being from a different country's perspective.…”

Section: Exploring Recent Studies In the Domainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing reflections of academics through the framework of well-being

Patnaik¹

2022

ECEL

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Although South Africa is a developing economy, the majority of its people live in poverty, exacerbated by load shedding, which leads to issues relating to connectivity and access to technology. This affects the teaching and learning modes of academics in the higher education sector. Academics have previously, and during the pandemic, shown efficiency and effectiveness in moving to various modalities as and when expected. The same was displayed when they were asked to prepare for online or remote teaching platforms that some of them had previously used. Consequently, in academia, this shift resulted in an escalation of the adoption of novel pedagogies accompanied by increased stress and anxiety-related illnesses. In this paper, the researcher reported on the findings of a survey conducted via focus group interviews with departments at a university of technology in South Africa to analyse its impact on their work and/or work-life balance. Ryff’s (1995) theory of well-being was used to analyse the qualitative data. The findings conclude that the lockdown and subsequent move to online teaching has had a negative impact on the well-being of academics. Significant outcomes of online teaching, along with positive outlooks, caring relationships, and support between management and colleagues, have been reported.

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"Does anyone even notice us?" COVID-19’s impact on academics’ well-being in a developing country

Cited by 14 publications

References 25 publications

Women academics and the changing psychological contract during COVID-19 lockdown

Women academics and the changing psychological contract during COVID-19 lockdown

Unintended Pedagogical Consequences of Emergency Remote Teaching at a Rural-Based University in South Africa

Analysing reflections of academics through the framework of well-being

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