Social Emotional Health and Psychological Resilience in the Sample of Lithuanian School Teachers

Abstract

Introduction. Teacher’s job is considered to be not attractive as it contains emotional strain and stress and schools in Lithuania face a shortage of teachers (TALIS, 2018; Merkys & Balčiūnas, 2019). Research on the social emotional health and resilience of teachers is important, especially in the face of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. Research on social emotional health and resilience of Lithuanian teachers was conducted as part of the ERASMUS+ project ‘Supporting teachers to face the challenge of distance teaching’ (2020-1-LV01-KA226-SCH-094599). Methodology. The aim of this research was to assess the social emotional health and resilience of secondary school teachers in post-pandemic times. 400 respondents from Lithuania participated in the research. The results are based on data from the ‘Social and emotional health survey for teachers’ (SEHS-T) (Furlong.& Gajdasova, 2019) and the ‘Resilience scale’ (RS14) (Wagnild & Young, 1993; Wagnild, 2016). Results. Teachers reported a sufficiently high level of overall indicator of Social and Emotional Health (SEHS-T) as well as its domains: Belief-in-Self, Emotional Competence, Engaged Living. The level of teacher Resilience reached a moderate level. Significantly high positive correlations were established between teacher resilience and the overall social emotional index (rs = .585, p = .000), as well as between the resilience and social emotional domains: Engaged Living (rs = .560*, p = .000), Emotional Competence (rs = .448*, p = .000) and Belief-in-Self (rs = .515**, p = .000). The research did not find statistically significant differences by age, sex, or work experience. Conclusions. The teachers demonstrated a rather high level of social emotional health, a moderate level of resilience, and weak Belief-in-Others. It is recommended that teachers’ resilience is strengthened through interventional activities such as stress coping strategies, emotional awareness, and peer support skills training during the Covid-19 pandemic times.