The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on STEM faculty: Productivity and work-life balance

Abstract

The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic impacted STEM professionals in numerous ways, affecting research, teaching, publications, patents, and work-life balance. A survey was conducted to determine the changes approximately one year into the pandemic shutdown in USA. Results indicate that the quarantine, limitations, and restrictions led to decreased work productivity and increased stress, anxiety, and family obligations. There was a significant difference between male and female faculty experience with women reporting more child-care, schoolwork assistance, and care for elderly relatives.

Sense of Competence and Feelings of Stress of Higher Education Faculty in the Transition to Remote Teaching: What Can We Learn from COVID-19 Pandemic in the Long Run

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, characteristics of emergency teaching, like lack of advance planning, need for rapid integration of new technological tools, and unexpected change in teaching plans, were added and affected emotional aspects [13,15,20]. New studies have discussed the "zoom fatigue" phenomenon [21,22], feelings of stress, anxiety, physical, mental, and psychological exhaustion, and attention deficit among higher education faculty [8,13,20,23,24].…”

“…In this context, Bawane and Spector [29] characterized eight different teachers' roles: subject teacher, pedagogue, assessor, administrator, technologist, counselor, researcher, and social mediator. The forced transition to remote teaching, lack of appropriate equipment [8], lack of adequate preparation and experience [4,13,20,28], teachers' multiple roles [20], lack of boundaries between home and work [8,13,20,22,23], the need for spending more time with children assisting their schoolwork [8,24], time-consuming preparation [4,20,30], financial burden [23], and the existential threat of the pandemic [13,23,30] have all increased faculty's feelings of stress, e.g., frustration, confusion, and anxiety. According to Meishar-Tal and Levenberg [13], the technical and pedagogical difficulties and general anxiety that faculty felt during the COVID-19 pandemic undermined their ability to cope with the change in teaching and with the transition to synchronous technology, increasing the 'threat' and 'failure' they experienced.…”

“…Zoom fatigue and attention difficulties can account for the low comprehension rate and attainment gaps between the students [21,22]. Moreover, the difficulties experienced by faculty in maintaining students' engagement can be associated with their lack of preparedness for this kind of teaching technically, psychologically, or/and logistically [8,20,24].…”

The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on school‐level scholarly outcomes and research focus of pharmacy practice faculty

“…9,10 Recent studies on the impact of COVID-19 on scholarly article submissions and publications in peer-reviewed journals or pre-print servers among various academic disciplines reported either an increase or a decrease in publication volume from 2019 to 2020. [11][12][13] The pandemic affected lab-based, basic science researchers who conduct time-sensitive experiments in wet labs more than researchers from other fields. 14,15 Thus, studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) fields 12,13,16 are too heterogenous to be generalizable to pharmacy practice.…”

“…[11][12][13] The pandemic affected lab-based, basic science researchers who conduct time-sensitive experiments in wet labs more than researchers from other fields. 14,15 Thus, studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) fields 12,13,16 are too heterogenous to be generalizable to pharmacy practice. Furthermore, apart from state-level responses to COVID-19, 2,17 expansions in academic and clinical roles of pharmacy practice faculty varied widely.…”