• Tiada Hasil Ditemukan

View of TEACHING STAFF'S GENERAL HEALTH STATUS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

N/A
N/A
Protected

Academic year: 2022

Share "View of TEACHING STAFF'S GENERAL HEALTH STATUS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC"

Copied!
9
0
0

Tekspenuh

(1)

International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR) eISSN: 2710-6276 | Vol. 4 No. 1 [March 2022]

Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijssr

TEACHING STAFF'S GENERAL HEALTH STATUS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Wirawani Kamarulzaman1* and Wirawahida Kamarul Zaman2

1 Kulliyyah of Education, International Islamic University Malaysia, Gombak, MALAYSIA

2 Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, MALAYSIA

*Corresponding author: wirawani@iium.edu.my

Article Information:

Article history:

Received date : 10 February 2022 Revised date : 5 March 2022 Accepted date : 6 March 2022 Published date : 7 March 2022

To cite this document:

Kamarulzaman, W., & Kamarul Zaman, W. (2022).TEACHING STAFF'S GENERAL HEALTH STATUS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. International Journal of Social Science Research, 4(1), 157- 165.

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown have expedited the change from traditional to online learning, and relationships have been affected as a result of avoiding direct contact with others, which has had a negative impact on teaching staff's mental health.

Physical activity was found to be advantageous in this unusual setting since it appeared to aid in the prevention of mental diseases such as anxiety and depression.

Although various research has found that the pandemic has impacted individuals' mental health, there is a lack of study in the area among teaching staff in Malaysia.

Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the general mental health of teaching staff, as well as its relationships with service duration, work sector, and level of teaching, among other things. The health status of 220 members of the teaching staff was assessed using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) questionnaire. The findings revealed a statistically significant relationship between their health status and all three variables, demonstrating that the pandemic has caused stress among teaching staff with varying levels of service duration, work sector, and whether they are teaching at the primary, secondary, or tertiary levels.

There are a few recommendations for future research included in this paper as well.

Keywords: Mental health among teachers and lecturers, Covid-19, work experience, correlational analysis.

(2)

1. Introduction

The pandemic's global expansion has had a dramatic effect on practically every facet of life, including education, and Malaysia is no different. Due to the difficulty of containing the epidemic, world leaders have enacted extraordinarily strict laws to disrupt the chain of COVID- 19 propagation. Some of the World Health Organization's (2019) recommended standards, such as social and physical distancing, have created difficult choices for each country to implement. Malaysia launched a countrywide lockdown in March 2020 because of the increasing number of individuals infected with COVID-19. These were followed by new regulations allowing employees to work from home, prayer from home, and students from early childhood education to higher education to homeschool. Changes in learning systems necessitate the implementation of distance education or online learning, e-learning, distance education, correspondence education, external studies, flexible learning, and massive open online courses in schools (MOOCs).

As a result of the government's implementation of national lockdown, the community, and students in the educational system in Malaysia have had to adjust their daily routines. Five million students were unable to attend school on March 18, 2020, because of the national shutdown. An online teaching and learning platform was launched by the Ministry of Education across the country in order to keep children engaged in their education. As part of the country's strategy to combine face-to-face and online learning, the national platform has kept 3 million students learning during school closures and will continue to play an important role after the gradual reopening of schools on 24 June 2020 (UNICEF, 2020). Schools that were beginning to implement home-based learning were able to use distance-learning or online systems as a solution. Home-based learning moves the learning process from the classroom to the family's living room or kitchen table. Instructions from the Ministry of Education mandate that schools set up online learning programs so that students can learn without having to meet all curriculum requirements. Students, teachers, education staff, and the community's well-being are all considered when designing a home-based learning environment (Aliyyah et al., 2020).

2. Literature Review

Due to the hit of the Covid-19 which is seen as the largest pandemic in the century, concerns have been expressed concerning the pandemic's direct and indirect consequences on children and adolescents. One of the most generally held anxieties is the loss of knowledge. Given that most children miss at least a few weeks of regular schooling, and some miss a year or more, remote learning alternatives frequently prove problematic due to unequal access, on-site education with physical distancing occasionally diminishes or disrupts the regular learning experience, and millions of young people have dropped out due to these concerns (UNESCO, 2021); (Balingit, 2021).

Over 60% of the world's students are affected by global school closures, and localised closures in several countries could affect millions more (UNESCO, 2021). For many communities, school closures impose high social and economic costs on children and families, exacerbating existing disparities not only within the education system but also in other aspects of their lives.

Teachers are also impacted. This makes the teaching-learning process more difficult, especially when parents are not prepared for the distance and homeschooling or are not available to attend to their children. Second, teachers are often confused about their obligations and how to maintain connections with students to support learning. Even in the best of circumstances, moving to a distance learning platform is a hassle. Many school closures result in teacher

(3)

furloughs or separations. Third, moving learning from classrooms to homes quickly poses enormous human and technical challenges i.e., creating, maintaining, and improving distance learning, or measuring and validating learning (de La Vega Marcos et al., 2020). All these factors may have an effect on teachers' general health and well-being.

It was neither the parents nor the teachers' fault that they were unprepared for the plethora of challenges these changes posed to them. Several parents reported experiencing unstructured task transmission by teachers as well as a lack of teacher feedback (Wildemann & Hosenfeld, 2020 as cited in Federkeil et al., 2020), whereas teachers reported struggling to maintain relationships with their students as well as missing out on advice and support from their schools (Goetz, 2020 as cited in Federkeil et al. 2020). When children are taught at home, it is likely that the achievement gap between students from families with high and low socioeconomic status will widen as a result of differences in material and educational resources, living space, or availability of time (Anger & Plünnecke, 2020; Bol, 2020 2020 as cited in Federkeil et al.

2020).

Teaching is a stressful job, and as a result, teachers are more likely to experience negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, tension, frustration, and depression (MacIntyre et al., 2020).

Furthermore, teacher stress can be defined in terms of the presence of risk and protective factors; it manifests itself when the presence of risk factors does not counterbalance by the presence of protective factors.(Jakubowskiid & Sitko-Dominikid, 2021).

A large number of previous studies have demonstrated that teachers' stress levels differ in various perspectives. Teacher stress levels in private schools have been found to be higher than those of teachers in public schools (Edison et al., 2016). However, according to more recent studies, teachers in public schools faced more burnout and stress as compared to their counterparts in private schools (Brady & Wilson, 2021; Doss et al., 2018).

Edison et al. (2016)'s assertion that there is no difference in stress levels between primary and secondary schools contrasts with Taabu et al. (2016)’s finding that primary school teachers experience greater burnout than secondary school teachers. Nonetheless, a more recent study indicated that secondary school teachers face higher levels of stress than primary school teachers (K. & Hassan, 2018).

When compare the teaching experience, it was found that teachers with 6-10 years of experience suffered the highest levels of stress from 'health and well-being', 'future and change', 'relations at work', and the 'physical environment', according to another study (Wong, 2020).

Another study also found that teachers who have a lot of teacher experiences will not suffer from stress (Nurul Bariyah et al., 2021). Kabito and Wami, (2020) supported the study when they found that teachers will less than 5 years of teaching experience suffer stress the most.

Due to the fact that teachers are considered to be a profession that provides both a high level of job satisfaction and a high level of stress in their job settings due to a variety of factors such as heavy workloads, long teaching hours, large class sizes, students' disciplinary problems, cramped classrooms, excessive administrative work, and so on (Wong, 2020), it is expected that a pandemic will exacerbate the situation. It is for this reason that this study focuses on a teacher's general health during the pandemic. This study also investigates the differences in general health status between teaching staff in primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of school, as a result of a lack of research in this area. Specifically, the study aims to examine 1) the

(4)

differences in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their service duration; 2) difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their work sector; 3) the difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on the teaching level.

3. Method

The primary purpose of the study is to investigate how teaching staff's mental health varies depending on their duration of employment, work sector, and level of education. A quantitative technique is believed to be the most appropriate research design to achieve these objectives.

3.1 Instrument

The study employed a questionnaire with two parts; the first part asked the demographic information of the participants – gender, work sector, duration of service and teaching level, while the second part used the General Health Questionnaire with 28 items.

The General Health Questionnaire – 28 (GHQ-28) is a self-report screening tool used to identify potential psychological disorders. The GHQ-28 identifies two major concerns: (1) the inability to perform normal functions; and (2) the appearance of new and distressing phenomena (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979 as cited in McDermott et al., 2015) ). Test-retest reliability has been reported to be high (0.78 to 0.9), and both interrater and intrarater reliability have been demonstrated to be excellent (Cronbach's alpha 0.9–0.95) and it also has high internal consistency (Failde and Ramos 2000, as cited in Sterling, 2011). The GHQ-28 has a strong correlation with the Hospital Depression and Anxiety Scale (HADS) (Sakakibara et al., 2009) and other depression measures (Robinson & Price 1982; as cited in Sterling, 2011).

The demographic information is the independent variable whereas the scores of GHQ-28 are the dependent variable.

3.1.1 Samples

Snowball sampling method was used in the study and 220 teaching staff were employed. The participants include teachers from primary and secondary schools as well as lecturers from universities in the Klang Valley area.

3.1.2 Procedures

The Survey Sparrow form was used as the online platform of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was also translated to the Malay language to ease the understanding of the participants.

Snowball sampling method was used where the questionnaire was distributed via WhatsApp groups and shared in the Teacher Facebook pages. 220 respondents were gathered after two months the questionnaire was distributed. Participants’ consent was gathered when they agreed to answer the questionnaire.

(5)

3.2 Data Analysis

The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The study hypothesised that 1) there are significant differences in teaching staff's level of general health status based on their service duration; 2) there is a significant difference in teaching staff's level of general health status based on their work sector; 3) there are significant differences in teaching staff's level of general health status based on their teaching level.

Because all hypotheses assess differences in the level of general health status between independent variables, the one-way ANOVA was used to assess the first and third objective while the t-test was used to measure the second objective, and the data were interpreted using the significant values.

4. Results and Discussion

The study aims to examine 1) the differences in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their service duration; 2) difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their work sector; 3) the difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on the teaching level.

4.1 Demographic Information

The demographic data was collected in the first part of the questionnaire as shown in Table 1.

, The majority of the participants were female (87.3%) and followed by male teaching staff (12.7%). When compared between the sectors, 61.4% of the participants work in the private sector while 38.6% work in the public sector. The majority of the participants are teaching at the tertiary level, followed by the primary and secondary level at 69.1%, 21.8% and 9.1%

respectively. Data also shows that 63.6% of the participants have been teaching for more than 10 years, followed by between 5 to 10 years at 21.8% and finally, less than 5 years at 14.5%.

Table 1: Demographic information Item Frequency Percent Gender

Male Female

28 192

12.7 87.3 Sector

Public Private

85 135

38.6 61.4 Teaching level

Primary Secondary Tertiary

48 20 152

21.8 9.1 69.1 Service Duration

< 5 years 5 to 10 years

> 10 years

32 48 140

14.5 21.8 63.6

(6)

4.2 Difference in the Teaching Staff's Level of General Health Status Based on Their Service Duration

A one-way between-subjects ANOVA was conducted to compare the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their service duration. There was a significant difference in the level of health status at the p<.05 level for the three conditions [F (2, 217) = 5.6), p = 0.04].

Table 2: ANOVA Comparing Service Duration of Teaching Staff on Health Status Sum of

Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 3.063 2 1.531 5.591 .004

Within Groups 59.442 217 .274

Total 62.505 219

Post hoc comparison using the Sidak test indicated that the mean score of general health status for the staff who are working for more than 10 years (M = 1.99, SD = 0.50) is significantly different than those teaching staff who have been teaching for less than 5 years (M = 2.33, SD

= 0.57). However, the teaching staff who have 5 to 10 years’ service duration (M = 2.06, SD = 0.55) do not significantly differ from the other two groups.

Table 3: Descriptive ANOVA

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error

< 5 years 32 2.3287 .56989 .10074

5 to 10 years 48 2.0648 .55054 .07946

> 10 years 140 1.9862 .50272 .04249

Total 220 2.0532 .53424 .03602

The results concurred with a study by Wong (2020) and Nurul Bariyah et.al. (2021) who found that teaching staff who have many years of teaching experience will not suffer from stress. This finding is supported by Kabito and Wami (2020), who found that teachers with less than 5 years of experience have greater stress levels as compared to more experienced teachers.

4.3 Difference in Teaching Staff's Level of General Health Status Based on Their Work Sector

Another aspect studied is the differences among teaching staff’s work sector in their level of health status. The 85 participants who are from Public sector (M = 1.95, SD = 0.53) compared to the 135 participants who are from the Private sector (M = 2.12, SD = 0.53) demonstrated significantly better health status, t(218) = -2.34, p = .02 (p<.05) as shown in the table below.

Table 4: T-test Results Comparing Sectors of Teaching Staff on Health Status

Item N M SD t df Sig

Public 85 1.9481 .52376 -2.338 218 .020 Private 135 2.1193 .53206

The result is aligned with the study done by Edison et al. (2016), who suggested that teacher stress levels in private schools have been found to be higher than those of teachers in public schools. However, other studies found the opposite (Brady & Wilson, 2021; Doss et al., 2018).

(7)

4.3 Difference in Teaching Staff's Level of General Health Status Based on Their Level of Teaching

To compare the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their level of teaching, a one-way between subjects ANOVA was conducted. There was a significant difference in the level of health status at the p<.05 level for the three conditions [F (2, 217) = 4.27), p = 0.15].

The Sidak test revealed that the mean score of general health status for primary school teachers (M = 1.87, SD = 0.46) is significantly different from that of secondary school teachers (M = 2.22, SD = 0.79) and tertiary teaching staff (M = 2.089, SD = 0.50). However, the teaching staff at the tertiary level is identical to that at the secondary level.

Table 5: ANOVA Comparing Levels of Teaching Staff on Health Status Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Between Groups 2.367 2 1.184 4.271 .015

Within Groups 60.138 217 .277

Total 62.505 219

Table 6: Descriptive ANOVA

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Primary level 48 1.8704 .45547 .06574 Secondary level 20 2.2222 .79089 .17685 Tertiary level 152 2.0887 .50496 .04096

Total 220 2.0532 .53424 .03602

The finding contradicts Edison et al. (2016) who revealed that there is no difference in stress levels between teachers in primary and secondary schools, and K and Hassan (2018), who found that secondary school teachers face higher levels of stress than primary school teachers.

However, a study done by Taabu et al. (2016) stated that primary school teachers experience greater burnout than secondary school teachers, which concurred with the current study.

5. Conclusion

The objectives of the study were to identify 1) the differences in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their service duration; 2) difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on their work sector; 3) the difference in the level of general health status among teaching staff based on the teaching level. 220 teaching staff of primary, secondary and tertiary levels were voluntarily involved in the study. GHQ-28 was employed to measure their level of general health status during the Covid-19 pandemic. One- way ANOVA and t-test analyses were done to assess the data.

The one-way ANOVA test revealed that teaching staff who have served for less than five years have a significantly lower overall health status than those who have served for more than ten years. The findings corroborated Kabito and Wami's (2020) finding that teachers with less than five years of teaching experience had a higher level of stress than more experienced teachers.

(8)

A comparison of the public and private sectors was also conducted, and the t-test revealed that teaching staff in the private sector has a better health status than their public sector counterparts.

The finding is consistent with Edison et al. (2016), who discovered that teacher stress levels are higher in private schools than in public schools.

The health status of the teaching staff was also compared according to their teaching level:

primary, secondary, and tertiary. A one-way ANOVA analysis revealed that primary teachers have a significantly worse health status than secondary and tertiary educators. Taabu et al.

(2016) confirmed the current study's finding that primary school teachers are more likely to experience burnout than secondary school teachers.

The results are favourable, yet it was determined that the participant ratio may be imbalanced.

To acquire more conclusive results, future research should focus on reaching an equal participant ratio. Additionally, the study is believed to aid policymakers and the government by raising awareness about the need of providing support for teaching staff's overall health.

Finally, the study should have a substantial impact on teaching staff, preparing them to handle potential issues that may develop during the teaching and learning process during the Covid- 19 pandemic.

References

Aliyyah, R. R., Reza, R., Achmad, S., Syaodih, E., Nurtanto, M., Sultan, A., Riana, A., &

Tambunan, S. (2020). The perceptions of primary school teachers of online learning during the covid-19 pandemic period: A case study in Indonesia. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies, 7(2), 90–109.

Balingit, M. (2021). Missing students hard to find during pandemic. Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/pandemic-schools-students- missing/2021/02/25/f0b27262-5ce8-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html

Brady, J., & Wilson, E. (2021). Comparing sources of stress for state and private school teachers in England. Improving Schools, 00(0), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/13654802211024758 de La Vega Marcos, R., Garaigordobil, M., Aperribai, L., Cortabarria, L., Aguirre, T., Verche, E., & Borges, Á. (2020). Teacher’s physical activity and mental health during lockdown due to the COVID-2019 pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology | Www.Frontiersin. Org, 11, 577886. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.577886

Doss, C. A. V., Rachel, J. J., Jarrar, M. K., AbuMadini, M. S., & Sakthivel, M. (2018). A comparative study to determine the occupational stress level and professional burnout in Special School Teachers working in private and government schools. Global Journal of Health Science, 10(3), p42. https://doi.org/10.5539/GJHS.V10N3P42

Edison, I. A., Raj, A., & Julius, S. (2016). Effects of perceived stress at job among primary and secondary school teachers. 03(1), 97–106.

Federkeil, L., Heinschke, F., Jungmann, T., & Klapproth, F. (2020). Teachers experiences of stress and their coping strategies during COVID - 19 induced distance teaching. Journal of Pedagogical Research, 4(4), 444–452. https://doi.org/10.33902/jpr.2020062805 Jakubowskiid, T. D., & Sitko-Dominikid, M. M. (2021). Teachers’ mental health during the

first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. PloS One, 16(9), 1–25.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257252

(9)

K., K., & Hassan, N. C. (2018). Work stress among teachers: A comparison between primary and secondary school teachers. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 7(4), 60–66. https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarped/v7- i4/4802

Kabito, G. G., & Wami, S. D. (2020). Perceived work-related stress and its associated factors among public secondary school teachers in Gondar city: A cross-sectional study from Ethiopia. BMC Research Notes, 13(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/S13104-020-4901- 0/TABLES/2

MacIntyre, P. D., Gregersen, T., & Mercer, S. (2020). Language teachers’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 conversion to online teaching: Correlations with stress, wellbeing and negative emotions. System, 94, 102352. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.SYSTEM.2020.102352 McDermott, A., Rochette, A., & Plumier, G. (2015). General Health Questionnaire – 28 (GHQ- 28) – Strokengine. Stroke Engine. https://strokengine.ca/en/assessments/general-health- questionnaire-28-ghq-28/

Nurul Bariyah, I., Nor Hazreeni, H., Nur Safwati, I., Noor Zafarina, M. F., Shamsunarnie, M.

Z., Nurshazleen, R., Nur Zawani, Z. A., & Anis Solehah, A. (2021). The influential factors affecting occupational stress: A study among secondary school teachers in Kelantan.

Proceedings of International Conference on Language, Education, Humanities &Social Sciences (i-LEdHS2021), 49–56.

Sakakibara, B. M., Miller, W. C., Orenczuk, S. G., Wolfe, D. L., & Team, S. R. (2009). A systematic review of depression and anxiety measures used with individuals with spinal cord injury. Spinal Cord, 47, 841–851. https://doi.org/10.1038/sc.2009.93

Sterling, M. (2011). General Health Questionnaire - 28 (GHQ-28) | Enhanced Reader. Journal of Physiotherapy, 57(4), 259.

Taabu, O., Enose, B., Simatwa, M. W., & Gogo, J. O. (2016). Levels of stress among secondary school teachers and its implication on students’ academic performance in Kenya: A case study of Kakamega North Sub County. Greener Journal of Educational Research, 6(2), 052–066. https://doi.org/10.15580/GJER.2016.2.032816069

UNESCO. (2021). Education: From disruption to recovery. UNESCO.

https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse UNICEF. (2020). Education COVID-19 case study.

Wong, R. (2020). Job-related stress and well-being among teachers: A cross sectional study.

Asian Social Science, 16(5), 19. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v16n5p19.

Rujukan

DOKUMEN BERKAITAN

Secondly, the methodology derived from the essential Qur’anic worldview of Tawhid, the oneness of Allah, and thereby, the unity of the divine law, which is the praxis of unity

This randomized, placebo-controlled and parallel designed study used sixteen male guinea pigs of 300-400 g body weight and the results showed that the resistant starch

In light of all this information, it can be seen that individuals with a high perception of threat level about COVID-19 and high exposure from social media may be more prone to

Relationship of Job Stress and Type-A Behaviour to Employees’ Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Psychosomatic Health Problem, and Turnover Motivation... Teacher

Table 4.2 shows the particulate matter concentration level for student village sampling point It shows that ground level experience higher concentration level compared to higher

The findings of the study revealed that lecturers in the Centre of Foundation Studies had high overall job performance level as well as high job performance level in all

Table 4.1: Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion of the Data Related to the Pretest Scores of Group A on the Communicative Dimension (CPA)

Civil servants might need to exercise high level of emotional intelligence in their work in order to produce excellent job performance and achieving job satisfaction..