After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, distance education has started around the world including Turkey (UNESCO, 2021a; UNICEF, 2021). A change in the education system has put teachers under stress in their work and family life (MacIntyre, Gregersen, and Mercer, 2020). Uncertainties of future plans, irregular student participation in online education, not being able to reach underprivileged students affected teacher well-being (Kim and Asbury, 2020). Well-being involves positive emotion, engagement (being in the flow), relationships, meaning (purpose in life), and accomplishment (PERMA), and it focuses on improving elements for personal aims such as health, safety, security, hope, and control of life (Seligman, 2011). When such elements are under threat due to a sudden pandemic, some negative or positive changes in well-being can be experienced.

Teachers’ emotional well-being during a pandemic can be affected by changes in their personal life, the amount of support from the workplace, student-related factors, and the efficiency of their academic or technological skills. After the start of online education, learning to conduct online classes and finding materials in just a few weeks has brought out some academic and social problems for the teachers. Teachers stated that when they help their students and have personal connections, they feel more content with online education (Orhan & Beyhan, 2020). As teachers get more help from their work and local communities and are provided with resources, they feel more positive (Bubb & Jones, 2020; OECD, 2020). The difficulty of adapting classroom materials to an online environment, lack of material content, and barriers in communication are among some problems experienced by teachers during the distance education process (Canpolat & Yıldırım, 2021). Providing assistance to improve teachers’ skills in using technological tools in addition to social and psychological help has become a necessity (UNESCO, 2021b). 

Changes brought by the pandemic have negative and positive effects on teachers’ well-being. In Allen, Jerrim, and Sims’ (2020) study, teachers in England felt the more anxious the week before school closures in March and the week before school reopening in June due to uncertainties of plans. Changes in workload have created some problems in teachers’ personal lives and especially those who are mothers have become more prone to gender inequalities (Guy & Arthur, 2020; Allen et al., 2020). When it comes to positive effects, having more spare time and feeling more relaxed during lockdown were pointed out (Allen et al., 2020). Positive support helped teachers go through a less stressful distance education process (Collie, 2021).

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of COVID-19 on teachers’ well-being and understand the challenges and coping mechanisms of teachers during COVID-19. Emotional changes, personal experiences, and the situation of their work were analyzed to understand the teachers’ perspectives on their well-being. So the research question is as follows:

How are teachers’ well-being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected concurrently in order to understand the online education experiences of teachers during COVID-19 and their resiliency and stress factors related to wellbeing. The research process can be symbolized as qualitative and quantitative (QUAL + QUAN; Morse, 1991). Thus, the qualitative findings of the study were compared with the statistical results of the quantitative statistical results. Both research processes were conducted and analyzed separately. At the end of the analyses, triangulation of the data was done by comparing two different datasets. Since both qualitative and quantitative research elements were used in the same phase of the research process, the convergent parallel design which is a type of mixed-method research was used as a research design (Creswell & Pablo-Clark, 2011). The semi-structured interview protocol was developed by researchers and reviewed by one researcher from Middle East Technical University. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 teachers. Interviews lasted between 40 minutes to 90 minutes with a mean of 65 minutes and a median of 70 minutes. Content analysis was used and two academics from different universities join the triangulation process. A quantitative questionnaire including Brief Resilience Scale, Teacher Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire, and PERMA Profiler was shared with teachers. 74 participants (32 male and 42 were female) were reached. The age of participants ranged from 25 to 60 with a mean of 40 and a median of 37. In addition, 41 participants were married and 30 of them had children. 52 participants were working at state schools and 22 of them were working at state schools in different parts of Turkey. 29 participants were working at primary schools, 28 were working at secondary school, 13 were working at high schools and only 4 participants were working at pre-schools. The tenure of participants ranges from 2 years to 37 years with a mean of 7.61 and a median of 3. The independent sample t‐test and ANOVA test were conducted to investigate the different impacts of demographic data on the well-being of teachers. The data were analyzed by using SPSS. Data collection was conducted between February 2021 and May 2021. The whole procedure went in accordance with ethical codes and after having received ethical permission from Middle East Technical University Applied Ethics Research Centre Ethics Committee.

Four main themes emerged from the findings of qualitative analysis which are coping mechanisms, positive emotion, interaction with school components, and areas that need to be improved. As for coping mechanisms, teachers stated that ambiguity of future plans affected them negatively, but focusing on hobbies and having social support helped them. Positive emotions theme had two codes as current applications and prospectivity. In terms of the first code, most teachers indicated that online education had good effects on introverted students, and for the second code, they expressed their plans on continuing using digital tools after the online education process. The third theme is interaction with school components involves interaction with parents and interaction with administrators. Parents’ socioeconomic level is important in the access to technological tools, and hence the attendance to online classes. Nearly all the teachers expressed their concern about the availability of online materials. They stated that more materials need to be designed and they should be suitable for the nature of online classes and address the students with different learning needs. Teachers pointed out the necessity of educating parents about online education. Findings from the quantitative analysis showed that there aren’t any statistically significant relationships between teachers’ well-being and gender, and years of experience at all scales, and subscales. On the other hand, there is a significant difference between state and private school teachers’ well-being, the school level they are working at, and marital status. 52 state school teachers (M= 3.96, SD= .56) compared to 22 private school teachers (M= 2.91, SD= .69) presented statistically significant results on PERMA t(74)= .95, p <.005. 33 single teachers (M=3.02, SD= .46) compared to 41 married teachers (M=3.42, SD=.46) demonstrated statistically significant results on the PERMA, t(72)= -1,89, p<.005.

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