Online Teaching Self-Efficacy, Social–Emotional Learning (SEL) Competencies, and Compassion Fatigue Among Educators During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Guided by the social–cognitive theory and job demands–resources model, this study examined how educators perceived online teaching self-efficacy and social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies concurrently and interactively influenced educators’ compassion fatigue during distance learning in the COVID-19 pandemic among 321 educators in California. Survey results suggested that educators with longer years of working in education and White educators reported higher levels of compassion fatigue than their counterparts. Controlling for educators’ demographic factors, online teaching self-efficacy had a negative and significant association with compassion fatigue. Moreover, the negative association between online teaching self-efficacy and compassion fatigue was intensified among educators with a higher level of SEL competencies. The findings highlight the importance of promoting educators’ online teaching self-efficacy in preventing educator compassion fatigue. It also indicates that educators with higher SEL competencies were more attuned to the negative association between online teaching self-efficacy and compassion fatigue than educators with lower SEL competencies.

Impact Statement

This is one of the first empirical studies examining educators’ experiences with online teaching self-efficacy, compassion fatigue, and SEL competencies during the COVID-19 pandemic and distance education. It highlights the importance of promoting educators’ online teaching self-efficacy and monitoring their SEL competencies in preventing compassion fatigue among educators. It also indicates that educators with a higher level of SEL competencies were more attuned to the negative influence of online teaching self-efficacy on compassion fatigue than educators with a lower SEL competency level.

Supplemental data for this article is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2021.1903815.

Keywords:

• self-efficacy
• distance learning
• compassion fatigue
• social and emotional learning

Associate Editor:

• Cixin Wang

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Dr. Moonhawk Kim and the district collaborators for their helpful support and feedback.

DISCLOSURE

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

1 Based on the district’s report, 18,226 district Chromebook, 1,315 hot spots were distributed to students for online learning at home by May 29, 2020. Moreover, 39.85% of the total student population using the district Chromebooks logging into Google Classroom, with additional students logging in on other devices by May 29, 2020. Also, over $1.8 COVID-19 relief fund was used to support the highest-need families in the school district and local communities.

2 Based on the district data, 73 out of 121 schools were Title 1 schools in the 2018–2019 school year.

3 Preliminary analyses of the three key variables’ normal distributions showed that both the kurtosis and skewness values were within the acceptable range (< 3), indicating the key variables’ normal distributions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to Dr. Chunyan Yang.

Notes on contributors

Chunyan Yang

Chunyan Yang, PhD, is an assistant professor of school psychology in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests focus on understanding how school members (e.g., students, teachers, parents) interact with their living contexts (e.g., school, family, community, culture) to find their resilience in face of a variety of risk factors in school setting, such as bullying, teacher-targeted violence, and mental health challenges.