The worst is yet to come: the psychological impact of COVID-19 on Hong Kong music teachers

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has made online and distance learning the new normal at all levels of education. Music as a school subject that relies heavily on multimodal sensory and auditory-motor interactions has been dramatically affected. Music teachers may not be coping mentally or psychologically with these drastic changes. This study examined the psychological impact of COVID-19 on music teachers’ (N = 120) mental health and well-being through a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews (n = 10). The Fear of Coronavirus-19 Scale, the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale and a shortened version of the Chinese Teacher Stress Questionnaire were used to measure Hong Kong music teachers’ experiences of psychological pressure and problem behaviours linked to the outbreak of the infectious disease. The findings revealed that music teachers are experiencing stress, fear, and anxiety in response to the pandemic. They are concerned about the effectiveness of online music teaching, parental expectations, students’ adaptability to online learning, technological integration and maintaining transformative teaching professionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Word COVID-19
• music teacher
• anxiety
• fear
• teacher professionalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Seed Funding Grant (SFG), Ref. no. RG 45/2020-2-21R, supported by The Education University of Hong Kong.

Notes on contributors

L. Cheng

Lee Cheng is an interdisciplinary artist-teacher and researcher. His research and artistic interest interdisciplinarize music, new media, technology, education, law, and policy. He is currently working as Assistant Professor of the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), and serving as Theory Examiner of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and Convenor of the Music Technology Special Interest Group, International Society for Music Education (ISME).

C. Y. Lam

Gigi Lam Chi Ying is a musician-educator whose professional portfolio includes performance, composition, teaching, organisational development, event management and research. She has performed across London, Rotterdam and Hong Kong as a theatre musician and song-writer. She is the co-founder and music director of Little Bean Theatre, a family Cantonese theatre based in London. Her primary research interest is community music practice development in school music education, and the transferability of the practice to other professional domains, especially in NCS (non-Chinese speaking) language learning context.