Final Report of the DFG-funded project "Teachers and the Covid 19 pandemic – Identifying individual and school factors that predict successful professional adaptation (TeaCop)"

The TeaCop study examined the experience and behavior of teachers during the pandemic. The starting point is a theoretical model that conceptualizes knowledge, beliefs, motivation and self-regulation as aspects of professional competence. The guiding assumption was that these aspects, in interaction with job-unspecific prerequisites and contextual characteristics, determine professional behavior and experience and can thus explain differences in professional coping with the pandemic. The project investigated two aspects of coping, teachers’ well-being and the quality with which they arranged distance learning. The study builds on an existing longitudinal study in which a sample of 271 mathematics teachers was last surveyed in summer 2019 and for which extensive information from previous surveys was available. The supplementary TeaCop study comprised two additional measurement points in spring 2021 and 2022. In addition to questionnaires, we also collected samples of teachers' work, i.e., teaching materials which were assessed in terms of their quality using a newly developed coding scheme. The results show that the pandemic has had a significant impact on teachers. The 2021 survey shows serious drops in well-being compared to 2019, without recovery in the summer of 2022. These fluctuations are many times greater than previous changes in well-being, e.g., in the typically very stressful period of the induction phase. Questionnaires and material analyses demonstrate a low quality in distance learning, with conventional approaches (e.g., worksheets) and very little interactivity predominating. The teaching offered little constructive support and little cognitive activation. However, there were substantial differences between teach-ers in terms of both well-being and teaching quality. Aspects of professional competence (e.g., self-efficacy, constructivist beliefs and technical-pedagogical knowledge), general prerequisites (e.g., family stress, openness) and the school context (e.g., technical resources, cooperation) explain differences between teachers. The analyses of the data have not yet been completed and will be combined with the analyses of the overall project. Overall, the results impressively demonstrate the high level of stress that the pandemic has placed on teachers. However, they also show that a substantial proportion of the teachers surveyed were able to cope with the challenges competently. In line with the theoretical assumptions, it becomes clear that, beyond the material and social support at schools, teachers' individual characteristics, and in particular their professional knowledge and beliefs, are important resources for successfully practicing their profession in challenging times. (DFG number 470251387)