Cognitive strategies that supported teacher resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The adversities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic implied that teachers had to adapt to sudden change to ensure the continuation of effective teaching. More specifically, teachers had to start implementing alternative teaching methods while simultaneously coping with the challenges of the pandemic in their personal lives. Against this background the purpose of the current study was to explore and describe the cognitive resilience profile of teachers in a world pandemic by investigating the cognitive strategies that teachers employed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I integrated underlying concepts of the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping, Social Cognitive Theory and resilience theory in compiling a conceptual framework. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was implemented, nested within pragmatism. For data collection/generation and capturing/documentation, I utilised an online questionnaire (Phase 1, quantitative) that was fully completed by 240 urban school teachers, and online participatory focus groups (Phase 2, qualitative) with 24 of these respondents, supported by observation, audio-recordings, field notes and a reflective journal. Descriptive and inferential statistics were utilised for quantitative data analysis, while I followed a hybrid thematic analysis approach to analyse the qualitative data. Quantitative and qualitative results were subsequently integrated to achieve the purpose of the study. The quantitative results indicate that the teachers relied on active coping, planning, suppression of competing activities, restraint coping and instrumental social support during the time of the pandemic. Following qualitative data analysis, I also identified themes related to the nurturing of a growth mindset. Based on these findings, a relationship between the cognitive strategies that the teachers utilised in response to the pandemic and teacher resilience could be confirmed. To be more specific, my findings indicate that the teachers relied on various cognitive coping strategies to cope with the challenges they faced, resulting in them demonstrating resilience during the time of the pandemic. They used a combination of cognitive strategies, the use of which strengthened resilience. Increased levels of resilience, in turn, resulted in teachers’ enhanced ability to rely on cognitive coping strategies when having to cope with sudden change.