Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, school closures have brought significant disruptions to education throughout the world. This pandemic has affected the mental state of teachers from having to adapt to provide online classes. Teacher resilience refers to the capacity of teachers to survive and thrive in extremely adverse circumstances and sustain their educational purposes. This study attempts to empirically examine the effect of mindfulness on teacher resilience through integrating characteristics of Eastern and Western mindfulness. A concurrent triangulation mixed methodology was applied in this study. In the quantitative part, the cross-sectional questionnaires were completed by 330 teachers who were working in five universities in Thailand and had faced the crisis of COVID-19. The Mindfulness Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS) was employed to quantify mindfulness in Eastern perspective, and the Langer Mindfulness Scale (LMS14) was employed to quantify mindfulness in Western perspective. The Employee Resilience (EmpRes) was used to measure teacher resilience. The estimated structural equation model (SEM) provides strong and convincing support that Western mindfulness positively affects teacher resilience. Novelty seeking and novelty producing which are core factors of Western mindfulness mediate the relationship between mindfulness in Eastern perspective and teacher resilience. Where the survey data were collected, we conducted focus group interviews with five university teachers and executives who had experienced the crisis to understand this relationship in qualitative methodology simultaneously. The findings give additional support to the argument of how mindfulness plays an important role in enhancing teacher resilience. Discussion and practical implications are also included.

摘要

在 COVID-19 大流行期间，学校停课给全世界的教育带来了严重干扰。这种大流行已经影响了教师的精神状态，不得不适应提供在线课程。教师韧性是指教师在极端不利的环境中生存和发展并维持其教育目的的能力。本研究试图通过整合东西方正念的特点，实证检验正念对教师韧性的影响。在这项研究中应用了一种同时进行的三角测量混合方法。在定量部分，横断面问卷由在泰国五所大学工作并面临 COVID-19 危机的 330 名教师完成。正念意识注意量表（MAAS）被用来量化东方视角的正念，而朗格正念量表（LMS14）被用来量化西方视角的正念。员工弹性（EmpRes）用于衡量教师的弹性。估计的结构方程模型 (SEM) 为西方正念对教师弹性的积极影响提供了强有力且令人信服的支持。作为西方正念的核心因素的求新和产生新奇在东方视角的正念与教师韧性之间的关系中起到了中介作用。在收集调查数据的地方，我们对五位经历过危机的大学教师和高管进行了焦点小组访谈，以同时从定性方法中了解这种关系。研究结果进一步支持了正念如何在增强教师弹性方面发挥重要作用的论点。讨论和实际影响也包括在内。