“I Teach, Therefore I Am”: The Serial Relationship between Perceived Vulnerability to Disease, Fear of COVID-19, Teacher Identification and Teacher Satisfaction

Anita Padmanabhanunni and Tyrone Pretorius
Additional contact information
Anita Padmanabhanunni: Department of Psychology, University of the Western Cape, Bellville 7530, South Africa
Tyrone Pretorius: Department of Psychology, University of the Western Cape, Bellville 7530, South Africa

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 24, 1-9

Abstract: In early 2020, school closures were implemented globally to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, emergency remote teaching was not sustainable, and conventional teaching resumed in the context of the second and third waves of the pandemic, heightening fear and anxiety about infection among teachers. The pandemic necessitated shifts in the scope of a teacher’s job, potentially impacting their professional identity and job satisfaction. This study investigated the interrelationship between teaching identification, teaching satisfaction, fear of COVID-19 and perceived vulnerability to disease among a sample of South African school teachers ( n = 355). A serial mediation analysis supported the hypotheses that teaching identification mediated both the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and teacher satisfaction and the association between perceived vulnerability to disease, fear of COVID-19 and teacher satisfaction. The findings suggest that teacher identification is a potential protective factor, and strengthening professional identification can potentially assist teachers as they negotiate the uncertainty and stress associated with the current pandemic.

Keywords: teaching identification; perceived vulnerability to disease; fear of COVID-19; teaching satisfaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13243/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13243/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:24:p:13243-:d:703361

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().