#TeachingDuringAPandemic: An Analysis of Emotional Content of K–12 Teachers' Tweets During Transition to Online Learning

• In Event: Informal Learning Is Not Canceled: Research and Program Implementation During a Global Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic forced a near-total shutdown of school buildings in the spring semester of 2020 and an unexpected mass transition to online learning in the United States and across the world. Some teachers have turned to social media in search of instructional and emotional support during this transition. As such, publicly available Twitter data might represent a window into the emotional experiences of teachers during these times of crisis.
Teachers’ emotions are important to consider because they are linked to psychological and physical well-being, likelihood of psychological burnout, and desire to promote a sense of well-being among their students (Burke & Greenglass, 1996; Day & Gu, 2009; Frenzel et al., 2009; Jiang et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2016). In times of stress, interview data suggests that teachers sometimes turn to online communities of teachers for emotional support and to explore ideas for online instruction (e.g., Carpenter & Krutka, 2014; Hur & Brush, 2009). However, not a lot is known about the emotional content of teachers’ dialogue that is actually posted on social media, particularly during times of crisis. As such, the purpose of this study was to investigate basic emotional and cognitive dimensions of language patterns that teachers use when tweeting about their experiences of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Method
Data was N = 8,670 publicly available tweets pulled from Twitter using TAGS (an automated online archiving tool) that were posted between April 6th and June 29th containing one of the following four hashtags: #teachingduringcovid19, #distancelearning2020, #missingmystudents, or #NTI. Retweets were included in the analysis and taken to represent agreement with the retweeted statement. After removing duplicates, N = 6,696 tweets were analyzed using LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to tally frequencies of words associated with positive and negative emotions, cognitive processing, and a focus on the past, present, or future.
Preliminary Results and Implications
To assess the emotional content of teachers’ tweets during the pandemic, descriptive statistics were computed and assessed (see Table 2). Findings suggest that on average, affect made up 4.1% of within-tweet text, 3.6% being positive emotions and only .05% being negative emotions. Teachers also showed evidence of using cognitive processes (5.7%) and a focus on the present (5.9%) compared with the past or future (1.4% and 0.67% respectively).
These findings are consistent with those of Hur and Brush, 2009 in that teachers seem to be using social media for positive emotional support. This suggests that online teaching communities can be a place for healing in times of crisis. Findings also suggest that teachers’ tweets are focused on the present moment, as opposed to reflecting on the past or future—which could indicate a reactive disposition to the pandemic rather than reflective or forward thinking. Policy makers and administrators might try to support teachers in building intentional, potentially anonymous, online professional learning communities as a way to promote positive emotional support and reflection while also encouraging less time reacting to the present and more attention to planning for the future.

Authors

• Ian Thacker, University of Texas - San Antonio

• Imogen Herrick, University of Southern California

• Sharon L. Nichols, The University of Texas - San Antonio