A Comparative Analysis of COVID-19 Trauma Exposure Responses

• In Event: Beyond Stress, Coping, and Resilience: Exploring Organizational Support for Teachers' Wellness Practice and Well-Being

Abstract

Research on the impacts of COVID-19 within K-12 context has primarily focused on the impact of the transition on student learning (Archambault & Borup, 2020; Clausen et al., 2020), the long-term impacts on student learning (Middleton, 2020), and student well-being (Dunn et al., 2020; Salerno, Devadas, & Pease, 2020). However, little consideration has been given to the impact of the pandemic on educator well-being, with the few existing investigations centering issues of teacher burnout (Sokal, Eblie Trudel, & Babb, 2020a; Sokal, Eblie Trudel, & Babb, 2020b). Although burnout is certainly an issue that is to be expected given the amount of work and lack of resources that were afforded to educators as they made the online transition, these professionals were also doing this work while managing their own families and personal responses to a global health threat.
One way to reframe the impact of COVID-19 on educators is through the lens of traumatic stress, or the response to an event or circumstance that overwhelms one’s capacity to cope (Brencio & Novak, 2019). The American Psychiatric Association (2013) also defines a trauma experience as one that poses an actual, or perceived, threat to life or sanity. Through these definitions, the COVID-19 pandemic may certainly be considered a potentially traumatizing event. The experience of traumatic stress has been linked to a number of negative outcomes including, but not limited to, poor physical health (McFarlane, 2010), emotional numbing (Lipsky & Burke, 2009), and diminished capacity for complexity and creativity (Lipsky & Burke, 2009), all of which have a direct impact on educators’ ability to maintain their well-being while also serving their students. Although some studies have begun to address the impact of COVID on educator wellbeing, they primarily center the phenomenon of burnout (Pressley, 2021; Sokal et al. 2020a; Sokal et al. 2020b; Zadok-Gurman et al., 2021), which may limit understanding of the experiences and necessary supports of educators as the U.S. transitions into the endemic era of COVID-19.
In this comparative study, public K-12 educators (i.e. teachers, student/academic support staff, and school administrators) from across the U.S. were surveyed at the beginning of the Fall 2020 term (n=684) to measure their self-reported behaviors and emotions commonly associated with trauma exposure. Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions: To what degree did U.S. public K-12 educators report experiencing symptoms associated with traumatic stress at the beginning of the Fall 2020 academic year? To what degree did an educator’s position within school impact their report of trauma symptomology? Descriptive statistics revealed over half of the sample agreed that they experienced 14 of the 18 symptoms measured with anger, exhaustion, fear, sleep disturbance, hypervigilance, guilt, and avoidance being among the most prevalent. Additionally, on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree), a moderate (h=.11) significant difference was found between teachers (M=3.01), student support staff (M=2.70), and administrators (M=2.37). Implications on teacher attrition, school cultures, and student success will be discussed.

Author

• R. Jason Lynch, Appalachian State University