=Paper= {{Paper |id=Vol-3100/paper10 |storemode=property |title=The rise of online teaching and digital learning during the health emergency from Covid-19 and teachers’ working self-efficacy: an Italian perspective |pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3100/paper10.pdf |volume=Vol-3100 |authors=Carolina Facci,Marisabel Iacopino,Andrea Baroncelli,Enrica Ciucci |dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/psychobit/FacciIBC21 }} ==The rise of online teaching and digital learning during the health emergency from Covid-19 and teachers’ working self-efficacy: an Italian perspective== https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3100/paper10.pdf

The rise of online teaching and digital learning during the health
emergency from Covid-19 and teachers’ working self-efficacy: an
Italian perspective.
Carolina Faccia , Marisabel Iacopinoa , Andrea Baroncellia , and Enrica Ciuccia

a
University of Florence, Department of Education, Languages, Intercultures, Literatures, and Psychology, Via
di San salvi,12, 50135, Florence, Italy

Abstract
The teachers’ working self-efficacy corresponds to teachers' beliefs in their ability to
effectively handle challenges related to their professional activity and how they consider
themselves capable of solving them. To date, this sense of self-efficacy has been strained by
the COVID-19 health emergency, which has led to social distancing with the rise of online
teaching and use of digital learning systems. The present study investigates how teachers
perceived their self-efficacy and the impact of the emergency on their digital and distance
relationships. 21 female teachers (professional seniority M = 20.45 years, DS = 11.47 years;
kindergarten = 5, primary school = 11, middle school = 5) filled in a survey, on a 5-points
Likert scale and an open-ended questionon the perception of efficacy. Results revealed a
positive association between working self-efficacy with the perception of the influence of
online teaching and learning in the management of relationships with students and a negative
association with colleagues, while it is almost absent related to families. The qualitative
analysis revealed three core domains: personal (e.g., creativity), interpersonal (e.g.,
interactions) and digital (e.g., use of online platforms). Despite the small sample, that prevents
us from a generalization of the results, the challenges produced by unpredictable situations and
the use of digital devices motivate and encourage teachers to search for adaptive strategies.
This should orientate to specific education practices in relationships management for in-service
teachers.

Keywords 1
online teaching, digital learning, self-efficacy, relational context, covid-19

1. Introduction

Several evidences suggested that teachers with high level of self-efficacy experience higher
level of satisfaction, lower job-related stress, and less difficulties in relationships and
interactions with students [1, 2]. The construct of self-efficacy, defined as beliefs in own ability
to successfully cope with task and challenges [3], has gained an important role in school
psychology research due to its implications for teaching effectiveness, practices, and
motivation [4, 5]. Particularly, job-demands seems to influence the psychological well-being
and work engagment [6]. Based on this, it becomes of great significance to understand what
impacts teacher’s beliefs in the ability to cope with new challenges and demands obligations
related to the professional responsibility [5, 7]. The COVID-19 health emergency changed the
teaching method with all the challenges teachers faced. The transition to online teaching
included to learn new virtual teaching methods and platforms, still providing instruction

Proccedings of the Third Symposium on Psychology-Based Technologies (PSYCHOBIT2021), October 4–5, 2021, Naples, Italy
EMAIL: carolina.facci@unifi.it (A. 1); marisabeliacopino@stud.unifi.it (A. 2); a.baroncelli@unfii.it (A. 3); enrica.ciucci@unifi.it (A. 4)
ORCID: 0000-0001-6222-2563 (A. 1); 0000-0001-5435-9682(A. 3); 0000-0003-0401-2634 (A. 4)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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through engaging lessons and relationships with students, families and interacting with
colleagues [8]. Consider the level of self-efficacy as a key element for understanding the
investment in the use of digital devices and teaching online could help us in working for
teachers’ well-being and learning improvement, particularly facing a new teaching
environment and different instructional approaches.
Research on online teaching and learning was limited, likely because digital education was not
often used in primary and secondary schools and there was a lack of adequate professional
training and inexperience with digital platforms [9, 10]. Although investigation on
technological education is emerging, in the last year several studies explored the effect of the
COVID-19 pandemic on teachers [11, 12, 13]. Findings reveled that online teaching transition
during school lockdown elicited challenges for teachers and schools across the globe.
Particularly, teachers required support ranging from information technology and educational
resources to home–school cooperation [13] and new approaches to planning and teamwork
[14]. In addition to technology issues, teachers struggled with student engagement and
relationship during virtual instruction period [8] and strived to balance their skills while
teaching from home, leading to higher stress levels [15]. Moreover, teachers who were teaching
virtually had the lowest instructional efficacy scores compared to teachers teaching in a hybrid
or all in-person model [16]. Despite the instructional challenges, teacher’s self-efficacy could
be also stressed by relational and community factors. Considering student-teacher relationship,
it has been shown the sensitivity to reciprocal behaviors and conducts [17, 18]. Research
examining the role of beliefs of personal and interpersonal effectiveness of teachers showed
that educators with a high sense of school self-efficacy focus more on teaching activities and
support students with difficulties or behavioral problems by providing them with feedback
positives and rewards[19, 2]. Conversely, teachers with a low sense of effectiveness encounter
problems in the relationship with the students and in the management of the classroom [20, 7].
In the wider community context, the perception that colleagues and students’ families may
have about teachers’ work and ability [7, 21] to reach educational purpose affects teachers’
efficacy skills. Teachers’ self-efficacy is a predictor of a stronger relationships with students
[18], even it is influenced by the professional network (e.g., colleagues) [22]. Moreover,
families require intense sharing and collaboration with teachers together with emotional
support [23,24, 25]. Uncertainty in technological management and online relationships during
COVID-19 emergency could influence teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy on the
changed relational environment.
Based on this previous literature on teaching during COVID-19 the present study aims to
investigate how effective teachers perceived themselves and how much they perceived the
effect of the online teaching on their relationships. We hypothesize that new teaching demands
and changes would impact teacher self-efficacy. Specifically, there would be an association in
how teachers perceived their self-efficacy and the impact of the emergency on their digital
relationships. Added to the hypothesis on the association between self-efficacy and teaching
online is a qualitative study on effective professional action in the moment of uncertainty and
changes. It was predicted that the technological self-efficacy would be a new challenging
perception.

2. Method
2.1. Participants and procedures

This exploratory study was conducted within a research-intervention program which aims to
work on teachers’ emotional competence and relationships. Teachers attending the training
course within the program (suspended due to COVID-19), belonging to different scholastic
Institutions in Central Italy, were contacted to propose a research involvement during the
month of May 2020. Written informed consent was asked and after that an online survey was
proposed and completed. Participants at the present study were 21 female teachers
(professional seniority M = 20.45 years, DS = 11.47 years; kindergarten = 5, primary school =
11, middle school = 5).

2.2. Measures

Teacher Self Efficacy. Self-efficacy was measured with six items from Caprara and colleagues
[26] scale that were adapted to assesses self-efficacy in the workplace (e.g. «I am able to
dominate the emergencies and the inevitable unexpected events of my work»). The scale was
on a 5-points Likert scale from 1 (not at all characteristics of me) to 5 (very characteristic of
me). Cronbach’s coefficient was acceptable a = .68.
Relationship changes with online teaching. In order to explore the experience of online
teaching three ad hoc questions, on a 5-points Likert scale, were administered. The questions
were adapted to investigate the perception of change in relationships (pupils, colleagues and
families) during the digital learning:
• How much do you think the experience of teaching online may have influenced the relationship
with your students?
• How much do you think the experience of teaching online may have influenced the relationship
with your colleagues?
• How much do you think that the experience of teaching online may have influenced the
relationship with the families of your students?
Within the survey, we asked through an open-ended question the perception of efficacy during
online teaching:
• “What aspects of your professional action have you been able to observe as effective? Which
were a confirmation for you and which ones were a surprise?”.

2.3. Data Analysis

Initially, the study variables were inspected. We calculated the Mean, Standard Deviation,
Skewness, and Kurtosis of the two variables of the study (scores ranging between −2.00 and
+2.00 indicates a normal distribution). Then, to verify the direction and strength of the relations
existing between variables we calculated Pearson’s correlations. In the end, to explore how
teachers perceive their ability to cope with teaching online an inductive conceptual analysis
was performed [27; 28] with the QCA-Map software [29]. The software analyzes all the textual
materials of the answers, coding and then categorizing in mutually exclusive categories. The
quotation frequencies of each coding were calculated, and frequencies are presented in
hierarchical tree maps [30]. Whenever a subject expressed the same concept more than once,
when answering the question, that concept was counted just one time.

3. Results
3.1.1. Quantitative results

Descriptive statistics of study variables along with results of Pearson’s correlations were
reported in Table 1.
Table 1
Zero-order correlations (r) of the study varibles
Changes Changes Changes
Self-
M SD Skew Kurtosis with with with
Efficacy
students Colleagues families
Self-
3.53 .47 .64 .37 1 .21(.50*) -.27(-.58**) -.02(.21)
Efficacy
Changes
with 4.05 .92 -.53 -.67 - 1 .68*** .69***
students
Changes
with 3.67 1.06 -.90 .67 - - 1 .80**
colleagues
Changes
with 3.81 1.03 -1.10 1.57 - - - 1
families
Note: (pr) = partial correlation controlling for the others relational variables, * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001

Zero-order correlation analyses did not reveal significant associations. Partial correlation
analyses, controlling for the variables of perceived change due to rise of online teaching for the
three relational areas, highlighted a positive association between perceived work self-efficacy
and the changes related to the online teaching in relationships with students (r = .50, p <.05)
and a negative association with changes in relationships with colleagues (r = -. 58, p <.01). The
association between perceived work self-efficacy and the change in relations with families is
not significant (r = -. 21).

3.1.2. Qualitative results

Results of the QCAmap content analyses were reported in the Figure 1.

Figure 1: Tree map of the answers to the open-ended question of the questionnaire using the QCA-
map software.

The conceptual analysis of the answers to the open-ended question was carried out through the
QCA-map. The analyses highlighted three domains of teachers’ self-efficacy: the personal self-
efficacy (e.g., creativity, reflexivity; 26%), the interpersonal self-efficacy (e.g., interaction,
empathy; 55%) and the digital self-efficacy (e.g., use of online platforms; 19%). Furthermore,
about the interpersonal domain, three sub-categories emerged referring to three different
partners: colleagues, pupils and families. Results suggested that teachers found time to focus
on different aspects of their self and their work relationships due to online teaching. A teacher
said:
“I was able to carry out interesting lessons thanks to the use of technology and it was a
confirmation. I was able to feel closer and supportive to my students and their families and it
was a pleasant surprise. I faced the commitment consistently and effectively and it was a
confirmation.”

4. Discussions

The present exploratory study was conducted to investigate how teachers perceived their self-
efficacy and the impact of online teaching on their digital and distance relationships. We
reported the associations existing between the perception of effectiveness and the experience
of perceived changes due to rise of online teaching on school relations. First of all, the results
suggested that there was an association between teachers’ work self-efficacy and the perception
of changes due to online teaching in the management of relationships. Particularly, the
association was stronger with students and colleagues, while it was almost absent related to
families. We could assume that the challenges produced by unpredictable and particularly
serious situations motivated teachers to search for adaptive strategies, especially in the
relational areas that are directly involved in their profession, that is with students and
colleagues. Despite the help and support requested by the families [21, 23] our results showed
that the teachers' self-efficacy is not affected by the relationships with the parents. The
interactions with students emerge as a priority, being also the one that most influences their
sense of effectiveness [2] while the relationship with families appears as neglectable. With
regard to relation with colleagues, teachers’ self-efficacy is influenced by the efficacy beliefs
of those they seek advice and help from [22]. Maintaining ties to high-efficacy peers may result
in higher self-efficacy and this is helpful in emergency situations.The qualitative study on
effective professional action in a period of uncertainty and changes show that teachers focused
on their own characteristics that are described as improved or increased; in particular, despite
the initial challenges and transitions, they gave great importance to adaptability. Moreover, the
participants reported that online teaching creates distance from their students, and difficulties
in managing the classroom but creates time to focus on different aspects of their relationships.
Importantly, teachers from the present sample underlined the importance of taking into account
the digital and technological aspects of their job. This suggests that teachers had a perception
of their low online teaching self-efficacy and their need to be trained. The situation of
emergency requires teachers to adapt to the digital learning environment that let them to focus
on their digital and technological skills.
Our results are weakened by several noteworthy limitations. First, the small sample prevents
us from a broad interpretation of the results. Secondly, the participants were not randomly
selected. Instead, they were recruited through the training program implemented in their
schools, and hence might not be representative of the population. Thirdly, the different models
of online teaching employed by the participants, who belonged to different school levels, and
the related teachers’ report of self-efficacy might be not comparable. Moreover, the
particularity of the period and the challenges of the Covid-19 emergency prevents us for future
replication, but different samples could be integrated to generalize the results.
Nevertheless, we believe that our results are important for further understanding the role of
the teachers’ self-efficacy and the digital learning and education, increasing the studies on this
topic. Knowledge of the relational areas within a school context and their influence on the
perception of work efficacy can help in the identification of teachers’ weaknesses and
strengths. As a consequence, it is important to understand which specific domain of self-
efficacy can be affected by the changes and challenging situations in order to promote specific
training. Practicing teachers' sense of work self-efficacy could be an example of investment to
affect the experience of difficulties that emergency situations and online teaching could elicit,
especially in social relationships at school. Particularly, teachers’ effectiveness in the use of
digital divices and online platforms seems to be an area where support and practice are needed
that could lead to greater well-being and better relationship management.

5. Acknowledgements

The data collection was carried out thanks to the teachers involved in an Italian training
program for kindergartens, primary and middle schools’ educators. The program was financed
by Public Education Service of the Municipality of Prato. We therefore thank the post-lauream
students at the University of Florence who contributed to the research by offering us their
support in collecting and analyzing data.

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