Distance learning during Covid-19 pandemic: Italian teachers’ well-being and the role of age on ICT adoption

Abstract

Italy has been severely affected by the initial spread of Covid-19. To mitigate the pressure on the national health system, the government established several measures promoting social distancing. The suspension of teaching in attendance forced teachers to embrace telework, posing unprecedented challenges, such as implementing ICT in daily professional activities. Previous research underlined teachers’ widespread resistance toward ICT and high computer anxiety, which could be exacerbated by age. Moreover, teaching is associated with several negative outcomes, such as burnout, that can be boosted by a negative work-family balance, impacting teachers’ well-being. During the first lockdown, 244 Italian teachers aged 32 to 66 (m: 50.73; sd: 7.93; 80.6% females) answered an online survey measuring psychosocial and ICT-related measures. We performed a full SEM analysis confirming that computer anxiety and work-family balance are positively associated with burnout and the negative impact of burnout on well-being dimensions. Also, results from univariate ANOVA showed differences in teachers’ attitudes toward ICT and computer anxiety according to age.