University Teachers’ Resilience

Abstract

This research focuses on resilience and perceived stress as important components of university teachers’ well-being. Resilience is generally conceptualized as a process and an outcome of successfully adapting to difficult / challenging life experiences and perceived stress as individual feelings or thoughts about the level of stress a person is experiencing at a given time period. In the context of the teaching profession and the current pandemic circumstances, we investigated university teachers’ resilience and perceived stress. The Brief Resilience Scale and Perceived Stress Scale in digital format as Google Forms surveys are used in this study. The sample consisted of 100 university teaching staff (university teachers and university teaching assistants). The results show that the resilience of the university teaching staff is at a medium-high level. Perceived stress is low. The correlation between resilience and perceived stress of university teaching staff is negative and relatively high. University teaching assistants perceive more stressful situations and stress feelings than university teachers. There are no differences in resilience and perceived stress between university teaching staff from different educational and research fields. This study introduces new research topics and considerations in the contexts of teacher education and university activities aimed at enhancing university teaching staff resilience, stress management, and well-being.