Title
Pandemic Education—Insights into Teachers’ Perceptions of Hygiene Measures in Schools Due to COVID-19
Author
Abstract
To prevent the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) and protect the health of school staff and students, Austrian education policymakers introduced several hygiene measures that posed new challenges for teachers. The current paper focuses on teachers’ perceptions of hygiene measures in schools during the 2021–2022 school year. In Study 1, 1372 Austrian teachers participated in an online survey at the end of 2021. In Study 2, five teachers participated in an in-depth qualitative interview study. The quantitative results show that half the teachers felt a strong burden from the COVID-19 tests, but that the tests worked better when teachers had more teaching experience. Elementary and secondary school teachers, unlike special education teachers, had fewer problems implementing COVID-19 testing. The qualitative results suggest that teachers needed an acclimatization period for previously unfamiliar tasks, such as COVID-19 testing, to become accustomed to this newly implemented measure. Additionally, wearing facemasks was only evaluated positively in the context of self-serving strategies, while the protection of student health was not considered. In summary, the current study calls attention to the particular vulnerability of teachers and provides insights into the reality of schools in times of crisis that could be particularly helpful to education policymakers.
Keywords
masked educationCOVID-19facemaskshygiene measures
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1941981
Appeared in
Title
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume
20
Issue
6
ISSN
1660-4601
Issued
2023
Publication
MDPI AG
Version type
Date issued
2023
Access rights
Rights
Rights statement
© 2023 by the authors
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