Agricultural Educators and the Pandemic: An Evaluation of Work and Life Variables

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate and intense changes throughout education, including a reliance on remote instruction. For school-based agricultural education (SBAE)teachers, who rely on experiential and hands-on learning, the changes brought about by COVID-19required a dramatic pivot in their work responsibilities. The changing work role faced by SBAE teachers was combined with new stresses, obligations, and routines in their life role(s), creating a unique and challenging time for work-life management. The current study spotlighted the changing work and life roles of SBAE teachers before and during COVID-19. Using a blend of the role-conflict and conservation of resources theories, we analyzed work interference with family, family interference with work, work hours, work and life salience, and work and life satisfaction during COVID-19 and, retrospectively, before COVID-19 among a national sample of SBAE teachers. Results illustrated significant changes in the variables studied in relation to COVID-19. These changes were branded the “work domain decline” and “job satisfaction slump” within the research. Critical questions also emerged in the form of research recommendations designed to inform SBAE scholarship which supports the success and satisfaction of SBAE teachers in the post-COVID-19 era.