Library Staff Need More Support in Order to Alleviate Teaching Anxiety

A Review of: Lundstrom, K., Fagerheim, B. & Van Geem, S. (2021). Library teaching anxiety: Understanding and supporting a persistent issue in librarianship. College & Research Libraries, 82(3), 389-409. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.3.389 Abstract Objective – To determine academic librarians’ attitudes towards their teaching, how teaching anxiety manifests itself, and how teaching anxiety affects these attitudes. Design – Online Survey. Setting – The survey was distributed through various library science listservs. Subjects – Any library staff with a teaching component in their role were invited to respond. There was a total of 1,035 initial responses. Methods – The survey questions were based on a previously published survey about teaching anxiety by Davis (2007). However, the survey for this study added questions about formal and self-diagnosis of other types of anxieties, physical and psychological anxiety symptoms, and how teaching anxiety impacts other areas of the respondents’ lives. There were also questions on potential supports to reduce teaching anxiety, as well as potential barriers to these supports. Main Results – It was found that approximately 65% of respondents experience teaching anxiety. Approximately 40% of those respondents were formally diagnosed with anxiety, and approximately 42% were self-diagnosed. There was a significant association between a formal diagnosis of anxiety, and teaching anxiety. There were also significant associations between past training, preparation, and teaching anxiety, with anxiety occurring less with increased training and preparation. Conclusion – Teaching anxiety is a significant issue among library staff. Supports in the form of workshops on teaching as well as coping with anxiety can possibly help to reduce this phenomenon.

The Relationship between Iraqi EFL Preparatory School Teacher` Teaching Anxiety and the Mastery of Daily Lesson Plan

Good teaching is the most basic important thing has teachers try to do in their classes and it is also in it the most frequently used language skills in communication activities. It plays an important role in the language learning process and facilitates the use of language skills. In this study the researchers tackled teaching anxiety that refers to the psychological response of a person to teaching task, which is determined by effect of feelings, believes and behaviors. And the relationship between teaching anxiety and the mastery of the daily lesson plan, which teaching means a system that enables a teacher to express himself/herself effectively with his/her interlocutors of a target language. The study questions are: Do Iraqi EFL preparatory school teachers have teaching anxiety? Do Iraqi EFL preparatory school teachers have mastery daily lesson plan? And is there any relationship between teaching anxiety and mastery daily lesson plan? Accordingly, the current study aims at finding out: Iraqi EFL preparatory school teachers’ teaching Anxiety level, Iraqi EFL preparatory school teachers’ mastery daily lesson plan level, and the relationship between Iraqi EFL preparatory School teachers` teaching anxiety and the mastery of the daily lesson plan. The sample of the present study consists of (30) male and female teachers from Iraqi EFL preparatory school teachers chosen randomly from Baghdad city.To achieve the aims of the present study, two instruments have been applied by the researchers, English Foreign language teaching anxiety scale and a English Foreign language lesson plan scale is constructed by the researchers themselves. After ensuring the validity and reliability of the instruments, the instruments have been applied and the data have been collected. Then a number of statistical tools have been used to analyze the obtained data.

English foreign language teaching anxiety of Indonesian pre-service teachers of undergraduate internship program

Anxiety is a topic mostly investigated in the field of foreign language education. Unfortunately, the main focus of the studies on the aforementioned topic has primarily been provided in relation to anxiety suffered by students not teachers. Anxiety in speaking English while teaching has been proven to be a separate obstacle to the success of the language teaching and learning. This still happens to teachers who even have years of teaching experience. This study aims to investigate the English language teaching anxiety as experienced by the pre-service teacher at the department. The FLTA questionnaire consisting of 27 out of 45 items was adopted to collect data. Since this study was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, the questionnaire was distributed to the participants via email. The analysis was then made by implementing the qualitative descriptive approach and simple quantification to support the description. The results show that there were five factors of anxiety occur during the program. They were teaching inexperience, self-perception of language proficiency, fear of negative evaluation, lack of student�s interest, and difficulty with time management. These findings are expected to become a reference for the efforts of developing an internship preparation program.

Investigation of the Relationship Between Class Teachers’ Levels of Mathematical Thinking and Mathematics Teaching Anxiety in Terms of Different Variables

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between class teachers’ level of mathematical thinking and level of anxiety about mathematics teaching in terms of different variables. To this end, the correlational and causal comparative method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group of the current research is comprised of 509 class teachers working in state primary schools in the city of İstanbul in the 2019-2020 school year. As the data collection tools, the “Class Teachers’ Mathematical Thinking Scale” and the “Mathematics Teaching Anxiety Scale” were used. In the analysis of the data obtained from the scales, descriptive and parametric analyses (t-test and ANOVA) and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation were used. A low and negative correlation was found between the class teachers’ levels of mathematical thinking and mathematics teaching anxiety. Moreover, the class teachers’ levels of mathematical thinking and mathematics teaching anxiety were found to be varying significantly depending on gender. In addition, the class teachers’ levels of mathematical thinking and mathematics teaching anxiety were also found to be varying depending on the type of high school graduated and the length of service in the profession.

Teaching Anxiety, Stress and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evaluating the Vulnerability of Academic Professionals in Mexico Through the Adapted COVID-19 Stress Scales

To mitigate the COVID-19 infection, many world governments endorsed the cessation of non-essential activities, such as the school attendance, forcing a shift of the teaching model to the virtual classroom. From this shift, several changes in the teaching paradigm derived, in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, which could have an impact in academic professional's mental health. In the present work we show the application of a modified version of the adapted COVID-19 stress scales (ACSS) which also included teaching anxiety and preparedness, and resilience for academic professionals in Mexico. These scales were applied during the unprecedented transformation of the education system undergone in the COVID-19 quarantine. Most of the studied variables: gender, age, academic degree, household occupants, having a disease, teaching level, teaching mode, work hours, resilience, teaching anxiety and preparedness, and fear of being an asymptomatic patient (FOBAP), showed significant statistical correlation between each other (p < 0.050) and to the 6 areas of the ACSS (danger, contamination, social economical, xenophobia, traumatic stress, and compulsive checking). Our results further showed that the perceived stress and anxiety fell into the category of Absent to Mild, with only the danger section of the ACSS falling into the Moderate category. Finally, the resilience generated throughout the quarantine was very high, which seems to be a predictor of adaptation the academic professional has undergone to cope with stress.