Research pick: Educational work-life balance - "Does smartphone affect work-life balance, stress and satisfaction among teachers during online education?"

A study in the International Journal of Management in Education has looked at the work-life balance of educators forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to teach online rather than in real-world and associated smartphone use. The global pandemic led to many unprecedented issues in education. This was especially true where only poor technological infrastructure was in place, teachers were not trained or experienced in online teaching, and they also faced the complications of switching from the classroom environment to working from home where work and personal life had much greater potential to clash stressfully.

N. Akbar Jan and Asha Binu Raj at The ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education in Hyderabad and A.K. Subramani of St. Peter’s College of Engineering and Technology in Chennai, Tamil Nadu questioned almost 500 teachers from private schools in India to examine the relationship between smartphone use, work-life balance, and stress levels. Their analysis of the respondents’ answers to the questions showed a positive correlation between smartphone use and personal life and job satisfaction. However, it also revealed a negative connection between stress and work-life balance.

The team concludes that the appropriate use of smartphones by educators could improve work-life balance and help them to meet the demands of family and job effectively, particularly during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of smartphones among school teachers has given them greater autonomy at work, made the completion of tasks more flexible, and given them greater control over their professional work as well as their personal lives, the team suggests. This all contributes to an improved work-life balance and greater job satisfaction.

Of course, as the pandemic has progressed, infrastructure and training have been prioritised in many places. One would hope that the experience of the past two years or more with online teaching and all its pros and cons will have taught the educators themselves invaluable lessons that could be carried forward in the new normal of the post-pandemic world and when the next crisis comes along.

Jan, N.A., Raj, A.B. and Subramani, A.K. (2022) ‘Does smartphone affect work-life balance, stress and satisfaction among teachers during online education?’, Int. J. Management in Education, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.438–462.