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JMCXXX10.1177/10776958211012900Journalism & Mass Communication EducatorAuger and Formentin

Special Issue: Disrupted Delivery: Remote and

Online Instruction in Times of Crisis and Emergency
Journalism & Mass Communication Educator

This Is Depressing: The

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DOI: 10.1177/10776958211012900
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Teaching During the http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jmc

Pandemic Spring 2020

Giselle A. Auger1 and Melanie J. Formentin2

Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic affected teachers and students worldwide. In March 2020,
more than 5,000 teachers reported feeling overwhelmed, sad, fearful, anxious, and
worried. We evaluated those feelings through the lens of emotional labor using an
explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Results indicated that professors
were experiencing signs of emotional exhaustion as the result of surface acting—the
disconnect they felt between trying to reassure and support students when they
themselves felt sad and anxious. Results supported findings from several student and
teacher surveys regarding stress and COVID-19. It also supported prior research
that found gender differences in extent of emotional labor.

Keywords
pedagogy, mixed methods, gender, online education, perceptions, distance learning,
current events, capstone

Introduction
The coronavirus pandemic that appeared in early 2020 caused major, disruptive soci-
etal changes and emotional challenges for many, including educators. In the interest of
full disclosure, we did not seek to discover or explore this topic. Rather, it emerged as
we analyzed data for a companion study about the practical aspect of moving public

1
Rhode Island College, Providence, USA
2
Towson University, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:
Giselle A. Auger, Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Rhode Island College, 600 Mount
Pleasant Avenue, Providence, RI 02908, USA.
Email: [email protected]
2 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

relations (PR) capstone courses online. All of us switched our classes online; however,
some classes were more difficult to manage than others and the PR capstone (and simi-
lar classes) presented unique issues because of the “real world” environment and the
use of clients.
We understand that some may feel the period of study is too short (March to the end
of May 2020). We also recognize that recent articles have discussed gender inequali-
ties of academics experienced in a longer time frame, for example, between March and
October 2020 of the pandemic (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2020; Kramer,
2020). However, while we appreciate the value of exploring the topic in a lengthier
time frame, the point of this study was to explore the challenges faced in the mid-
semester pivot to online delivery. This was particularly of interest because the shifts
happened during an unknown and frightening pandemic in a type of course that is
particularly difficult to manage online. We believe the information gathered for this
study is important because it represents perceptions of educators in the immediacy of
the pandemic situation, rather than months later, when new and/or different stressors
may have emerged and pandemic fatigue set in.
Notably, at the end of March 2020, more than 5,000 educators responded to a sur-
vey by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence to describe their feelings (Cipriano
& Bracket, 2020). When asked how they felt, the top five feelings that emerged were
anxious, fearful, worried, overwhelmed, and sad, with anxiety the most frequently
expressed emotion by far (Cipriano & Bracket, 2020). In contrast, a similar survey
launched in 2017 found teachers expressing different feelings: frustrated, over-
whelmed, stressed, tired, and happy.
The difference is striking. In March 2020 study, teachers were fearful, anxious, and
worried. And whereas teachers indicated being overwhelmed in both studies, in the
earlier study teachers were both overwhelmed and happy, while in the more recent
study they expressed being overwhelmed and sad. In the past decade, many studies
have demonstrated the increasing frustration and stress of teachers with the tone being
one of teacher burnout, not fear, anxiety, and sadness. For example, Gallup’s The State
of America’s Schools Report noted 46% of teachers reported high levels of daily stress,
putting them on par with nurses, pre-COVID (Gallup, 2013). So, why are the results
so different?
Part of the answer may be found in the idea of emotional labor. The toll of emo-
tional labor on teachers has been studied by many, including Isenbarger and Zembylas
(2006) who investigated the concept of caring in emotional labor. As they note “Caring
requires teachers to elicit and listen to how students are feeling . . . ” (Isenbarger and
Zembylas, 2006, p. 122). During the pandemic, listening to students meant listening to
their anxiety, their fears of the coronavirus, job insecurity for themselves or their par-
ents, concerns about grades and getting work done, inability to concentrate, and in
some cases, food insecurity. Meanwhile, professors had to be empathetic while deal-
ing with some of the same anxieties, maintaining standards of pedagogy, and learning
how to deliver content remotely.
In an article posted during the pandemic lockdown stage, Anderson (2020)
explained that “Faculty members who have been in touch with their students on a
Auger and Formentin 3

personal level can feel like they are ‘absorbing all their anxiety’ and neglecting to
focus on their own emotions and mental health needs.” And students were certainly
feeling stressed. In May and April 2020 articles in the Los Angeles Times (John, 2020),
Inside Higher Ed (Anderson, 2020), and Best Colleges (Dennon, 2020; Johnson, 2020)
cited results of surveys wherein students reported increased stress in several areas. For
example, John (2020) reported that three quarters of students were dealing with
increased levels of anxiety, depression, and stress and more than 50% of them had
been laid-off or lost their jobs completely. Another study noted that more than 80% of
students surveyed somewhat or strongly agreed that they were experiencing increased
stress because of COVID-19. This is particularly concerning as the number of students
seeking mental health treatment had increased 35% since 2015 (Dennon, 2020) and
this already vulnerable population was now involved in campus closures, remote
learning, and the many factors involved in the spring 2020 lockdown measures. As
Johnson (2020) put it, “The results suggest that the global pandemic and subsequent
containment measures are exacerbating pre-existing concerns about student mental
health in college.”
The purpose of this emergent study was, therefore, to examine the pedagogical and
personal challenges experienced by professors at the outset of the COVID-19 pan-
demic that may have affected course delivery and student outcomes. We have grounded
the exploration of the topic through the construct of emotional labor and used a mixed-
methods approach to data collection.

Literature Review
Emotional Labor
The construct of emotional labor was proposed by Hochschild (1983) in her seminal
work, The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling and defined as “the
management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (p. 7).
Such displays were further explained as either “surface acting” or “deep acting.”
In surface acting, people hide their real feelings behind a socially acceptable
façade. For example, a waitress may have experienced terrible news prior to their
shift, but they continue to greet customers with a smile and cheerful demeanor.
Teachers may be frustrated by demands from administration, student behavior, or
adverse conditions in their personal lives, but they are expected to present an open,
friendly, caring, and professional face to their students. Wang et al. (2019) describe
surface acting as “when individuals externally experienced emotions without modify-
ing their internal feelings, as evidenced by amplifying, faking, or suppressing an
emotion” (p. 665). Such behavior can lead to emotional dissonance and stress. In
contrast, deep acting refers to situations in which the emotions expressed by the indi-
vidual are consistent with how they feel. Deep acting is therefore more likely to result
in emotional consonance and less stress.
Wrobel (2013) makes several points with regard to teaching and emotional labor.
First, she notes that teaching involves emotional labor and that, second, emotional
4 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

labor is found most often in highly feminized fields (Wrobel, 2013). She argues that
teaching is different from other occupations that experience emotional labor because
interactions with students are often “long term, repeated, and intense” (Wrobel,
2013, p. 582). Moreover, she says that the public often has higher expectations for
teachers than for other fields and that they should be “kind, considerate and willing
to help and never tired or irritated” (Wrobel, 2013, p. 582). In addition, in academia,
Tunguz (2016) suggested that the emotional façade professors are expected to pres-
ent to students is authoritative and stern. Unfortunately, the stress of maintaining
these façades can lead to psychological cost, like burnout, discussed below, in teach-
ers at all levels.
Building on Wrobel’s (2013) point that teaching is a feminized field, in academia,
feminization can be seen in the ways in which professors engage in caring about stu-
dent empowerment, happiness, and value rather than simply quantifiable outcomes
(McGregor, 2017). She notes that “articles on thriving in academia as a woman keep
telling us to do less, to refuse the trap of caring too much” (McGregor, 2017, p. 20).
For example, women should volunteer less, refrain from non-mandatory workshops,
and eliminate extra office hours and student supervision to reduce what she refers to
as “unpaid emotional labour” (p. 20).
In women, work–family conflict can also add to emotional labor. According to
Noor and Zainudden (2011) work–family conflict can be defined as “when demands
from one role domain interfere with participation or performance of the other role”
(p. 283). For example, “female teachers who combined work and family responsi-
bilities experience high [surface acting] because they have to constantly regulate
their emotions, and this in turn leads them to report more work–family conflict, and
consequently, emotional exhaustion” (Noor and Zainudden, 2011, p. 290).
Differences in the extent of emotional labor experienced in academia can differ not
only by gender but also by tenure. A study by Tunguz (2016) examined differences
between untenured or low-powered professors and high-powered, tenured professors
and the extent to which they engaged in emotional labor. Results of the study found
that untenured faculty expended more emotional labor than their tenured counterparts.
Moreover, among the tenured faculty, tenure had a mitigating effect on the emotional
labor of male professors with tenured males indicating significantly lower levels of
emotional labor than untenured males. Results also indicated increased stress among
female faculty compared with the male faculty. The study suggests that continued
stress for tenured women faculty may be the result of the emotional dissonance of
surface acting authoritativeness, which the author suggests is a male emotional dis-
play. Such emotional dissonance “raises the risk of emotional labor and stress”
(Tunguz, 2016, p. 5). Conversely, men are more likely to deep act authoritativeness
because it is a traditional emotional façade for men and experience emotional conso-
nance rather than dissonance and therefore less stress.
Moreover, emotional labor and associated stress in college teachers may be ele-
vated by the wish to balance the authoritative, stern façade of the professor, with the
care of students as young human beings. McGregor (2017) explains it thus:
Auger and Formentin 5

We strive instead to balance our precarity with our obligations to our students, to balance
their needs for quantifiable outcomes with our belief in the other things you can learn in
a classroom—to be resistant, belligerent, unsettling thinkers, but also generous, reliable,
supportive teachers. (p. 18)

Such support may include the need to support students’ mental health. As White and
LaBelle (2019) indicate, the mental health of students is important for both altruistic
and pragmatic reasons. For example, students struggling with mental health issues are
less likely to perform well academically, less able to participate in class, and more
likely to have suicidal thoughts. Yet, many professors feel unqualified for dealing with
student mental health and are concerned that their interference could make things
worse for students (White & LaBelle, 2019). As a result, the emotional labor of caring
for student mental health can add to the burden of professor’s emotional labor wherein
they wish to present a caring and supportive face to students but are genuinely con-
cerned that such behavior could cause more harm than good.
Many studies have demonstrated the consequences of the emotional labor of sur-
face acting on teacher burnout (Bodenheimer & Shuster, 2020; Isenbarger & Zembylas,
2006; Noor & Zainudden, 2011: see Wang et al., 2019, for meta-analysis). As one
study notes, “emotional display rules requiring teachers to express positive emotions
and hide negative emotions represent an unspoken instructional burden that can lead
to burnout” (Wang et al., 2019, p. 675). Burnout occurs when people can no longer
surface act to meet organizational expectations; in other words, when, for example,
teachers can no longer manage their own emotions or the emotions of their students
while acting as though everything is okay (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006). Such burn-
out may take the form of emotional exhaustion, particularly among female teachers
with children as part of the work–family conflict (Noor & Zainudden, 2011).
Based on the construct of emotional labor, the following research questions are
posed:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What challenges did professors face in adjusting

their classes as the result of COVID-19?
Research Question 2 (RQ2): To what extent did personal challenges impact pro-
fessors and students’ ability to engage with the course during the spring of 2020?
Research Question 3 (RQ3): In what ways did emotional labor manifest itself for
professors teaching the public relations capstone course in the spring of 2020?
Research Question 4 (RQ4): As teaching is a feminized field, were there differences
in emotional labor expressed by male and female professors during COVID-19?

Method
A mixed-method approach was taken for this study, using an exploratory sequential
design. In this type of mixed-methods approach, qualitative data is collected to add
depth to quantitative data, which is collected prior to the qualitative stage (Creswell,
2015). We felt that the exploratory sequential design was appropriate for our research
6 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

questions, which could not adequately address the subtleties of emotional labor by
merely quantifying the number of professors that, for example, had to change or elimi-
nate course content. As Creswell (2015) notes, “At a more specific level, the combina-
tion of quantitative and qualitative research enables us to . . . add to instrument data
(quantitative information) details about the setting, place, and context of personal
experiences (qualitative information)” (p. 15).

Data Collection
Data for this study emerged with the collection of data for a second, strictly quantita-
tive study relating specifically to the public relations campaigns course. Qualitative
enquiry suggests the practice of theoretical triangulation wherein data are interpreted
through multiple perspectives (Tracy, 2013). In this case, data have been interpreted
quantitatively in one study and in mixed methods in the second. As a result, there is
some minimal duplication of quantitative information, as indicated in the results.
Institutional Review Board permission was obtained prior to the launch of a 45-ques-
tion survey that was deployed using Qualtrics and augmented through snowball sam-
pling. A convenience sample was drawn by sending the survey to members of the
Public Relations Divisions of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass
Communication (AEJMC), the International Communication Association (ICA), and
the National Communication Association (NCA) and by posting on the researchers’
individual social media pages. Data were collected during a 2-week period beginning
June 16, 2020.

Data Instrument
Two types of questions were asked to address the research questions in this study. The
first were quantitative and the second qualitative and focused on the challenges faced
by instructors in adapting their courses and on personal challenges experienced by
instructors and their students.
Participants were first asked whether they had to remove or change components of
their project and provided a list of six components from which participants could
select all that applied (see Table 1). A follow-up question asked them to rank the three
most challenging project components to adjust (see Table 1). Next, they were asked to
indicate on a 7-point Likert-type scale, in which 1 meant strongly disagree and 7
meant strongly agree, their agreement with eight statements about challenges they
faced in the course, including delivering course content, engaging individual students,
and engaging specific groups of students. The eight-item scale and results can be
found in Table 2. Participants were then asked to explain some of the major challenges
they faced converting their campaigns or capstone course online.
Next, the personal experience questions asked participants to indicate on a 7-point
Likert-type scale where 1 meant strongly disagree and 7 meant strongly agree, the
extent of their agreement with the 10 statements about challenges students faced that
impacted their participation in the course. A similar question asked participants to
Auger and Formentin 7

Table 1. Project Components Removed or Changed and Sum of Ranked Level of Challenge.

Components removed Components most challenging

Project components or changed to adjust/adapt
Data collection n = 15, 23.8% n = 16, 25.4%
Planning phase n = 5, 7.9% n = 7, 11.1%
Producing tactics n = 29, 46% n = 25, 39.7%
Evaluation strategy n = 15, 23.8% n = 14, 22.2%
Practice presentations n = 34, 54%% n = 24, 38.1%
Client presentations n = 34, 54%% n = 25, 39.7%
Other n = 4, 6.3% n = 4, 6.3%

Note: Information in this table is also presented in the original quantitative study described in method.

Table 2. Perceived Challenges Faced by Instructors in the Course.

Perceived Challenges n M SD
Delivering course material 54 3.85 1.89
Conveying project expectations 55 3.98 1.99
Engaging individual students 55 5.05 1.99
Engaging specific student groups 54 4.35 2.09
Finding time to meet student groups 54 2.94 2.08
Communicating with client 53 3.30 1.74
Student professionalism 54 3.91 1.96
Student communication with clients 53 3.92 1.82

Note: Information in this table is also presented in the original quantitative study described in method.

indicate the extent to which they themselves had experienced the same challenges.
Such challenges included but were not limited to food insecurity, being essential work-
ers, general anxiety, and lack of motivation. The full list and comparative descriptive
analysis can be found in Table 3. Finally, participants were asked to explain the degree
to which they believe personal challenges impacted their own ability and their stu-
dents’ ability to engage with the course.

Results
Sixty-three usable responses were obtained from data collection. The median age of
participants was 48 with an age range of 31 to 73 years old (M = 47.85, SD = 10.96).
Just less than half of the participants were ranked at the assistant or associate level
(n = 31, 49.2%) with the remainder identified as full professor, lecture or instructor,
other, or prefer not to identify. More than 50% of respondents identified as female
(n = 35, 55.6%) and White (42, 66.7%) with the remainder identifying as Asian or
Pacific Islander, Hispanic or Latino, or prefer not to identify.
8 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

Table 3. Descriptive Analysis of Differences Between Student–Professor Experiences.

Perceived student Instructor

experiences experiences

Pandemic related issues M SD M SD t-test

Access to technology 4.61 1.90 2.90 1.93 5.65*
Access to resources at home 4.79 1.74 3.29 2.00 5.08*
Being essential workers 4.15 2.01 1.77 1.13 8.09*
Home-based issues 5.00 1.67 3.23 2.22 5.27*
Work-based issues 4.62 1.99 3.25 2.00 4.43*
Homelessness 2.58 1.59 1.40 1.01 5.18*
Food insecurity 3.06 1.79 1.40 1.01 7.07*
General anxiety 6.02 1.06 4.5 1.98 6.21*
Other mental health issues 5.10 1.49 2.58 1.94 8.30*
Lack of motivation 5.25 1.98 3.39 2.01 7.30*

*p < .001.

RQ1
RQ1 sought to find out what challenges professors faced in adjusting their classes as
the result of COVID-19. Results for this question have been broken down into the
quantitative results and qualitative results that add to understanding.

Challenges Adapting to Online Course Delivery—

Quantitative Results
In the public relations campaigns course, there are several project components that
remain fairly constant across all delivery. As professors spend a great deal of time
preparing their courses to meet student learning outcomes, the need to cut aspects of
their course can cause stress as they strive to adapt remaining components to cover the
expected outcomes. In this case, the researchers were interested in understanding
which specific project components were modified as the result of COVID-19. Results
suggest that practice and client presentations (each n = 34, 54%) and producing tactics
(n = 29, 46%) were the most frequently changed project components. These were
also considered the project components that were most challenging to adjust or adapt
(see Table 1).
The researchers were also interested in specific challenges instructors may have
faced in their courses. Results suggest that instructors had the most difficulty engag-
ing individual students (M = 5.05, SD = 1.99); but on average, faculty neither agreed
nor disagreed that they experienced challenges. It would appear that instructors had
varying experiences in their courses based on the relatively large standard deviations
presented (see Table 2).
Auger and Formentin 9

Challenges Adapting to Online Course Delivery—Qualitative Results

Forty-six respondents provided descriptive comments to this question with nine (20%)
indicating that the transition went smoothly and there were no significant issues. The
challenges faced by the remaining 80% of participants fell into a few broad categories:
changes in class content including deliverables to clients; accessibility to technology
and software; effective instructor interaction; student engagement; and students’ social
(home/work), emotional (anxiety), and attitude issues. Embedded within each of these
categories were responses that tie to emotional labor, discussed under RQ3.

RQ2
The second research question investigated the personal challenges professors and their
students faced in engaging with course content during COVID-19. Anecdotally, the
authors recognized that both they and their professional colleagues were experiencing
different interpersonal challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addi-
tion, there were significant concerns about the impact the pandemic might have on
students due to less understood personal challenges. As such, questions were designed
to explore the more personal issues faculty may have perceived as impacting their
students and themselves. Again, results are divided into quantitative and qualitative
sections.

Personal Challenges Affecting Course Delivery During COVID-19—

Quantitative Results
Quantitative findings suggest that instructors rated students as being more heavily
impacted by issues related to COVID-19. For example, participants somewhat agreed
that students experienced issues related to access to resources at home (M = 4.79, SD
= 1.74), home-based issues (M = 5.00, SD = 1.67), mental health issues (M = 5.10,
SD = 1.45), and lack of motivation (M = 5.19, SD = 2.01). Participants also agreed
that students experienced general anxiety issues (M = 6.02, SD = 1.06). However,
instructors rated themselves as less impacted by these same issues.
Participants neither agreed nor disagreed that they experienced general anxiety (M
= 4.50, SD = 1.98), and otherwise disagreed to somewhat disagreed that they experi-
enced personal issues such as those related to access challenges, home-based or work-
based issues, and mental health challenges. Notably, t-tests showed a significant
difference between perceptions of student experiences and reported participant experi-
ences. Table 3 shows t-test results comparing these challenges.
Further analysis was conducted to evaluate the differences in perceptions of per-
sonal challenges between students and professors. A student challenges scale (α =
.887, M = 4.53, SD = 1.24) and instructor challenges scale (α = .768, M = 2.77, SD
= 1.09) were tested. Notably, of all the scales tested, the instructor challenges scale
had the lowest reliability, although no items could be removed to strengthen the scale
10 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

(see Table 3). This further suggests a potential discrepancy in how faculty reflected on
or reported their personal issues.
Correlation analysis suggests a weak but significant relationship between perceived
student challenges and personal instructor challenges. Specifically, instructors that
believed students were facing personal challenges were also more likely to identify as
facing personal challenges (p < .001, r = .473). Similarly, it seems that personal stu-
dent challenges may have been loosely related to content issues (p < .001, r = .583)
which may begin to show how the interpersonal challenges of dealing with the pan-
demic may have filtered into course experiences.

Personal Challenges Affecting Course Delivery During COVID-19—

Qualitative Results
Thirty-three participants answered this question and by far the most frequently
expressed challenge was anxiety, followed by lack of engagement and finally, duties
as a caregiver. Embedded within each of these categories were responses that tie to
emotional labor, discussed under RQ3.

RQ3
This research question investigated the ways in which emotional labor manifested
itself for instructors teaching the public relations capstone course in the spring of
2020. Results for this question can be drawn from the five categories of qualitative
response from RQ1 and the three received under RQ2. Because of overlap, responses
have been recategorized into four themes: changes in content and delivery; access to
technology and software; engagement and motivation; and social challenges (work,
home, life), each of which contributed to the emotional labor of teachers.

Changes in Content and Delivery

Educators spend a great deal of time developing their course content to meet objec-
tives for student learning. The necessity to change the content of any course, but espe-
cially the capstone course which is meant to provide professional experience in the
process of developing a communication campaign, could lead to stress about student
outcomes. The need to cut key elements of the process, for example, collecting and
analyzing data, worried professors who then had to reassure their students that the
campaign would still be a good experience and that everything would be okay while
also managing student disappointment. For example, the following responses high-
lighted the need to change based on student needs:

Due to . . . the fact that my students ranged from not having reliable access to WiFi, to
having to become full-time caregivers while parents worked, I made the decision to scrap
client presentations . . . . I discussed this with students . . . [and] they agreed but were
disappointed that they were not able to get face-to-face feedback from the clients.
Auger and Formentin 11

Similarly,

This was a grant-funded project where students planned major community events. They
were devastated to have their projects become hypothetical situations instead of real-
world professional work.

Professors also had to check-in with the clients for their capstone, explaining changes
to the class and reassuring them that the project would be fine:

I decided to forgo the client presentations because my clients were so overwhelmed. The
students presented to each other, but we missed this important learning component.

Moreover, the move to remote learning led to many respondents bemoaning their lack
of ability to effectively reach certain students. As one respondent put it,

I missed the input from the quieter ones, and even their body language that would
normally help me “get” their group dynamic and understand their needs.

Another noted that course content delivery was hampered by the inability of students
to help each other as well as from their professor:

They had difficulty helping each other and I had difficulty helping them because we were
not present in the same place. The interface of Zoom, even when sharing the screen, was
just not adequate for that level of involved demonstration.

The extent of time needed to manage the courses once moved also challenged many
respondents, from too much time spent sitting at computer, to lack of time to sit at the
computer and get work done. One participant said,

The biggest personal challenge came from the students’ needs for meetings—often just
for emotional support. Instead of meeting/office hours 6-8 hours a week, I found myself
on Zoom meetings for up to 12 hours a day (approx.. 20-30 hours per week) and was
completely mentally and emotionally exhausted by it all.

Access to Technology and Software

The move to remote course delivery came with little warning for professors and their
students, many of whom did not possess hardware, software, and adequate internet con-
nection, nor did they have the financial means to obtain these resources. As a result,
professors had to engage in emotional labor, for example, in reassuring students that
their grades would not be affected or that they would get sufficient knowledge and/or
skills from the class despite access issues. Meanwhile these professors were often
struggling with the same issues in conjunction with the need to adapt their courses in
ways that would allow students to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for course
objectives. As one noted, “I have terrible internet at home (live in a rural area) which
12 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

made it hard to upload even short video files and do virtual meetings.” Several respon-
dents highlighted problems with access to software, such as the following:

The biggest challenge was helping students with the design of the campaign book. Most
students have little background or experience with design software and the online format
made it very difficult to teach.

Another noted,

The biggest challenges I faced were replicating online the resources students had access
to when physically on campus (computers, high speed internet, design programs, research
tools) . . .

Engagement and Motivation

Respondents indicated that both they and their students had difficulty engaging and
being motivated during the pandemic lockdown. Reasons for lack of engagement and
motivation varied but were highlighted by a sense of anxiety and work/life distractions
such as caregiving and homeschooling. For example, professors explained their lack
of motivation and engagement thus:

It was hard to be motivated. I was very anxious at first and sad not to be able to visit my
family. I struggled with homeschooling my child, who had a very hard time adjusting and
learning in an online format. I was sad for my students, who were sad, and I found being
online for so many hours physically exhausting.

Another indicated the general unease of the pandemic as a factor:

Personally, my biggest issue was balancing the shifted workload at a time when there was
great, growing concern about the pandemic. I found it difficult to focus on work, was
working hard not to be dragged down by mental health issues and was dealing with a
certain amount of anxiety because of what was going on.

Respondents’ perspectives of student engagement and motivation also highlighted

work/life balance and mental health. For example, one noted that “In all, motivation
and mental health seem to be something we discussed a lot.” Another said “the switch
online was hard. Add to that a pandemic. I don’t blame students for signing off.”
Yet, comments from respondents indicated that the lack of ability to engage and
motivate students was troubling. For example, instructors’ frustration with student dis-
interest is visible in the following:

But the biggest and most troubling challenge was engaging students who simply lost
interest in the course and anything having to do with it. Students would join Zoom and sit
there like zombies. Many did not even bother to turn on their cameras. . . . I heard every
excuse in the book but basically students just quit caring the day we went “virtual.”
Auger and Formentin 13

While others struggled with the lack of ability to reach certain students, noting that
“[Students] simply weren’t prepared to be online at first. The typically engaged stu-
dents adapted fine, the students who normally struggled fell off the charts.” And,
“Students struggled to stay motivated with some who already struggled with chal-
lenges such as anxiety and depression having even more struggles during lockdown.”

Social Issues (Work, Home, Life)

During the lockdown stage of the pandemic, multi-generations were often found in the
same household, all of whom were working or in-school themselves or requiring some
level of care. Instructors and their students struggled broadly with work, home, and life
issues that affected either course content delivery or engagement. Specific issues
included time differences where students had returned home to other time zones, lack
of sleep because of caregiving duties, concerns about the coronavirus, and depression.
Many respondents indicated difficulties balancing homeschooling children while
also teaching remotely. Others noted concern for their parents or the need to care for
their parents, and the need to manage their own anxiety or mental health issues. For
example, one participant noted, “I am a single mother and I had to homeschool my
very ADHD kindergarten daughter while also teaching my courses. I also have gener-
alized anxiety and depression.”
Another explained her situation thus:

I felt I was constantly failing everyone, balancing a complete lack of childcare for my
small toddler who needs constant attention and my husband who works 70-80 hours a
week and helping my elderly father shift to work from home using technology he has
absolutely no clue how to use . . . while handling such a hands-on real-world course
(capstone).

Students also faced home, work, life, and mental health challenges. One respondent
noted that a student “. . . was caring for his infant son while another was caring for his
dad.” Another highlighted the various situations of students in their class:

I had one student lose his job. Another student was an essential worker at a big box
retailer/supermarket. Another student switched bipolar medication. Another student was
caring for his younger brother because their parents had just moved out of state . . .

Although access to technology is noted above, in some cases, lack of access felt more
like a work–life issue. For example, some students had to take class from their cars in
parking lots—a situation that worried and affected teachers who felt concern for their
students’ well-being. As one respondent explained, “I also faced a real issue with inter-
net access among my students. Several took class meetings from the parking lots of
coffee shops/restaurants to get better WiFi connections.”
Finally, both students and professors struggled with schedules that were new with
multi-generations home all at once and all the time, or increased hours as essential
14 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

workers. Balancing the scheduling flexibility needed by themselves and their students
added to the emotional labor of teachers as they tried to meet the needs of all.

RQ4
Given that teaching is considered a feminized field, this question sought to distinguish
differences in emotional labor expressed by male and female professors during
COVID-19. Independent sample t-tests were used to explore whether female and male
participants responded differently to perception of student challenges. Although
Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances (p = .406) highlights that more females than
males were represented in this analysis, female participants were significantly more
likely to perceive student challenges than their male counterparts, t(16.42) = 3.58,
p = .002. While female participants overall somewhat agreed that students faced
personal challenges (M = 4.82, SD = 1.01), male participants somewhat disagreed
(M = 3.42, SD = 1.22).

Limitations
The study is limited by the population studied. Only those who taught the public rela-
tions campaigns class in the spring of 2020, or a similar class, were included.

Discussion
An explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach was used for this study to inves-
tigate emotional labor of professors in the spring 2020 pandemic. As one participant
noted, “It wasn’t about online conversion it was about remote teaching in the middle
of a pandemic affecting everything and everyone at all levels (individual, psychologi-
cal, physical, resources, etc.).” We investigated both the practical challenges faced by
instructors in adapting their capstone class projects to remote delivery and their per-
sonal challenges in delivering course content.

Emotional Labor Associated With Teaching the Course

From the practical perspective, quantitative results indicated that more than 50% of
instructors experienced challenges with student presentations and just fewer than 50%
experienced challenges related to production of tactics. Many respondents also found
it difficult to adequately explain project expectations and were challenged simply
by delivering course content. In addition, a majority sensed they were not engaging
individual students well.
Had the pandemic occurred earlier in the semester, we would have expected to see
more challenges with regard to data collection; however, given the mid-semester tim-
ing of lockdown, many had already collected their data or were able to use secondary
data once courses went to remote delivery. In fact, a respondent noted that “had this
happened . . . during our research phase, I think the challenges would have been much
Auger and Formentin 15

greater.” Although not addressed as a specific program component, difficulties with

the design aspects of developing the campaign book were highlighted by several par-
ticipants and mesh with the challenges experienced with design of tactics.
Qualitative responses added depth to understanding why adapting or cutting project
components was challenging and the ways in which professors and students were
affected. The disconnect between what instructors felt should be taught for student
outcomes, coupled with the need to change into what could reasonably be taught,
resulted in emotional labor, highlighted by words such as “needs,” “disappointment,”
“overwhelmed,” “devastated,” and phrases like “the quieter ones,” and “just not ade-
quate.” Professors were tuned in to the experiences of their students, which is expressed
clearly here: “Because of the lack of face to face interaction, students were less moti-
vated, more anxious, and less able to work together than at any time I have taught the
course previously.”

Personal Issues and Emotional Labor

Personal issues and mental health also contributed to challenges. Quantitative mea-
sures (see Table 3) show the differences between perception of their challenges and the
challenges of their students. Interestingly, the professors scored their personal issues
low, while scoring their perception of student issues higher. Yet, as discussed below,
qualitative answers suggest that professors were indeed experiencing significant per-
sonal issues during the pandemic. This inconsistency, though surprising, matches the
results of a recent study by Wang et al. (2019) who found high levels of unexplained
variance for genuinely expressing negative emotions.
Words that emerged from the personal issues question included “sad,” “anxious,”
“depressed,” and “struggling” and the stand-out phrase—“they were lonely.”
Professors noted lack of time caused by caregiving duties and homeschooling duties
often meant they went without much sleep. Much like their perceptions of their stu-
dents, professors indicated that they had difficulty getting themselves motivated,
general anxiety and depression, and sadness. One went so far as to say “My personal
needs were pushed aside for the most part.”
Anxiety, sadness, and depression are all indicators of the pandemic’s effect on men-
tal health. As, among other things, poor mental health is associated with rapid social
change (World Health Organization, 2018), it is not surprising that both professors and
students suffered mental health challenges in the spring of 2020. As one of the partici-
pants ironically noted, “Students are already dealing with some levels of mental health
issues and the switch obviously didn’t help that much.”
Unfortunately, student stress did not end with the end of the semester. Studies from
the end of June (TimelyMD, 2020) and September (Ciechalski et al., 2020) indicate
continuing stress among students. The top five things concerning students in June
(TimelyMD, 2020) were, in order (a) future of their education, (b) falling behind in
coursework, (c) struggles with remote learning, (d) future career and job prospects,
and (e) fears about their health or the health of their loved ones. Since then, concerns
about mental health repercussions of COVID-19 have grown, especially for college
16 Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 00(0)

students. For example, NBC News reported that about 25,000 students that partici-
pated in the American College Health Association’s Spring 2020 National Health
Assessment indicated the need for mental health services and that number is expected
to grow (Ciechalski et al., 2020).
The instructors that took part in this study were accurate in their assessment of
student issues and appropriately concerned. According to a study released in June
(Burke, 2020), 60% of more than 38,600 students that participated in the study reported
experiencing insecurity of basic needs in the 30 days prior to the study. While these
statistics do not lessen the emotional labor expended by professors in caring about
their students and managing courses in the spring of 2020, they provide substance for
the emotional exhaustion respondents expressed. Emotional labor can take the form of
surface acting or deep acting and is closely connected to caring in relationships. During
the pandemic spring, professors had to manage the move to remote course delivery
and teach while working from home, often with children and partners and parents
present who also required attention and care. Emotional exhaustion and burnout arise
when the surface acting conflicts too strongly with our actual emotions, for example,
being cheerful and encouraging to students when we ourselves are having difficulty
getting out of bed and putting on a smile.
The difficulty to surface act without emotional exhaustion is found more frequently
in women than men and is particularly difficult for women with children (Noor &
Zainudden, 2011). Although fewer men participated in this study than women, we
found significant differences in perceptions of student issues between men and women,
which points to differing levels of emotional labor. The men were less likely to per-
ceive the students as having personal issues than the women, yet several studies have
demonstrated that students were in fact fairly universally having a wealth of emo-
tional, situational, and personal issues (Anderson, 2020; Burke, 2020; Ciechalski et
al., 2020; Dennon, 2020). This result is in keeping with studies of emotional labor that
indicate higher levels of stress and emotional exhaustion in women teachers than men
(Noor & Zainudden, 2011; Tunguz, 2016). One respondent explained her experience
thus “I could not be a fully present teacher and fully present parent.”
A pandemic, by definition, has global reach. This investigation focused on the
experiences of a specific subset of communication professors and their emotional
labor during the spring of 2020, yet their experiences were likely echoed by teachers
at all levels and worldwide. We’d like to think that those teachers responded with the
care, love, and social responsibility demonstrated by participants in this study, despite
the emotional and physical toll. As one said, “It was a time of personal challenges for
almost everyone. I like to think we gave each other grace.”

Conclusion
The pandemic spring of 2020 affected teachers and students at all levels and world-
wide. In March 2020, more than 5,000 teachers responded to a survey that identified
feelings of sadness, fear, anxiety, worry, and being overwhelmed from these partici-
pants. This study evaluated those feelings through the lens of emotional labor using an
Auger and Formentin 17

explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. Results indicated that professors were

experiencing signs of emotional exhaustion as the result of surface acting. In other
words, the disconnect they felt between trying to reassure and support students when
they themselves felt sad and anxious. Moreover, the results also supported findings
from a number of student and teacher surveys regarding stress and COVID-19 and
supported prior research that found greater levels of emotional labor from female
teachers than from male teachers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Author Biographies
Giselle A. Auger, Ph.D., APR, is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of
Communication at Rhode Island College, with a teaching specialty in public relations. She
received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Florida and holds an M.A.
in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the University of Lancaster in England
and a B.A. in Political Communication from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Her research interests include strategic communication of nonprofit organizations, the use of
rhetoric and message structure in social media communication, and academic dishonesty.
Melanie J. Formentin, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Public Relations in the Department
of Mass Communication at Towson University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses
such as public relations campaigns, corporate communication management, and qualitative
methods. Formentin’s research focuses on corporate social responsibility and ethics of care, and
she’s an active mentor in university and conference-based programs.