Abstract
Orientation: In recent years, there has been growing consideration regarding the effect of online teaching on psychological health and effectiveness of students and teachers. The need for such an assessment has mounted after the COVID-19 pandemic as the unplanned and sudden change forced teachers to teach online when this medium was not yet that mature to offer the instruction at par with traditional teaching environment.
Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to explore if online/digital teaching act as a demanding context for psychological well-being and performance of academic staff in higher education. By integrating JDR model and self-determination theory, we specifically aim to examine if such a context supports the basic psychological needs of teachers, and how the three basic psychological needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness is related to teachers’ engagement and exhaustion. We further aim to examine if organizational and individual resources moderate the relationship between the three basic needs and engagement and exhaustion, and whether these measures of psychological well-being (engagement and exhaustion) are related to teachers’ perceived performance in the context of digital/online teaching.
Design/Methodology/Approach: Methodology included a quantitative method using an e-survey. Data were collected from 110 university teachers involved in online teaching from Norway and Nepal through online questionnaire. We tested our assumptions using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach in SmartPLS.
Findings: The results show that the need for competency has a positive significant relationship with engagement and is negatively related to exhaustion. Finding also indicates engagement is positively related to job performance and exhaustion is negatively related to job performance. Moreover, individual change orientation was found to positively moderate the relationship between basic needs- autonomy, competency and relatedness and engagement.
Keywords: Online Teaching, Autonomy, Competency, Relatedness, Exhaustion, Engagement, Performance