Academic Staff Coping Responses to COVID-19 Disruptions in Universities

Abstract

This chapter draws on literature and coping theories to discuss the coping strategies employed by academic staff to COVID-19 disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unexpected changes to teaching and learning in universities. In response, universities had to shift their teaching modes suddenly from the traditional teaching method to an online mode with very little time to prepare for this. Increased academic load, impact on individual health, academic demands, and shifts to online teaching consequently led to increased distress among academic staff. A pandemic is associated with psychological distress suffered by academic staff and other university workers globally due to health-related fears, uncertainty, and downstream academic consequences. However, very scant information is available about the coping mechanisms for psychological distress among academic staff in African universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter demonstrates that some academic staff at African universities implemented adaptive coping strategies to deal with stressful situations. However, some adopted maladaptive coping, which is less effective because it only provides temporary relief but tends to increase dysfunction by maintaining and strengthening the distress.