Ready or not: Pennsylvania high school teachers' experiences with transition to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic had lasting detrimental effects on the teaching profession (Milman, 2020). Teachers faced multiple transitions from classroom teaching to emergency remote teaching during a stay-at-home order confining them to their homes while instructing students virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kim & Asbury, 2020;Milman, 2020). It is significant to recognize what teachers experienced and its effects on their practice and outlook of the profession for the future. This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of Pennsylvania high school teachers' multiple transitions from classroom teaching to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years. This study examined teachers' experiences during multiple transitions to emergency remote teaching and their perceptions of professional identity, self-efficacy, and the teaching profession during the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews took place via Zoom with six participants who encountered multiple transitions to emergency remote teaching, which provided data for qualitative phenomenological analysis. Schlossberg's (1981) transition theory is the foundation for this study. Data was comprised of emergent themes from the interviews. Four themes were identified from the interviews a) uncertainty, (b) finding a way, (c) the importance of relationships, and (d) confusing government and administrative directives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)