Technostress among primary school teachers in Slovenia

Novonastala situacija s pandemijo COVID-19 je prinesla številne prilagoditve na delovnih mestih. Veliko število ljudi je bilo na neki način prisiljeno pričeti delati od doma, kar je posledično privedlo do povečane ravni stresa. Prav tako je delo od doma zahtevalo večjo uporabo informacijsko-komunikacijskih tehnologij, za katero so zaposleni bolj ali manj usposobljeni. Višja kot je stopnja (tehno)stresa, večje so možnosti za pojavo nezaželenih oz. negativnih učinkov. Med poklice, ki pri svojem delu najbolj pogosto uporabljajo IKT, sodijo zaposleni v računovodstvu, marketingu, menedžmentu, arhitekti, dizajnerji ipd. Tej skupini so se pridružili tudi zaposleni v šolstvu, saj je izobraževanje v času pandemije COVID-19 prešlo v izobraževanje na daljavo. Pri tem so učitelji morali prilagoditi svoj način poučevanja, ki je zajel uporabo IKT. Glede na to, da vsi učitelji niso enako digitalno pismeni, predvidevamo, da so v koronačasu doživeli tehnostres v večji ali manjši meri. Simptome, povzročitelje in inhibitorje ter načine za spopadanje s tehnostresom in stresom smo opisali v teoretičnem delu magistrske naloge. Prikazana je tudi uporaba IKT v izobraževanju ter njene komponente in oblike učenja z njeno uporabo. V empiričnem delu smo izvedli raziskavo s pomočjo anonimnega anketnega vprašalnika. Zanimalo nas je, v kolikšni meri je tehnostres vplival na osnovnošolske učitelje v Sloveniji. Še posebej nas je zanimalo, kako je povečana uporaba IKT vplivala na slovenske osnovnošolske učitelje v času pandemije koronavirusa. Na podlagi pridobljenih odgovorov smo ugotovili, da starost vpliva na raven tehnostresa, in sicer so starejši učitelji bolj izpostavljeni tehnostresom kot mlajši. Kar se tiče povzročiteljev tehnostresa, pa smo ugotovili, da sta tehnokompleksnost in tehnopreobremenjenost glavna povzročitelja tehnostresa pri starejših učiteljih. Glede stopnje poučevanja smo spoznali, da je tehnokompleksnost glavni razlog za tehnostres pri zaposlenih v šolski svetovalni službi. Ne nazadnje pa smo ugotovili, da so starejši učitelji in učitelji razrednega pouka doživeli višjo raven tehnostresa v času pandemije.The new situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has brought many adjustments in the workplace. A great number of people were somehow forced to start working from home, which led to increased stress levels. Working from home also required a greater use of information and communication technologies and the employees for its use are less or more qualified. The higher the level of (techno)stress, the greater the chances of occurrence of unwanted or negative effects. Occupations, where the use of ICT is often required, include employees in accounting, marketing, management, architecture, design, etc. Teachers also joined this group, as the education changed into distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. They had to adapt their way of teaching, which included an increased use of ICT. Since not all teachers are equally digitally literate, we assume that they experienced technostress to a greater or lesser extent. Symptoms, (techno)stressors, inhibitors as well as ways of dealing with technostress and stress are described in the theoretical part of the master\u27s thesis. The use of ICT in education, its components and forms of learning are also presented. In the empirical part, we conducted a research with the help of an anonymous questionnaire. Our purpose was to find out to which extent technostress affected primary school teachers in Slovenia. We were especially interested in researching how the increased use of ICT affected primary school teachers in Slovenia during the coronavirus pandemic. Based on the given answers, we found out that the age affects the level of technostress, which means that the older teachers are more exposed to technostress than the younger ones. According to the techno-stressors, we discovered that techno-complexity and techno-overload are the main causes of technostress, especially for the older teachers. Regarding the level of teaching, we established that techno-complexity is the main cause of technostress for the school counsellors. Finally, we found out that the older teachers and the class teachers experienced higher levels of the technostress while teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic