COVID-19 and Lecturers - A Study on the Transformation of Teaching and Working in Higher Education Institutions with a Focus on the Post-COVID Era and Work Overload During the Pandemic

COVID-19 has changed our lives. This also applies to the field of higher education. Teaching and working have changed permanently and they will never be the same again as it was before 2020. While the majority of recent research has focused on the student’s perspective, this article highlights the perspective of lecturers. The students aspects are touched on the side only. In a very short period of time, teaching had to be implemented completely digitally due to several lockdowns. Some lecturers had already digitalised content while others had not. However, this situation appeared to the prepared and unprepared lecturers. Furthermore, it demonstrated which higher educational institutions had been developed a digitalisation strategy in previous times and how intensively they have applied that strategy. It also showed which support services for lecturers already existed and were functioning. Nevertheless, most of the leading universities in terms of digitalisation showed before that teaching and learning could be supported by digital content and formats. In essence, COVID-19 can be seen as an innovation accelerator. However, what exactly does this accelerated change mean for lecturers? This article focuses on them and examines the current teaching and working situation. Furthermore, it shows how lecturers see the post-COVID era. Both the interaction with students and the conducive framework conditions play of course an important role. All the points mentioned have an influence on the enjoyment of teaching, motivation for working at the university, and as well as on overload and stress symptoms during the semesters affected by the pandemic situation. Of course, this inevitably raises the question which other variables (age, subject area, experience, etc.) potentially have an influence. Lastly, the study will also examine how teaching will be realised in the post-COVID era and assess the attractivity of the university as working space in a digital teaching environment.