Discipline: psychology (non-specific)
The COVID-19 pandemic posed unprecedented challenges to the education sector, placing elementary teachers under sustained psycho-logical and emotional strain due to increased workload, shifting in-structional demands, and limited support systems. This study exam-ined the relationships among emotional intelligence, psychological need satisfaction, and stress among elementary teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic as a basis for proposing a school-based mental health program. Employing a convergent parallel mixed-methods de-sign, quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently and integrated during interpretation. Quantitative data were gathered from 253 elementary teachers using standardized measures of emotional in-telligence, psychological need satisfaction, and stress and were ana-lyzed using descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests, and Pearson product-moment correlation. Qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with five (5) purposively selected teachers and analyzed using thematic analysis to explore lived experi-ences, perceived stressors, coping strategies, support systems, and per-sonal growth. Findings revealed a moderate level of emotional intelligence (M = 2.80), generally satisfactory fulfillment of psychological needs, and oc-casional experiences of stress (M = 3.09). Correlation analysis showed a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and psychological need satisfaction (r = .521, p < .001), while emotional in-telligence (r = −.413, p < .001) and psychological need satisfaction (r = −.367, p < .001) were significantly and negatively associated with stress. Qualitative findings reinforced these results by demonstrating that emotional regulation, collegial and family support, acceptance, spirituality, and collaborative coping served as important protective mechanisms against work-related stress during crisis conditions. The integration of quantitative and qualitative findings informed the devel-opment of the CARE-TEACH Program, a school-based mental health in-itiative designed to strengthen teachers’ emotional intelligence, enhance psychological need satisfaction, and promote effective stress management. The findings underscore the importance of holistic and preventive mental health interventions in supporting teacher well-be-ing and sustaining educational effectiveness during and beyond crisis situations.
ISSN 2774-5368 (Online)
Philippine E-Journals
