EFL teachers in lockdown: does work-related rumination predict work-related behavior patterns during covid pandemic?

Abstract

The outbreak of Covid-19 and the rise of remote working have blurred the boundaries between home and work for many professionals, including English Foreign Language teachers (EFL). This situation has provided an opportunity for work-related thoughts to persist even after the task is over. This is the first study to investigate how work-related rumination might result in different work-related behavior patterns by jeopardizing recovery from work. In a descriptive cross-sectional study, the researchers selected 237 EFL teachers (127 female) as the study sample. The work-related rumination and work-related behaviors and patterns questionnaires were administered to collect the data. The findings indicate that different types of work-related rumination affect EFL teachers’ stress reactions and are differentially related to various aspects of their mental health and professional commitment. Specifically, the results show that affective rumination and insufficient psychological detachment from work can predict unhealthy work behavior patterns. However, problem-solving pondering can predict both some healthy and unhealthy work behavior patterns. Our results confirm that work-related rumination can have both positive and negative consequences. It is crucial that EFL teachers develop skills for better management of affective rumination and psychological detachment from work, and set boundaries between work and private life. Additionally, spending time thinking about problem-solving outside of work is an effective way to solve problems and challenges at work, which may decrease occupational impairment. However, this does not mean that EFL teachers should always use their free time for work-related issues. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023.