Technostress Creators in Higher Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic: A Comparison of Faculty Perceptions and Experiences

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to advance the scholarship related to techno-distress in higher education. Two surveys were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic of college and university professors to evaluate technostress creator perceptions. The Technostress Creators Scale (Tarafdar et al., 2007) was used to measure the technostress of college and university faculty early in the pandemic (2020), (n = 307) and one year later (2021), (n = 94). The cross-sectional quantitative study revealed that faculty technostress was markedly curbed throughout the periods of study, with a reduction in perceptions of computerphobia by nearly 20% comparing both samples. An analysis of the sub-dimensions clarifies this outcome.