Protective and risk social dimensions of emergency remote teaching during COVID‐19 pandemic: A multiple mediation study

The changes in teaching due to COVID‐19‐related restraints generated distress among teachers, putting their job‐related efficacy and satisfaction at risk. This study deepens the community‐related protective and risk factors in teachers' experience. An online questionnaire detecting social distancing burnout, job‐related distress experience, efficacy and satisfaction, and Sense of Community (SoC) was administered to 307 Italian teachers. A multiple mediation model was tested with Structural Equation Modeling. Evidence showed that social distancing burnout could increase teachers' distress rates and, through them, impact their job‐related efficacy and satisfaction; however, its effects on the latter depended on the kind of distress mediating. Conversely, SoC could support their job‐related efficacy and satisfaction, yet no association with their distress rates emerged. The role of social distancing and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)‐related distress as the main threats for teachers stems, along with the one of job distress and the community of belonging as assets on which teachers relied.