Resiliência de professores universitários: impacto das relações com estudantes e instituição

Abstract

The university context can be challenging and stressful for professors, impacting their quality of life and work. However, resilience can help them deal with problems and stressful situations and their negative consequences. This study aimed to evaluate the level of resilience of professors at a federal university in the countryside of Minas Gerais and its relationships with their self-perceptions about their abilities, characteristics of the educational institution, their working conditions and their emotional state. The sample consisted of 95 faculty members from a federal university in the countryside of Minas Gerais, who responded to the Brief Resilience Scale, the Occupational Coping Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire – two-item version, and a supplementary questionnaire. The results showed that resilience correlated with time as a professor, with the perceived degree of autonomy to conduct work, self-perception of being a good teacher, having good teaching skills, good relationships with students, planning ability and feeling fulfilled as a professor. Negative relationships were observed between resilience and perceiving oneself as an incompetent professor, thinking about leaving the profession and the presence of depressive and anxious symptoms. It is concluded that resilience helps university professors to remain emotionally stable and feel fulfilled with their work. Other institutional relationships, however, better explain some of their choices regarding the way of teaching and the activities developed by professors.