RESILIENCE AS A MEDIATOR IN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ANXIETY AND PERSONALITY AMONG PHYSIOTHERAPISTS-A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Background and Aims: The COVID-19 outbreak is the biggest global crisis in generations having severe and far-reaching repercussions for the health system, creating high prevalence of severe posttraumatic stress symptoms for physical therapists, highlighting the need for psychological help. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate how resilience functions as a mediator in the relationship between anxiety and personality among Karachi based physiotherapists.         Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among physiotherapists of Karachi using a convenience sampling technique from August to December 2021. The data was collected using a 10-Item Personality Inventory, Brief Resilience Scale, and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale questionnaire. Results: Among 70 participants, the emotional stability trait (7.6±1.4) had higher mean values on the TIPI. On the HAM-A scale, 81.4% physiotherapists had moderate to severe anxiety followed by 15.7% mild to moderate anxiety whereas 92.9% were shown to have normal resilience. Despite all correlations being negligible, only the association between agreeableness and resilience was non-significantly higher (r=0.83). Conclusion: It was concluded that there was no association between the anxiety state and resilience among physiotherapists, although there was a non-significantly higher relationship between agreeableness and openness to experiences personality traits. A high prevalence of moderate to severe anxiety was noted while using a standard resilience strategy.

Enhancement on Science Teachers Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Pedagogical content knowledge (Shulman 1986, 1987) is a knowledge base for teachers to learn to teach subject matter knowledge effectively. Gaining depth in pedagogical content knowledge leads teachers to the three perspective areas of teacher development that is, personal, social, and professional. Teacher development could take place more effectively through collaborative actions. A collaborative action research strategy under the qualitative research paradigm was undertaken to explore the ways to enhance the science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. In order to gain understanding in depth of teachers' existing teaching practices, and to explore the possible ways of enhancement of pedagogical content knowledge following tools of data collection were used: field notes, semi-structured interviews, reflections of teachers and audiotape recordings of post conferences. In this study two teachers were involved, one from the primary and one from the lower secondary including myself. The study has revealed encouraging and promising insights of teachers' enhancement of pedagogical content knowledge and teacher development. The collaborative actions helped the teachers to reflect critically upon their teaching practices in order to teach subject matter more effectively. It helped the teachers to look more critically at the processes of students' learning of science, curriculum development, and knowledge of the environment. The study shared some key areas for teachers to enhance their ways of learning. This study illustrates that teachers can become teacher researchers if they are given support and opportunities at their workplaces.