Due to COVID-19, remote or distance education has become the norm in the Philippines. Yet even in its second year, remote teaching and learning still face ongoing challenges, as does the need for teachers’ professional development. This paper describes a study that examined teachers’ perspectives on barriers and needs in professional development. The study involved 174 teachers who were teaching online courses in the National Capital Region. The participants completed a survey detailing their professional development frequency, perspectives, barriers, and needs, while eight teachers agreed to participate in a follow-up interview. Results from hierarchical multiple regression analysis have shown that teachers’ pedagogical and information technology skills requirements are influenced primarily by their prior professional development experiences and their need to apply active learning and innovative teaching ideas. Qualitative analyses indicate that teachers’ professional development needs are mostly focused on skills related to online teaching, information technology literacy, and conducting research. In addition, data indicated that barriers to professional development were primarily caused by financial and time constraints and a lack of teacher motivation and logistical support. In summary, for remote education to be sustainable, teachers need ongoing professional development as well as adequate logistical support.

One hard fact of COVID-19 is the uncertainty of all things. Anchoring on the assumption that the religiosity of an individual has a profound impact on their emotions, resilience, and wellness, this study investigated the levels of the centrality of religiosity, emotions towards God, resilience, and wellness among 399 Taiwanese university students. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, group comparisons, multiple regression, and mediation analysis. Findings showed that most of the participants were religious. Furthermore, the 16 emotions towards God were successfully factored into three distinct sub-groups, namely: pleasant, unpleasant, and moral valence, which were later found to be quite related to Asian religions. More importantly, the results suggested that the resiliency of an individual can be attributed to their belief in the existence of God or the Divine, while the wellness indicators of security and satisfaction were related to one’s religiosity. Lastly, structural equation modeling showed that resilience fully mediated the relationship between the ideology dimension of religiosity and the security and satisfaction component of wellness. In addition to discussing these significant results, this paper also included some implications of the study results, particularly the importance of religiosity and emotions toward God or the Divine in sustaining resilience and promoting wellness, especially in the context of crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Religion/Spirituality (R/S) has been associated with mental health. Although most Filipinos are Christian, little research has been done on how R/S affects their mental health. To address this research gap, an open-ended questionnaire was conducted on forty-three Filipino Christian youths regarding their thoughts, motives, and emotions about private prayer. Responses were coded and analyzed with the qualitative data analysis software NVivo. A traditional coding method was also employed to contextualize the data. Results show that most respondents define prayer as a way to communicate with God and personally encounter the transcendent. In general, prayer was used to express gratitude, request something, seek guidance, ask for forgiveness, or find psychological comfort. In most cases, participants prayed when they were feeling down or troubled. The majority prayed in silence and with their eyes closed. Most respondents felt calm and relaxed when praying. Many respondents also noted that their conversation with God provided comfort, reassurance, and relief. A theoretical model of causal pathways for the effects of prayer on mental health was used to examine how Filipino Christian youths’ emotional health—a component of mental health—is affected by prayer. Research suggests that prayer guides many respondents in their decisions and life choices. Prayer also may evoke human virtues, such as gratitude, patience, and honesty. For many, prayer is critical to their cognitive appraisal of stressful events and serves as a coping resource. This study has important implications for R/S as a resource for mental well-being among youth in a country with limited mental health services.

The presence of different religions and the freedom of people to navigate the religious space shows that religion in the Philippines is not a monolithic entity. This study validated three versions of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRSi-7, -14, and -20) which propose an adequate assessment tool for the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in Philippine society. The sample (N = 514) was drawn from the young population of the country in an online survey. Descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha values were calculated for the five subscales (ideology, intellect, experience, private and public practice) of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale. The factor structure of the interreligious Centrality of Religiosity Scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The results show that CRSi-7 denotes internal consistency while CRSi-14 and CRSi-20 indicate good internal consistency. Models of CRSi-7, -14, and -20 show a good global fit. Despite two models of the CRSi-20 being identical in fit, the researchers defer to the CRSi-20 model with correlated factors since it is a simpler model. All versions of the CRSi demonstrate a valid and reliable measure for the centrality of religiosity in the Philippines and support the usefulness of the CRS for the study of religiosity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on many areas of people’s lives all over the world, including in the area of education. Many educational institutions must un-preparedly transition from physical classes to distance learning modalities, affecting both the students and teachers. Given that the teachers are confronted with so many challenges, leading to their increased stress and mental health issues, this research project investigated the role of religiosity in the contentment of a sample of 296 teachers in the Philippines, mediated by the effects of resilience, optimism, and well-being. Bivariate correlation analysis showed that religiosity, resilience, optimism, and well-being were positively and significantly correlated with each other, while contentment was positively and significantly correlated with optimism and well-being. Regression analysis indicated no direct significant association between religiosity and contentment. Mediation analyses suggested that optimism partially mediated the impact of religiosity on well-being, whereas well-being fully mediated the impact of religiosity on contentment and the impact of optimism on contentment. Lastly, the measurement model indicated a significant path from religiosity to contentment through optimism and well-being. These significant results suggest that, while facing adversities in life, the teachers in the Philippines might use religiosity and its relevant dimensions as positive coping mechanisms to face the academic challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus derive contentment that is mediated by the positive effects of optimism and well-being.