A diary investigation of teachers’ emotional labor for negative emotions: Its associations with perceived student disengagement and emotional exhaustion

Abstract

The present study adopted the daily diary technique and examined the relationships among teachers' perceived student disengagement, emotional labor, and emotional exhaustion. The data included 587 Canadian teachers' 4,084 diary survey responses. Multilevel structural equation modeling was conducted at both the daily and teacher levels. At the daily level, perceived student disengagement was associated with teachers' genuine expression and faking of negative emotions. At the teacher level, early-semester emotional exhaustion corresponded with perceived student disengagement and teachers' hiding of negative emotions, which yielded even worse late-semester emotional exhaustion. Perceived student disengagement was also related to teachers’ genuine expression of negative emotions.