Teacher experience and students' mental well-being.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between homeroom teachers' experience and students' mental well-being, in addition to examining the underlying mechanisms that can explain the relationship. Secondary data from the Gyeonggi Education Panel Study was used. The analysis included 3002 fourth graders and 3090 first-year middle school students in Gyeonggi province in South Korea, and the quasi-random assignment of students into classrooms in South Korea was used. The level of students' mental well-being was used as an outcome, and homeroom teachers' experience was used as an independent variable. Students' perception of their homeroom teachers' teaching skills and teachers' self-perceived capacity for understanding students' behaviors were used for mechanism analyses. Students assigned to homeroom teachers with less than 5 years of experience had lower mental well-being than those assigned to more experienced homeroom teachers. Mechanism analyses revealed that teachers who had more than 5 years of experience were more confident about understanding their students than those who had less than 5 years of experience. Homeroom teachers' experience is highly associated with students' mental well-being. To promote students' mental well-being, deeper understanding of the relationship between teachers' experience and students' mental well-being is necessary.