Teachers' Personal and Collective Work-Identity Predicts Exhaustion and Work Motivation: Mediating Roles of Psychological Job Demands and Resources.

Ola Nordhall,Johan Willander,Igor Knez,Fredrik Saboonchi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01538

Ola Nordhall, Johan Willander + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01538

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating roles of teachers' psychological job demands and resources regarding personal and collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion and self-determined work motivation, respectively. A total of 2,905 members of a Swedish teacher's trade union received an online questionnaire by e-mail; 768 individuals answered the questionnaire and so participated in this study. The data were obtained by self-reported measures (e.g., emotional and cognitive components of work-identity, psychological job demands and resources, exhaustion and work motivation) and analyzed by mediation regression analyses. The results showed that teachers' psychological job demands (prosocial extra-role performance) mediated relationships between cognitive personal work-identity and emotional collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion. Teachers' psychological job resources (educational inspiration) mediated relationships between emotional personal work-identity and cognitive collective work-identity, respectively, and self-determined work motivation. Thus, teachers might be disadvantaged by stronger personal work-related thinking and collective work-related feeling when related to exhaustion, to some extent accounted for by psychological job demands, and they might find advantage in stronger personal work-related feeling and collective work-related thinking when related to work motivation, to some extent accounted for by psychological job resources.

Highlights

Prevalence of burnout syndrome among teachers is higher than in other professional groups
The current study focuses on elucidating the work-related links between teachers’ collective and personal work-identity, exhaustion, work motivation, and psychological job demands and resources
Psychological job demands were measured by three items, assessing teachers’ prosocial extra-role performance (“extra-role support given to the pupils; colleagues; pupils’ parents,” respectively), on a five-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 to 5

Summary

Introduction

Prevalence of burnout syndrome among teachers is higher than in other professional groups. Teachers may have access to strong work motivation and engagement in their daily educational work. The aim of the present study was to investigate the mediating roles of teacher’s psychological job demands and resources in relations between personal and collective workidentity, respectively, and exhaustion and self-determined work motivation, respectively. Teachers may be exposed to threats and even violence by students and/or their parents (De Cordova et al, 2019) Such stressful work-related situations make teachers especially vulnerable to psychological distress, such as burnout syndrome, exhaustion (Maslach et al, 2001; Saboonchi et al, 2012). The one factor model of exhaustion showed a Cronbach alpha value (α) of 0.95, indicating very good internal consistency (see DeVellis, 2003)

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