Work Environment Characteristics and Teacher Well-Being: The Mediation of Emotion Regulation Strategies.

Wenlan Wang,Hongbiao Yin,Shenghua Huang

doi:10.3390/ijerph13090907

Abstract

Based on an adjusted Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model that considers the mediation of personal resources, this study examined the relationships between two characteristics of teachers’ work environment (i.e., emotional job demands and trust in colleagues) and two indicators of teachers’ well-being (i.e., teaching satisfaction and emotional exhaustion). In particular, the study focused on how emotion regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) mediate these relationships. Data collected from a questionnaire survey of 1115 primary school teachers in Hong Kong was analyzed to test the hypothesized relationships. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that: (1) the emotional job demands of teaching were detrimental to teacher well-being, whereas trust in colleagues was beneficial; (2) both emotion regulation strategies mediated the relationships between both emotional job demands and trust in colleagues and teacher well-being; and (3) teachers who tend to use more reappraisal may be psychologically healthier than those tend to adopt more suppression. These findings support the applicability of the JD-R model to school settings and highlight the role of teachers’ emotion regulation in teachers’ well-being. Implications for the improvement of school environments and teachers’ well-being are identified.

Highlights

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model has been widely used to explain the relationships between work environment characteristics and employees’ performance and well-being [1,2].According to the JD-R model, job characteristics can be divided into two categories: job demands and job resources
The Structural equation modeling (SEM) results indicated that emotional job demands were positively associated with emotional exhaustion (Beta coefficient (β) = 0.49, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with teaching satisfaction (β = −0.12, p < 0.001), supporting H1
Reappraisal was positively associated with teaching satisfaction (β = 0.24, p < 0.001) and negatively related to emotional exhaustion (β = −0.22, p < 0.001); suppression was negatively associated with teaching satisfaction (β = −0.17, p < 0.001) and positively related to emotional exhaustion (β = 0.30, p < 0.001)

Summary

Introduction

The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model has been widely used to explain the relationships between work environment characteristics and employees’ performance and well-being [1,2]. According to the JD-R model, job characteristics can be divided into two categories: job demands and job resources. These two types of job characteristics are related to employees’ stress and motivation, respectively, and to some organizational outcomes such as performance, turnover intention, and health problems [3,4,5]. Teacher emotion in school settings has increasingly attracted the attention of researcher in recent years [9,10,11]. Emotion is well known to closely relate to one’s well-being [20,21,22], no attempt has been made to explore the links among teachers’ emotion regulation, work environment, and their well-being

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion