Empathy represents an essential prerequisite for developing effective interpersonal behavior and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Education is a result of teacher-student interaction, and, therefore, it is worth noting that teaching empathy is critical for the development of students and the professional growth of teachers. Recently, researchers began to explore the influential factors of empathy (e.g., empathic mindsets) based on motivation. Beyond their empathic attitudes, teachers also have a mindset toward the development of students. A survey study was adopted to explore the relationship between the theories of the growth of students and teacher empathy. Four hundred and eighty-four Chinese teachers completed the student development scale, the teacher empathic motivation scale, and the teacher empathy scale. The mediation model results showed that the theories of the development of students could significantly predict teacher empathy and teacher empathic motivation. The teacher empathic motivation mediated the positive relationship between the theories of the development of students and teacher empathy. This study proposes a new concept and method for teacher empathy intervention in future.

No abstract

Introduction Kindergarten teachers who empathize with toddlers experience a great risk of burnout and emotional disturbance. This is referred to as compassion fatigue, in which teachers’ empathy experience is reduced. This study proposed a moderated mediation model to identify the risks of compassion fatigue and its protective factors for developing evidence-based clinical interventions. Methods In this cross-sectional study, self-report measures were administered to 1049 kindergarten teachers to observe their mindsets toward children, motivation for teacher empathy, job stress, social support, and compassion fatigue. The PROCESS macro (SPSS 23.0) was used to assess the moderated mediation model. Results The results demonstrated that motivation for teacher empathy mediated the negative relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and compassion fatigue. Moreover, job stress and social support moderated the relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and motivation for teacher empathy. However, this effect was not observed in the negative relationship between kindergarten teachers’ mindsets toward children and compassion fatigue. Conclusion The proposed moderated mediation model was found to be valid. Furthermore, the study findings have practical implications for developing evidence-based interventions for addressing kindergarten teachers’ compassion fatigue.

No abstract