Chinese English as a Foreign Language Teachers’ Self-Efficacy and Psychological Well-Being as Predictors of Their Work Engagement

Abstract

Work engagement is widely acknowledged as an influential element in teachers’ professional success; thus, remarkable attention has been paid to the physical and psychological predictors of this construct. Yet, the antecedents of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ work engagement have rarely been studied. To narrow the existing gap, the current inquiry aimed to delve into the psychological determinants of teacher work engagement by scrutinizing the role of psychological well-being and self-efficacy in Chinese EFL teachers’ engagement. To this end, three close-ended questionnaires were given to 304 Chinese EFL teachers via WeChat messenger. Conducting correlational analyses, positive and substantial relationships were discovered between psychological well-being, self-efficacy, and teaching engagement. The function that psychological well-being and self-efficacy may serve in Chinese EFL teachers’ engagement was also assessed using path analysis. Chinese EFL teachers’ work engagement was found to be considerably affected by their sense of efficacy and well-being. Some pedagogical implications that might be noteworthy for teachers and institutional administrators are finally discussed.

Enhancing Chinese EFL Teachers’ Work Engagement: The Role of Self and Collective Efficacy

“…A similar pattern of results was obtained by Lipscomb et al (2021) in that self-efficacious educators with positive attitudes toward their capabilities in employing operational methodologies, involving learners have a great tendency to involve in the instruction. This study is also consistent with Kong (2021) , who mentioned that teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy can prevail over the teaching difficulties, put more effort into instruction, and have higher levels of grittiness in facing demanding issues. This research proves Granziera and Perera (2019) , who found an inter-relatedness construct between job satisfaction, teacher individual efficacy, and job engagement.…”

“… Kong (2021) , on the other hand, found a direct correlation between teacher engagement and self-efficacy. His study showed that Chinese EFL educators’ job involvement is significantly influenced by their well-being and efficacy.…”

“…He argued that self-efficacious instructors seem to regard instructional difficulties as a manageable issue and are inclined to employ innovative methodologies to contribute their learners to accomplishing their tasks. Kong (2021), on the other hand, found a direct correlation between teacher engagement and self-efficacy. His study showed that Chinese EFL educators' job involvement is significantly influenced by their well-being and efficacy.…”

A Structural Model of Teacher Self-Efficacy, Emotion Regulation, and Psychological Wellbeing Among English Teachers

“…Given that language teaching is among the occupations with the highest degrees of stress, teachers bear many negative emotions and stress in their work environment ( Mercer and Gregersen, 2020 ). As such, the investigation of EFL teachers’ psychological variables has been the subject of significant number of studies recently (e.g., Talbot and Mercer, 2018 ; Kong, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Chu and Liu, 2022 ; Liu and Chu, 2022 ). For example, Liu and Chu (2022) carried out a quantitative study to examine the construct of resilience among Chinese EFL teachers.…”

The Contribution of Psychological Wellbeing and Emotion-Regulation to Foreign Language Teaching Enjoyment

“…In their cross-cultural study, Greenier et al (2021) figured out that psychological wellbeing was a significant predictor of both Iranian ( N = 255) and British ( N = 108) language teachers’ work engagement. Likewise, Kong (2021) studied 304 Chinese EFL teachers’ work engagement and found that their self-efficacy and psychological wellbeing significantly predicted their dedication to the job.…”