Relations between University Teachers’ Teaching-Related Coping Strategies and Well-Being Over Time: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis

Abstract

Background: University teachers’ well-being plays a critical role in their productivity and educa-tional effectiveness. Apart from cross-sectional research on demographic and institution-al/contextual correlates, insight into potential causes and consequences of faculty well-being is limited. This includes insight into relations between different coping strategies and well-being.Aims: We studied the interplay of different strategies for coping with teaching-related stress in university settings with university teachers’ well-being over the course of one semester of teach-ing.Sample: Participants were 489 German university teachers’ (age: M=41.1 years, SD=11.4) from 34 universities. Their demographics were characteristic for German university staff.Methods: Participants reported on their use of three major coping strategies (task-oriented, emo-tion-oriented, avoidance-oriented coping) to manage teaching-related stress and on their subjec-tive well-being (positive and negative affect; job satisfaction) at the beginning (T1: November) and end (T2: February) of the winter 2020/2021 term. Interrelations were examined via cross-lagged panel analysis.Results: Task-oriented coping positively predicted changes in positive affect, and vice versa, over time. Moreover, emotion-oriented coping (rumination) positively predicted changes in neg-ative affect, and vice versa. For avoidance-oriented coping and teaching-related job satisfac-tion, no substantial relations were observed.Conclusions: The findings provide important initial directions for developing supportive measures targeting the promotion of well-being in university teaching staff by highlighting the functional relevance of different coping styles as causes and consequences thereof. Our findings suggest that fostering task-oriented coping may be particularly adaptive for well-being: at the same time, interventions aiming to promote well-being may also facilitate the adoption of task-oriented coping.