The relationship between resilience and professional well-being among early childhood teachers: the chain mediating role of teacher pedagogical competence and self-efficacy

Abstract

Research has shown that the rapidly changing technological environment and unprecedented uncertainty have posed a huge dilemma for teachers across the globe, affecting the well-being of teachers. In response to this situation, many researchers have focused their perspectives on teacher resilience, which has been a key factor in helping teachers break through difficult situations. However, despite the fact that literature has emphasised the role of resilience for ed-ucators, there is still a lack of focus on teachers' professional well-being. Therefore, in order to reveal the relationship between resilience and well-being of teachers as well as the mechanism of influence, a questionnaire method was used to survey 1,377 early childhood teachers, and it was proposed to explore the chain mediating role of self-efficacy and pedagogical competence of early childhood teachers in the relationship between teachers' resilience and professional well-being. The results showed that (1) early childhood teachers' resilience significantly and positively predicted occupational well-being (2) there was a mediating effect of teachers' self-efficacy between teachers' resilience and occupational well-being; (3) there was a mediating effect of teachers' pedagogical competence between teachers' resilience and occupational well-being; and (4) there was a chain mediating effect of teachers' self-efficacy and pedagogical competence between teachers' resilience and occupational well-being. It is therefore concluded that teacher teacher resilience not only directly affects their occupational well-being level of occupational exploration, but also indirectly affects teacher occupational well-being through the independent mediating effects of self-efficacy and pedagogical competence, and the chain mediating effects of self-efficacy and pedagogical competence. Accordingly, the following recom-mendations are made that teacher resilience should be emphasised, inservice training efforts for early childhood teachers should be strengthened, and their level of self-efficacy and pedagogical competence should be enhanced, ultimately enhancing their level of occupational well-being so that they can better cope with the various challenges that are coming their way.

Keywords: Early childhood teachers; Teacher pedagogical competence; Teacher professional well-being; Teacher resilience; Teacher self-efficacy.