Teachers' Emotion Regulation in the Workplace: A Comparative Systematic Review

Abstract

This research aims to explore and compare descriptive context-specific characteristics and workplace outcomes of the studies on teachers' emotion regulation (TER) at primary education (PE) and secondary education (SE) levels. A systematic review with a mapping approach was employed on NVivo 14 to provide a thorough overview of TER studies in the literature indexed in the Web of Science at PE and SE levels. Accordingly, 20 TER studies in PE and 31 in SE were identified to be reviewed systematically. Descriptive findings suggested a rise in TER studies. Quantitative methods were dominantly employed, and the majority were conducted in China. The conceptual focus of the studies highlighted two key areas: emotion regulation and emotional labour. The primary research focus was found to be affective factors in the workplace. The findings of conceptual analyses on the workplace outcomes revealed five themes at both levels, namely, leadership and management, organisational climate and support, cultural and diversity considerations, teacher development, and classroom and interaction dynamics consisting of similar and distinctive codes.