Exploring the role of individual psychological and work-related contextual factors in language teachers’ well-being

Abstract

This survey study explored the role of three psychological individual factors (trait emotional intelligence, emotion regulation style, and emotion regulation difficulty), one work-related individual factor (teaching experience), and one work-related contextual factor (class size) in different facets of language teachers’ well-being. To capture well-being, a sample of 254 language teachers completed the Workplace PERMA Profiler and the Psychological Well-Being Scale. Before data were analyzed via regression analysis, the psychometric properties of both well-being instruments were evaluated through confirmatory factor analysis. Results showed that the instruments measured theoretically related albeit distinct constructs and that the originally theorized factor structures of the adopted well-being models could not be replicated with language teacher data. Following model adjustments, the regression analysis indicated the significant predictive power of emotion regulation capacities (i.e., habitual cognitive emotion regulation style, perceived difficulty in emotion regulation) and class size on different facets of well-being. Results contribute to the conceptual clarification of language teacher well-being, which can inform effective social-emotional professional development opportunities for language teachers at all career stages and yield institutional policy implications. Practical implications and avenues for future research are discussed.