Social-Emotional Competence As the Promotive and Protective Factor for Chinese School Teachers' Mental Well-Being

Background and Purpose: Globally, teaching is recognized as an emotionally intense profession, often associated with stress and burnout. This issue is particularly evident in the Chinese educational system, where school teachers have reported a decline in mental well-being, largely due to increased administrative burdens and workloads. While Western literature has explored and acknowledged the importance of teachers' social-emotional competence (SEC) in ensuring their own well-being and positive student outcomes (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Schonert-Reichl, 2017), the roles of teacher SEC within the Chinese school context remain under-researched. Adopting a resilience perspective, this study aims to explore the roles of SEC in supporting psychological well-being of Chinese school teachers. We tested the main effect of SEC, hypothesizing that SEC would act as a promotive factor for mental well-being of teachers. We also investigated the buffering effects of SEC, hypothesizing that teacher SEC would serve as a protective factor moderating the negative effects of job burnout on mental well-being.

Methods: Data were collected from 606 Chinese teachers using a random stratified cluster sampling method. The participants were recruited from 20 elementary and 20 middle schools within a county in southwest China. To measure teacher SEC, a newly validated, 23-item scale of teacher SEC (T-SEC) was utilized. This tool not only assesses a global T-SEC factor but also includes four subscales: self-awareness, emotion management, social awareness for equity and inclusion, and relationship skills. Teachers' mental well-being was measured using the WHO-5 scale; job burnout was measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES), previously validated with Chinese samples. We also measured and statistically controlled for other relevant teacher-level and school-level variables.

Results: The regression analysis results indicated that the global T-SEC factor significantly predicted teachers' mental well-being (β=.48, p<.001), controlling for various teacher-level and school-level socio-demographic variables. Notably, among the four subfactors of T-SEC, emotional management (β= .14, p < .05) and relationship skills (β= .52, p<.001) were found to be significantly associated with teachers' mental well-being. Furthermore, the interaction analysis results indicated a significant negative interaction between teachers' SEC and their burnout (p<.05). Notably, among the four subfactors of SEC, relationship skills was found to be a significant moderator, which weakened the negative association between burnout and mental well-being (p<.05). Additionally, emotion management was identified as a marginally significant moderator (p=.05).

Conclusions and Implications: This study highlights the significant main and buffering effects of teachers' SEC on their mental well-being. These findings suggest that SEC is a pivotal element in fostering resilience among teachers, enabling them to cope more effectively with stress and burnout. This study offers critical insights for the development of future interventions targeting Chinese school teachers. Promoting teachers' SEC, particularly with a focus on improving their emotion management and relationship skills, can be an effective strategy to support Chinese school teachers' psychological well-being.