Self-Efficacy and Emotion Regulation as Predictors of Teacher Burnout Among English as a Foreign Language Teachers: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Since teachers and their psychological factors have a significant share of variance in accounting for success in educational contexts, significant number of empirical studies have investigated the associations among intrapsychic variables of teachers. To further examine the inter-connections between individual teacher constructs in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, this study explored the role of emotion regulation and teacher self-efficacy in predicting teacher burnout in the Chinese EFL context. In so doing, a sample of 174 EFL teachers completed a survey containing the three valid scales measuring these constructs. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to examine the structural model of the variables under investigation. The findings revealed that teacher self-efficacy accounted for 20% of the variance in burnout, whereas emotion regulation represented 11.2% of the teacher burnout variance. Overall, it was revealed that although both variables exerted a significant unique contribution to teacher burnout, teacher self-efficacy seemed to be a stronger predictor of burnout than emotion regulation of teachers. The results might have remarkable implications for EFL teacher development programs.

Automated summary

This study examined the predictive roles of emotion regulation and teacher self-efficacy in teacher burnout in the Chinese English as a Foreign Language context. The results showed that teacher self-efficacy is a stronger predictor of teacher burnout compared to emotion regulation.