Abstract
Given the role of stress and self-efficacy on educators in the process of language learning and teaching, it is postulated that further elements such as teachers’ emotional exhaustion and work engagement had a remarkable role in the educational process both for teachers and learners; however, the predictor role of self-efficacy and stress remains uninvestigated and much ambiguity still exists about the relation between. A total of 295 male and female Chinese EFL teachers who were teaching English in 21 provinces kindly accepted to attend this study. They were asked to fill out four questionnaires, including the teacher self-efficacy scale, work engagement scale, teacher stress scale, and teachers’ emotional exhaustion scale. For the first question of the study, Pearson coefficient of correlation was used while for the second one, a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was run. The results of the study demonstrated a positive relationship between teachers’ work engagement and self-efficacy, while a negative correlation exists between overall work engagement and stress, emotional exhaustion and work engagement, and emotional exhaustion and work engagement. Moreover, there is no significant correlation between self-efficacy and stress. The findings of the study also signified that both self-efficacy and stress meaningfully predict students’ emotional exhaustion and work engagement. In conclusion, some implications and suggestions have been presented for language teaching stakeholders in language learning situations.
Introduction
Teachers must be viewed as key figures, among the different partners in any instructive framework, who hold the capacity to affect both the achievement/failure of learners and the framework (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020; Derakhshan, Coombe, Arabmofrad, et al., 2020). Having understood the significant role that teachers play, educators endeavored to maintain exceptionally qualified or successful teachers in their educational systems to develop an education that meets the various needs of learners (Janzen & Phelan, 2019; Joseph et al., 2014; Sogunro, 2014), so the type of teaching that can satisfy students’ diverse learning desires could be provided. In the English language teaching (ELT) setting, the research focus has been drawn to the study of educator-related factors (Choi & Lee, 2016; Fathi & Derakhshan, 2019; Fathi & Savadi Rostami, 2018; Xie & Derakhshan, 2021). Stress, among the individual affective elements, has been referred to as one of the main factors and this idea has steadily become normal throughout everyday life (Jepson & Forrest, 2006; Wang & Derakhshan, 2021). Indeed, about 25% of educators specified that their job is very challenging and stressful, and their stress affects their wellbeing and capability as well as their learners’ scholarly accomplishments. Educators who suffer from stress are likely to feel uncomfortable, unkind, and have negative emotions such as irritability, panic, nervousness, impatience, or despair, which originates from the degree of discrepancy between their expectations and their capabilities to tackle them (Chen et al., 2021; Derakhshan et al., 2021; Kyriacou, 2001). Subsequently, dealing with educator stress is an issue that needs to be considered (Ipek et al., 2018; Shkëmbi et al., 2015). It has been shown that many educational professions are challenging, as stress produces emotional effects such as minor frustration, irritability, nervousness, along with more severe mental disorders and negative symptoms (Newberry & Allsop, 2017). Since stress can be viewed by educators as a danger to their physical and mental well-being, teaching stress can influence teacher efficacy and motivation (Kyriacou, 2001). Giving overall panorama of the existing literature research in literature, stress at work may result in physical and mental illness, fatigue, and burnout (an emotional overload depression, emotional exhaustion, and loss of personal motivation and capabilities), reduced attendance, which may lead to career abandonment (Jepson & Forrest, 2006; Kokkinos, 2007).
Additionally, job stress can also adversely affect one’s emotional health by reducing mental abilities, reducing job satisfaction and depression, lessening work engagement, reducing motivation, and increasing anxiety (Klassen & Chiu, 2010; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2016). Several inquiries display that teaching is a demanding career in various settings (Aftab & Khatoon, 2012; Khan et al., 2012; McCarthy et al., 2010). Few issues cause educators to feel stressed, disappointed, puzzled, or worried (Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012). All these emotions can prompt burnout (Saksri et al., 2018) that is resultant from chronic stress syndrome, as a prominent role, pressing factors and time limitations, and the absence of required assets for carrying out assignments (Iacovides et al., 2003; Toppinen-Tanner et al., 2005). Emotional exhaustion, among the elements of burnout, gives off an impression of being the most critical. It is often developed first in the establishment of burnout and leads to greater degrees of depersonalization and diminished feelings of individual achievement (Maslach et al., 2001). Emotional exhaustion is referred to the circumstance wherein one’s mental state is negatively influenced by destructive feelings. Individual achievement alludes to an individual’s sense of inability and failure to do specific assignments. The process in which an individual starts to possess negative emotions regarding the related career is known as depersonalization (Fathi & Saeedian, 2020). As a result of feeling overstretched and drained emotionally, one can experience emotional exhaustion. Disengagement refers to cognitive indifference, disinterest, or hostility toward an individual’s profession and poor individual performance encompasses feeling ineffective to do the task and the absence of personal achievement (Arens & Morin, 2016). Moreover, educators’ emotional exhaustion could prompt lower degrees of self-efficacy concerning instruction and educational quality (Chang, 2009). This in turn decreases learners’ mastery of course material and their pre-determined accomplishment criteria as examined in standardized accomplishment tests. Similarly, expected to be more critical and less motivational in light of learners’ achievements are educators with more significant degrees of emotional exhaustion (Klusmann et al., 2016). The fundamental concept of Bandura’s Social Psychology Theory in 1977 is self-efficacy which shows humans’ agility such as abilities to perform deliberately to adjust to the milieu and situations of life (Bandura, 2006). A person’s attitude about his or her potentials to do certain types of duties successfully can be defined as self-efficacy. Indeed, how people perceive their efficacy capacities regulates how they plan and achieve goals, targets, or obstacles, along with the amount of energy they spend, how patient they are in the case of problems, and in what way they cope with issues, and their level of stress they experience in stressful circumstances (Bandura, 2012). He maintains that self-efficacy prompts empowering eagerness, enthusiasm, and the intellectual assets of a person, and it is an element to regulate a specific incident. In all life domains, self-efficacy conviction is a foundation for enthusiasm, better life, and individual accomplishments (Barari & Barari, 2015). Encompassing this construct into the educational setting, self-efficacy in teachers is defined as their opinions concerning their aptitude that can affect their learners’ educational achievement (Mok & Moore, 2019). For the most part, an educator’s job is not restricted to teaching learners; rather, it extends to building a successful framework and culture inside their instructive organizations. In light of this idea, it is reasonable to conceptualize educator self-efficacy as educators’ convictions in their capacities to plan, arrange, and complete exercises needed to achieve specific instructive objectives (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007).
Teacher self-efficacy is regarded as a significant issue in scholastic erudition (Shaterian Mohamadi & Asadzadeh, 2012). By teaching efficacy, it means how well educators can teach, how persistent they are when faced with in case of facing difficulty, how they conduct consider themselves as educators, and how their learners perform in school (Dixon et al., 2014; Han & Wang, 2021; Scherer Jansen et al., 2016). The self-efficacy construct has been extensively investigated during the last four decades, because of its importance in both learners’ success as well as educators’ work fulfillment and effectiveness (Fathi & Savadi Rostami, 2018; Piniel & Csizér, 2013; Zee & Koomen, 2016). The self-efficacy of educators, their conviction about their capacities, affects their achievements, and thus, affects their class climate, as well (Han & Wang, 2021; Schunk et al., 2014). When an educator has a feeling of confidence in their instructing capacities and maintains that s/he can handle her/his class, there will be an accompanying sensation of pleasure and enjoyment (Bolton, 2018). Thus, about keeping an educator’s professionalism, self-efficacy is a significant variable (Kasalak & Dagyar, 2020). Educators who lack self-efficacy may suffer from a motivational deficiency that leads them to burnout and when they never believe in their capabilities and aptitudes, they become discouraged which leads to burnout. In the educational setting, instructor proficiency adversely affects the learning environment that results in educators being aware of the idea of burnout (Caprara et al., 2006). Based on the evidence, teachers’ efficacy affects teachers’ sense of satisfaction and helps them to become more effective educators and as a result, enhance learners’ school performance. Experts agree that it influences educators’ teaching techniques, learners’ interests, and school progress (Klassen & Chiu, 2010; Zee & Koomen, 2016). In addition, self-efficacy beliefs assume a significant part in educator loyalty and work fulfillment. Educators with great levels of self-efficacy convictions are bound to have more work fulfillment, better relational interactions, and better conditions compared to other educators (Caprara et al., 2003; Han & Wang, 2021).
Regarding work fulfillment, another idea that incorporates an individual interest in one’s work in addition to fulfillment and delight from the actual work is work engagement, which is characterized as a constructive and insistent mental state (Van Beek et al., 2011). As stated by Schaufeli et al. (2002), work engagement can be regarded as an encouraging, satisfying, occupational perspective portrayed by vigor, devotion, and interest (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Also, Wildermuth and Pauken (2008) declared that work engagement is an unconstrained and intended dynamic participation in assignments. As stated by Bakker and Bal (2010), in educators’ teaching, educator engagement assumes a crucial part since it could trigger learners’ engagement and, in this manner, serve to enhance learning. Thus, educator engagement entails that the educator is exceptionally excited, inquisitive, and intrigued. Specifically, educators with great degrees of engagement would probably display improved execution, as they put more energy into their assignments and work with more noteworthy intensity for longer timeframes. Numerous scholars (e.g., Bakker et al., 2012; Rich et al., 2010) proved the constructive role of work engagement on job presentation. Studies demonstrated that educators engaged with their work will in general be more proactive in the school setting and will elevate the delight in learning and help learners and their psychological well-being (Greenier et al., 2021; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Roorda et al., 2011).
A great number of studies have been conducted to investigate the function of the personal and emotional issues related to teachers, and in this route of the survey, the exploration of the relations among some educator-interrelated factors such as their efficacy, work engagement, stress, exhaustion, emotional intelligence, confidence, and job gratification have received much more attention among scholars (e.g., Fathi & Derakhshan, 2019; Razmjoo & Ayoobiyan, 2019; Schweitzer, 2014; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). Among these factors, efficacy has been related to different key features of teaching and it has been reliably confirmed that educators with more intellect of efficacy are more passionate and pleased with their occupation (Caprara et al., 2006), come across lower levels of burnout (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008), demonstrate more confidence at their work, and are more probable to carry on teaching. In addition, research has presented that teachers’ stress not only relates to consequences for teachers, such as enthusiasm, commitment, and involvement in teaching (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004; Weiqi, 2007), they also work on students. Indeed, educators who had a low level of stress have a better achievement (Caprara et al., 2006). Some researchers have proved the efficacy of self-efficacy and stress in the progression of education; however, based on the researcher’s knowledge, there is a dearth in the literature scrutinizing the Chinese EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and stress as interpreters of emotional exhaustion and work engagement.
Literature Review
Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is delineated as the level at which a person can manage and perform specific types of tasks effectively (Young et al., 2018). Through experiences of shared consciousness, emotional states, and mastery learning, both principles and performance can be improved (Klassen & Tze, 2014). As educators gain assurance in their capability to learn new techniques and make informed verdicts that improve learners’ achievement, their self-efficacy is improved. A person with high self-efficacy actively seeks difficult projects, spends extra time and effort toward success, and does not give up even if their goals are not met (Buric & Macuka, 2018). The academic authorities can boost English educators’ self-efficacy levels by providing activities that will improve their leadership skills and make them more capable of conducting educational activities (Pace et al., 2014). An educator’s efficacy refers to how effective educators think they are at in helping learners to succeed, and it affects their education (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001). A person with great efficacy may be more successful in life than a person with less self-efficacy. Learners’ enthusiasm, confidence, and performance are predisposed by educators’ self-efficacy along with their educational practices. Therefore, educators with a great level of self-efficacy frequently apply proper teaching approaches and tactics, resulting in greater learner engagement and academic success (Ipek et al., 2018).
Work Engagement
Work engagement is defined by an active sense of purpose and commitment to individual and organizational success in the face of difficulties, as well as active participation (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Teacher work engagement considers engagement actively, cognitively, psychologically, and socially (Klassen et al., 2013).In their definition of work engagement, Leiter and Bakker (2010) referred to concentration and effort dedicated to achieving individual accomplishments and being enthusiastic about their profession. Vigor, dedication, and absorption can be deemed as its components (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Vigor alludes to the experience of significant degrees of energy to exert and persist when confronting challenges at work. Being emphatically associated with one’s work while feeling excited, motivated, and experiencing difficulties, is referred to as dedication. Being cheerfully immersed and completely focused on one’s work is known as absorption (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Teachers’ high engagement is uncovered through various effectively perceptible physical and verbal articulations that pass on their involvement in work exercises and their excitement, like open and alert stance, unconstrained grins and eye to eye connection, and uplifting perspective (Van Mierlo & Bakker, 2018).
Teacher Stress
The fundamental sources of stress are related to mismatched functions and high expectations, demotivated learners, responsibility, limited educator independence, absence of adequate time, manager- and peer-educator connections, unending oversight, deficient assets, oppressed working circumstances, and absence of authoritative support (Aydin & Kaya, 2016; Mearns & Cain, 2003). Characterized even on a global level, teachers’ stress can have significant adverse results on educators, on the nature of instruction, and educators’ relationship with learners, prompting poor scholarly, and relational results for learners (Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012) Represented by states like resentment, strain, disillusionment, or despondence, educator stress is recognized by a few authors as an undesirable emotional experience as a result of instructing obligations (Collie et al., 2012). Negative experiences that go on excessively can prompt emotional exhaustion and the insight of a failure in a person’s capacity to work in different domains (Alonso et al., 2020; Mariani et al., 2020).
Emotional Exhaustion
Generally, burnout is depicted as a mental disorder portrayed by slow emotional weariness, decreased energy, and loss of motivation (Vizoso et al., 2019). It is also depicted as a reaction to ongoing pressure (Maroco & Campos, 2012). The burnout phenomenon is characterized as a disorder of emotional exhaustion, and diminished individual success among people who accomplish “people work” or the like (Maslach, 2003a). Implied by emotional exhaustion is being both physically and psychologically stressed due to job pressure or feeling depleted (Maslach, 2003b). Van Droogenbroeck et al. (2014) studied the function of responsibility and relational connections at work in anticipating the senior educator’s burnout in Belgium. The outcomes uncovered that identified with emotional exhaustion fatigue, were relational connections between learners, peers, bosses, and guardians, and educating alongside non-educational related jobs. In another study led by Badawy (2015), it was revealed that an absence of independence, development, an agreeable physical setting, and administrator support increased the burnout in Egyptian educators. Jacobson (2016) also discovered that adding to American educators’ burnout, was an unreasonable responsibility, learners’ bad conduct, and an absence of consideration by supervisors. In another study, El Helou et al. (2016) discovered that the primary purposes behind Lebanese educators’ burnout were low income, school settings, joint effort/tutoring, class settings, and emotional elements.
Related Studies
Yu et al. (2015) have done a study on 387 teachers working at schools, emphasizing the function of instruction stress in educator burnout while accepting educator self-efficacy as an intervening construct. It was discovered that educator burnout was essentially connected with both work-related pressure and self-efficacy, and the latter could intercede the way from work pressure to educator burnout. In another research conducted by Ventura et al. (2015), they examined the role of an educator’s efficacy as a link to psychosocial prosperity, which was functionally characterized as burnout and engagement. By utilizing SEM, the information gathered from a large sample of respondents was assessed. The discoveries uncovered that proficient efficacy convictions were a great link of both burnout and commitment. In particular, proficient self-efficacy was confidently associated with involvement and it was adversely associated with burnout. In addition, another study has been done by Khani and Mirzaee (2015) on the association between stressors, circumstantial factors, self-efficacy, and educator burnout in the Iranian EFL setting. The sample involved 216 EFL educators who finished a questionnaire as well as a battery of polls. Examining the hypothesized model utilizing SEM uncovered that self-efficacy could altogether decrease educator burnout and could play the role of an interceding construct regulating the negative consequences of circumstantial factors and stressors on educator burnout. Moreover, Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2017) carried out research exploring the connections between educators’ convictions of the contextual factors, their self-efficacy, aggregate educator efficacy, educator burnout, and educator work fulfillment. Their sample involved a large number of Norwegian educators and by using structural equation modeling to carry out data analysis, it was revealed that a critical association exists between educator self-efficacy and burnout. In line with the gap that exists in the literature relating to the predictor role of self-efficacy and stress and their roles on teachers’ work engagement and emotional exhaustion, the subsequent research questions were uttered in the existing study.
Q1. Are there any significant interrelationships among Chinese EFL teachers’ self-efficacy, stress, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion?
Q2. Do Chinese EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and stress significantly predict their work engagement and emotional exhaustion?
Method
Participants
Selected based on the convenience sampling method, the initial participants of the current research were 295 Chinese EFL teachers, comprised 64 males (22%) and 231 females (78%) with an age range of 19 and 65 (M = 40.5). These teachers were teaching English in 21 provinces (namely Beijing, Shanghai, Henan, Zhejiang, Sichuan, etc.) across mainland China, and they varied in terms of their teaching experiences at university or school levels. All the participants were English-related majors’ graduates, and the majority of them (52%) were Master holders (n = 154), and the rest were Ph.D. holders (n = 30), Bachelor holders (n = 98), and Technical or Mechanical Degree holders (n = 13). Among the 295 EFL teachers, 144 had studied English Language Literature (49%), 50 had studied Applied Linguistics (17%), and the rest (n = 101) had studied Translation Studies (9%), Theoretical Linguistics (1%), and other majors (24%). They differed in terms of the duration of teaching experiences ranging from 1 to more than 25 years. A detailed account of participants is illustrated in Table 1.
Detailed Demographic Information.
Instruments
Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES)
The researcher used the teacher self-efficacy scale (TSES) constructed by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk-Hoy (2001) which contains three sub-factors such as (a) Efficacy for learners’ engagement that assess to what degree teachers trust in their capability to involve the students in classroom tasks; (b) Efficacy for instructional strategies that are interrelated to teachers’ view of the efficacy of their approaches and tactics employed in the class; (c) Efficacy for classroom management that is concerned with educators’ confidence in their capability to control the class as well as possible. Undoubtedly, the reliability of TSES is reported as .94 while its validity has been verified in various settings (Klassen et al., 2009).
Work Engagement Scale
Another instrument implemented in the present study is the Work Engagement Scale that refers to the 17-item Scale by Schaufeli et al. (2002) that is assessed on a 7-point Likert scale, fluctuating from 0 (“never”) to 6 (“always”) and it comprises items determining three interrelated proportions of work engagement, namely (a) vigor (six items) which is described by devoting more energy and intellectual power in the work; (b) dedication(five items) which considers experiencing eagerness, motivation, superiority, and challenge; (c) absorption (six items) that it considers concentration and involvement in one’s work. It should be noted that the reliability of this questionnaire in this study is .95 and correspondingly its validity has been maintained by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004).
Teacher Stress Scale
Teacher stress in the current survey was determined through a 5-item scale constructed by Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2016) on a 6-point scale extending from “Completely disagree” (1) to “Completely agree” (6). To differentiate between probable bases of stress and the consequential practice of stress, the items did not consider any specific school settings or stressors. The reliability of this scale calculated through Cronbach’s alpha is .86.
Teachers’ emotional exhaustion
Teachers’ emotional exhaustion was weighed through a well-known German version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory by Maslach et al. (1996) including four items which were assessed on a 4-point Likert scale (1 strongly disagree to 4 strongly agree). The reliability of this scale is .85 calculated through Cronbach’s alpha and its validity was assured by Seiz et al. (2015).
Data Collection Procedures
Before distributing the questionnaire, the written informed consent documents were given out to participants by the researchers based on doing the human subjects in the area of education (BERA, 2011) at the first stage, and participants were informed that their information would be kept confidential. To conduct the study, 295 male and female Chinese EFL teachers whose ages range from 30 to 60 kindly accepted to participate in the online survey due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bundle of four questionnaires on TSES, UWES, Teacher stress, and Teachers’ Emotional Exhaustion was sent to them, and they were asked to fill them in and to ask questions when confronting any difficulties. To collect the valid data, sufficient knowledge and information on the process of filling out the questionnaires were provided for them. It is worth mentioning that the researcher made them assure that the collected data are just for the sake of research goals and consequently the researcher promised for giving feedback on the results of each scale by e-mail to encourage them to be honest and precise in answering them. Finally, the data analyses were utilized to scrutinize the hypotheses of the study.
Data Analysis
In order to indicate the interactions between the variables of the study, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was utilized. Moreover, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was run through Amos 24 to answer the second research question of the study to check causal relationships among the components. As for the goodness-of-fit indices, the subsequent indices were taken into consideration: comparative fit index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), χ2/df, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Hu & Bentler, 1995)
Results
The data were inspected by Pearson’s Product-moment correlation coefficient and linear regression in which some assumptions such as, normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity should be guaranteed at the outset. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was employed to examine the normality of data distribution. Table 2 displays the reports of the normality test.
The Results of K-S Test.
Lilliefors significance correction.
The upshots of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the data is normally distributed across all variables and parametric statistics can be operated. Table 3 shows descriptive statistics of teachers’ self-efficacy, stress, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion containing the number of participants, the mean, and the standard deviancy.
Descriptive Statistics of the Variables of the Study.
As Table 3 shows, 295 teachers participated in the present study. Besides, it was found that self-efficacy has a mean score of 91.28, stress has a mean score of 21.04, work engagement has a mean score of 88.05, and emotional exhaustion has a mean score of 13.06. Table 4 summarizes the information achieved from Cronbach’s alpha.
Results of Cronbach Alpha Indexes.
Note. As indicated in the above table, the used questionnaires had satisfactory indexes of Cronbach alpha altogether along with their subscales.
Answering the Research Questions
Having checked all the assumptions, using a Pearson correlation to retort the first question was allowed. Table 5 indicates the findings of Pearson Correlation between overall teachers’ self-efficacy, stress, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion.
Results of Pearson Correlation Between Overall Teachers’ Self-Efficacy, Stress, Work Engagement, and Emotional Exhaustion.
Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).
As indicated in Table 5, there are positive connection between overall work engagement and self-efficacy (r = .58, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01) and overall emotional exhaustion and stress (r = .55, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01). However, there are negative significant relationship between overall Work engagement and stress (r = −.21, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01), overall emotional exhaustion and self-efficacy (r = −.16, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01), and emotional exhaustion and work engagement (r = −.31, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01). moreover, there is not any relationship between self-efficacy and stress (r = .06, n = 295, p = .26).
Table 6 displays the findings of Pearson Correlation between all components of teachers’ work engagement and overall stress and self-efficacy.
Results of Pearson Correlation Between All Sub-Constructs Teachers’ Work Engagement and Overall Stress and Self-Efficacy.
Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).
As Table 6 demonstrates, there are negative interactions between all sub-constructs students’ engagement and overall teachers’ stress and also positive relationships between all sub-constructs students’ engagement and overall teachers’ self-efficacy. According to the reported outcomes, stress has the highest correlation with dedication (r = −.23, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01) and self-efficacy has the utmost relationship with dedication (r = .59, n = 295, p = .000, α = .01).
For the second question of the study, SEM was utilized through Amos 24. To examine the merits of the causative associations among the components, standardized estimates were inspected. Figure 1 indicates the model of the interactions among the constructs.
The model of the interrelationships among variables.
As indicated in Figure 1, both self-efficacy (β = .57, p < .05) and stress (β = −.17, p < .05) are significant predictors of work engagement. Moreover, both self-efficacy (β = −.19, p < .05) and stress (β = −.50, p < .05) are significant interpreters of emotional exhaustion. To examine the model fit, the Goodness of fit keys were utilized. The indices of the Goodness of fit can be displayed in Table 7. In the present study, χ2/df, GFI, CFI, and RMSEA were employed. To ensure a fit model, χ2/df ought to be less than 3, GFI CFI, and NFI ought to be above 0.90, and RMSEA ought to be less than 0.08.
Goodness of Fit Indices.
As Table 7 displays, all the indices of the goodness of fit are in the satisfactory series. Hence, the model had satisfactory validity.
Discussion
This study aimed to scrutinize the relation between Chinese EFL teachers’ self-efficacy, stress, teachers’ emotional exhaustion, and engagement. The first question of the study endeavored to check if there are any meaningful interrelationships among Chinese EFL teachers’ self-efficacy, stress, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion. The findings showed that positive relations between overall work engagement and self-efficacy. Educators who are engaged will be more enthusiastic and committed to their job, which could lead to improving the learning process and thus promoting better education. The more teachers feel appreciated by their institute, the more they cultivate a great self-efficacy and, accordingly, the more they become fascinated by their jobs and do it with vigor and dedication and the more interested teachers are, the more possible the learners are to be involved, and the more they achieve. A correlation between professional self-efficacy and teacher participation is reinforced by Ventura et al. (2015). This is in line with the work engagement model, proposing that personal factors like self-efficacy, self-confidence, and resilience are significant in enhancing work engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). Teachers with more self-efficacy are more involved in their jobs, show more interest, respect, and loyalty toward their learners than those with lower self-efficacy levels (Buric & Macuka, 2018). As a result, involvement in work tasks may lead to satisfactory levels of achievement that could be considered as educational experiences, thereby promoting future self-efficacy belief formation (Salanova et al., 2011). Liu and Huang (2019) asserted that self-efficacy drives educators’ motivation and engagement which supports better learning settings. To achieve positive work engagement, the educator must be connected to their job (Buric & Macuka, 2018) and the learners must learn well (Lemon & Garvis, 2016). As a result, identifying factors that determine work engagement is important when making decisions about skill enhancement.
Moreover, a negative association between emotional exhaustion and self-efficacy is proved. Indeed, the outcomes of the study designated that self-efficacy is a predictor of emotional exhaustion that means teachers with a great level of self-efficacy reported a low level of emotional exhaustion. This correlation postulated that teachers who are conscious of their capabilities in learning, can shape and care about proper class atmosphere and employ well-scheduled instruction are less likely to face emotional exhaustion. Educators with great self-efficacy can adapt themselves to learners better and respond to their requirements. When educators feel self-assured in their capacities, they are expected to invest more time in learners’ education, come up with new ideas for educational programs, maintain a positive classroom environment, and implement methods of teaching that are more compatible with students’ behaviors. The results are in the direction of the findings of Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007) and Khani and Mirzaee (2015) in which self-efficacy has a negative connection with teacher burnout that means self-efficacy could significantly reduce teacher burnout. Likewise, the result supports the one carried out by Akbari and Tavassoli (2014) who stated that some teacher issues, namely self-efficacy, and educational style were critically related to their burnout level. In addition, this finding is consistent with those of other several inquiries underlining the relationship between these constructs (Fathi et al., 2020; Fathi & Saeedian, 2020; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017; Smetackova, 2017). These types of research have confirmed that educators’ view of their capacities in completing teaching exercises influence their feeling of work fulfillment and burnout. Teachers with more elevated degrees of self-efficacy are less inclined to experience anxiety and emotional exhaustion. Also, the strong degrees of self-efficacy lessen the probability of undergoing emotional exhaustion (Jepson & Forrest, 2006). The result is also in line with Charkhabi et al. (2013) who proved a link between educational burnout and its constituents with self-efficacy.
Consistent with the finding of the study which shows a positive significant relationship between overall emotional exhaustion and stress, it can be stated that stress is a substantial interpreter of emotional exhaustion. Despite setting and course materials, teachers have to struggle with destructive circumstantial elements and demanding circumstances in instructive settings, which can make them more prone to burnout. These are congruent with the investigation carried out by Demir (2018) who provide burnout in their teaching career is related to the factors of stress. Kyriacou (2000) indicated that teachers who had stress constantly feel burnout. The current results resemble the results of Liu and Wang (2004), who concluded that emotional exhaustion is a noticeable issue related to psychological wellbeing among teachers at schools in China.
Furthermore, a negative interplay exists between overall work engagement and stress. Educators, who can govern their emotional better, are more able to overcome difficult circumstances and are more motivated in the class (Myruski et al., 2018). Engaged educators experienced not only fewer levels of stress in their job, but also lower levels of unpleasant feelings, such as anger (Buric & Macuka, 2018). In addition, there is a negative interplay between overall emotional exhaustion and work engagement. Although the negative feeling was not taken into consideration nowadays in a concept such as work engagement due to the arrival of positive psychology (Wang et al., 2021), the findings of this study point out that depressive emotion should also be acknowledged as it has a positive influence on motivational states such as perseverance and commitment. In general, educators who experienced more resentment, exhaustion, and desperateness concerning their students at the initial measurement reported feeling less enthusiasm, motivation, and commitment at their work at the sequential evaluations; that is, in their position as educators, they exhibited lower levels of engagement. Consequently, negative emotions caused avoidant and self-destructive behaviors, which are contrary to the motivation that drives work engagement.
Conclusion and Implications
Generally, the results of this study indicate the prominence of self-efficacy in stimulating work engagement and decreasing emotional exhaustion among Chinese teachers. This study supports to engender a better perception of the interrelation between self-efficacy, stress, work engagement, and emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the present paper proved that the development of teachers’ work engagement is supported by the growth in their self-efficacy. These findings highlight the position of teaching organizations to emphasize the evolution of self-efficacy capabilities among Chinese teachers as it can support positive teacher behaviors such as engagement while decreasing their emotional exhaustion. Hence, consistent with the findings of this inquiry, it can be proposed that higher education organizations regularly coordinate instruction that underlines the improvement and upgrade of self-efficacy abilities among educators. Such training must have the objective of encouraging the assimilation of self-efficacy like self-regulation (Fathi et al., 2021; Greenier et al., 2021) and focus on the management of pre-and in-service teachers to assist them with adapting to challenging circumstances in a more viable manner. Indeed, through higher levels of emotion regulation strategies, teachers know how to deal with negative feelings during demanding circumstances that subsequently decrease their exhaustion. Moreover, school directors and administrators are encouraged to build a better situation among educators to prepare for educators’ professionalism.
An emotionally exhausted teacher may be more careless and subjective in their judgments, making it more difficult for students to expect how they might satisfy teachers’ prospects and achieve good marks. It is also possible for emotionally exhausted educators to adopt softer assessment methods as a type of “reason” for their ineffective teaching methods or as a means of preventing further difficulties and criticism. The results convinced the necessity of launching courses for teachers to develop their self-efficacy. To control teacher burnout, EFL educators are supposed to attain skills to regulate their stress. A significant role is also played by the language authorities in this matter. Teachers and school officials must work together to pinpoint the causes and implications of stress in teachers, and the ways to reduce it. In the review of literature, although certain sources of educator stress have been identified, each educational context is likely to have its unique sources of stress. Educators and administrators should try more to improve the structural aspect of learning, that is, the ability to function as an individual who gets help, direction, and counsel from others such as managers, team members, and the professor.
The outcomes of this research may be useful for scholastic teaching supporters and participants, such as school administrators, educators, and academics. It can also contribute to teachers and administrators to apprehend the psychosocial aspects of EFL instruction as a foreign language and take initiatives to remove impediments in this area as well as encourage educational objectives. To prepare EFL educators for a wide range of learning environments, educators should build their abilities in a variety of instructional areas due to their multidimensional role. A suggestion has been made that instructors should reach their full potential and obtains the proficiency required to control a group of learners effectively and efficiently. EFL educators need to be trained on how to deal with the social milieu of China. Providing support for EFL educators is critical in preventing burnout, stress, and promoting self-efficacy. Since burnout is a predictable reality among English teachers, school administers, should not regard it just as an insignificant issue. The findings of this study should be significant for supervisors and officials to focus their attention on teachers’ self-efficacy that is significantly connected to the burnout level. In the same vein, teachers should be equipped with the self-efficacy to manage several contextual elements and demanding circumstances. Educator preparation programs should focus more on the feelings of prospective educators because of the important role of educators’ feelings in influencing the motivation, insight, and practice of both educators and students (Fathi & Derakhshan, 2019).
Moreover, the findings of this study pinpointed that implementing various courses for EFL educators is recommended due to the significance of teachers’ self-efficacy. EFL teachers are suggested to learn skills necessary for handling their stressors to regulate their level of burnout. Similarly, not only academic supervisors but also administrators have the main function in providing the requirements for stressed teachers. Moreover, this study was conducted among English language teachers who work at universities and schools so more research could be done in the teaching field with different directions and contexts. Some other aspects related to self-efficacy and burnout such as involvement, job fulfillment, skill improvement, engagement, and management could be investigated in future studies. To develop and extend this study a larger sample size with numerous sort of educational workplaces and demographics is critical. It should be noted that since the participants included EFL teachers from China, it is not probable to globalize the upshots of the present research to other teachers with different cultures and religious beliefs. Observation and generalization of these factors demand more comparative studies.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
