Relationships among teacher enjoyment, emotional labor, and perceived student engagement: A daily diary approach

Irena BURIĆ, Hui WANG

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlespeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The present daily diary study among 587 Canadian primary and secondary school teachers assessed teachers' genuine expression, faking, hiding of happiness and enthusiasm, and their daily associations with perceived student emotional and behavioral engagement. Moreover, we measured teachers' trait enjoyment before and after the diary study to examine whether teacher trait enjoyment predicted the use of emotional labor strategies that, in turn, were related to teachers' perceptions of their students' engagement. In addition, we examined whether perceived student engagement predicted future levels of teacher trait enjoyment. Results from multilevel structural equation modeling showed that, at the between-person level, teachers who had higher levels of trait enjoyment tended to spontaneously show their positive feelings to their students (β = 0.381, p <.001), which was further positively related to student engagement (β = 0.257, p <.001). In turn, teachers' perceptions of heightened student engagement led to even greater enjoyment in the future (β = 0.134, p <.05). In contrast, teacher trait enjoyment was negatively related to faking (β = −0.297, p <.001) and hiding positive emotions (β = −0.130, p <.05), but was further unrelated to student engagement or future enjoyment. At the within-person level, genuine expression of positive emotions was positively related to student engagement (β = 0.219, p <.001), faking was negatively related to student engagement (β = −0.134, p <.001), and hiding was unrelated to student engagement. Copyright © 2023 The Authors.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101271
JournalJournal of School Psychology
Volume103
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2024

Citation

Burić, I., & Wang, H. (2024). Relationships among teacher enjoyment, emotional labor, and perceived student engagement: A daily diary approach. Journal of School Psychology, 103, Article 101271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2023.101271

Keywords

  • Teacher enjoyment
  • Emotional labor
  • Perceived student engagement
  • Diary study

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