Understanding principal well-being: A quantitative study

The occupational well-being of school principals has played a vital role in the pursuit of individual and school wellness and success. However, principals’ well-being worldwide is under increasing threat because of the challenging and complex nature of their work and growing demands for school standardisation and accountability. This paper aimed at understanding the situation of principal well-being in Hong Kong during the pandemic and which dimensions that principal well-being has involved. This paper reported a qualitative study with 324 principals from Hong Kong. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis approaches were used to deal with the dataset. As a result, a 24-item model with six dimensions demonstrated a good model fit. The six dimensions consist of physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. This multidimensional principal well-being model present a general picture of principals’ occupational wellbeing associated with job nature, well-being literacy, leadership and context. Based on published literature and the current study, this theoretically and empirically model serves as a robust tool for comprehensively understanding principal well-being and provide the implications for future research to further explore principal well-being literacy, drivers and outcomes. The model identified in this study will promote principal well-being as an essential component of schoolwide well-being, quality education, and a wellness society. Copyright © 2023 ICLT.