Edited by: Živile Stankeviciute, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Reviewed by: Antonio Hernández-Mendo, University of Malaga, Spain; Ramunė Čiarnienė, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
†These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship
This article was submitted to Organizational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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Teachers’ job satisfaction has become an important topic of concern in the international community, because job dissatisfaction may directly lead to teachers’ resignation (
One of the core problems leading to teacher turnover is teachers’ job satisfaction (
Teachers’ job satisfaction is related to many factors.
However, these studies do not involve the field of metacognition, especially for preschool teachers, the impact of trait mindfulness on job satisfaction is even less. Teacher’s job satisfaction is the teacher’s emotional reaction to his or her job or teaching role (
Mindfulness is defined as the subconscious with an observational, non-judgmental stance (
At the trait level, mindfulness refers to the cross-situational and relatively stable individual differences in the tendency to be in a state of mindful consciousness (
According to affective event theory, trait mindfulness may be positively correlated with job satisfaction (
Based on this, the following hypotheses are proposed in this study:
An integral part of self-determination theory is the concept of three basic psychological needs (
Studies have shown that mindfulness may enhance a personal receptivity to events and experiences (
Meeting basic psychological needs is seen as a key determinant of experiencing the good life (
In conclusion, this study proposes hypotheses:
Emotions arise when a person notices a situation, evaluates it as related to his or her needs, values or goals, and responds to the situation with loosely coupled changes in subjective experience, behavior, and physiological fields (
At the same time, researchers found that positive emotions are positively correlated with the quality of social interaction (
Emotion regulation and emotion control have been repeatedly proposed as the central mechanism in the theoretical research of mindfulness (
Job satisfaction is closely related to emotion. First of all, from the definition of job satisfaction itself, job satisfaction is considered to be people positive or negative evaluation and judgment of work (
According to the expansion and construction theory of positive emotion (
Therefore, we propose hypotheses:
The satisfaction of basic needs is closely related to positive psychological adjustment (
At the same time,
Teachers’ positive and negative emotions are very important to educational results, because they affect teachers’ efficiency by affecting students cognition, emotion, and motivation (
In conclusion, we put forward the following hypotheses:
Basic psychological needs and positive emotions sequentially mediate the relationship between trait mindfulness and job satisfaction, as shown in
Theoretical hypotheses.
In this study, a convenient random sampling method was used to sample kindergartens in Jinan City, Shandong Province, China. The kindergarten teachers participating in this survey are all full-time in-service teachers, and a total of 398 preschool teachers participated in the survey. Among them, 33 were male teachers, accounting for 8.30%, and 365 were female teachers, accounting for 91.70% (see
Social demographic features of participants (
Variables | Percentages | |
---|---|---|
Gender | Male | 8.30% |
Female | 91.70% | |
Age | 25–27 | 83.92% |
28–30 | 6.78% | |
31–33 | 5.78% | |
34–36 | 3.52% | |
Educational Background | Junior college | 72.10% |
Undergraduate course | 27.90% | |
Kindergarten Site | Rural kindergarten | 29.90% |
Township kindergarten | 35.20% | |
City kindergarten | 34.90% | |
Kindergarten Nature | Private kindergarten | 51.30% |
Public kindergarten | 48.70% |
Trait mindfulness adopts the mindfulness attention awareness scale compiled by
The basic psychological needs scale was compiled by
This study used the positive emotion subscale in the positive negative emotion scale compiled by
The measurement of job satisfaction adopts the job satisfaction scale compiled by
In this study, SPSS 22.0 and Mplus version 8.3 were used for data analysis. SPSS was mainly used for data sorting, descriptive statistical analysis, etc. Mplus is mainly used for model inspection. Participants who lack descriptive data or many data points are processed by list deletion when running the analysis. In the analysis, teachers’ gender, age, education level, the site, and nature of kindergartens are taken as control variables. Gender was dummy coded (0 = male and 1 = female).
Using Harman single factor test, 6 factors with characteristic roots greater than 1 were obtained. The interpretation rate of the first factor is 34.446%, which is less than the critical value of 40% (
In factor analysis, randomly select 1/2 of the sample (
As shown in
Reliability, validity statistics, and correlations.
Variable | Item Reliability | Composite Reliability | Convergent Validity | Discriminate validity | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
STD. LOADING | CR | AVE | TM | BPN | PA | JS | |
TM | 0.543–0.816 | 0.951 | 0.564 | ||||
BPN | 0.624–0.826 | 0.918 | 0.504 | 0.382 | |||
PA | 0.686–0.850 | 0.933 | 0.585 | 0.595 | 0.385 | ||
JS | 0.601–0.821 | 0.833 | 0.503 | 0.522 | 0.432 | 0.57 |
The diagonal in bold is the square root of AVE, and the lower triangle is the Pearson correlation of the dimension. TM, Trait Mindfulness; BPN, Basic Psychological Needs; PA, Positive Affect; and JS, Job Satisfaction.
Confirmatory factor analysis is used to evaluate the reliability and validity of the overall measurement model and the evaluation structure. In order to evaluate the validity of the measurement model, the discriminant and convergence validity were evaluated.
Means, standard deviations, and correlations of the major study variables.
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Gender | 0.92 | 0.28 | 1 | ||||||||
2. Age | 27.10 | 2.39 | −0.057 | 1 | |||||||
3. Educational Background | 1.28 | 0.45 | 0.126 |
−0.058 | 1 | ||||||
4. Kindergarten Site | 2.05 | 0.81 | −0.049 | −0.068 | 0.407 |
1 | |||||
5. Kindergarten Nature | 1.49 | 0.50 | 0.129 |
−0.031 | 0.335 |
0.371 |
1 | ||||
6. TM | 3.84 | 1.14 | −0.079 | 0.05 | 0.019 | 0.207 |
−0.086 | 1 | |||
7. BPN | 3.99 | 1.19 | 0.019 | 0.009 | 0.075 | 0.067 | 0.024 | 0.368 |
1 | ||
8. PA | 3.02 | 1.00 | −0.052 | 0.028 | −0.005 | 0.052 | −0.044 | 0.564 |
0.361 |
1 | |
9. JS | 4.41 | 1.07 | 0.01 | −0.026 | −0.038 | −0.011 | −0.024 | 0.474 |
0.388 |
0.512 |
1 |
Gender is the dummy variable (0 = male and 1 = female).
According to
Mplus version 8.3 was used to fit the chain mediation model. The model fitting index was ML
Fit indices of the model.
Fit indices | Recommended threshold | Scores | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|
ML |
– | 906.77 | – |
Df | – | 639 | – |
1 < |
1.419 | Acceptable | |
CFI | > 0.9 | 0.969 | Acceptable |
TLI | > 0.9 | 0.966 | Acceptable |
RMSEA | < 0.08 | 0.032 | Acceptable |
SRMR | < 0.08 | 0.045 | Acceptable |
On the basis of good model fitting, the Bootstrap program of Mplus was used to repeat the sample for 5,000 times. The results show that the path coefficients between trait mindfulness and basic psychological needs, positive emotions, and job satisfaction are significant, and trait mindfulness can directly predict job satisfaction (
The direct effect of the research paths and research model hypothesis analysis.
DV | IV | Std. Est. | Est./ |
Value of |
Hypo and Path | Remarks | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
JS | TM | 0.265 | 0.062 | 4.275 | 0.457 | H1:TM → JS | Support | |
BPN | 0.210 | 0.061 | 3.443 | 0.001 | H2b:BPN → JS | Support | ||
PA | 0.333 | 0.068 | 4.879 | H3b:PA → JS | Support | |||
BPN | TM | 0.406 | 0.051 | 7.926 | 0.177 | H2a:BPN → BPN | Support | |
PA | TM | 0.535 | 0.045 | 11.815 | 0.403 | H3a:TM → PA | Support | |
BPN | 0.181 | 0.045 | 4.058 | H4:BPN → PA | Support |
The indirect effect of the research paths.
Path | Std. Est. | Est./ |
Value of |
Boot LLCI | Boot ULCI | The proportion of the effect | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
H2:TM → BPN → JS | 0.059 | 0.019 | 3.167 | 0.002 | 0.026 | 0.099 | 15.45% |
H3:TM → PA → JS | 0.123 | 0.03 | 4.037 | 0.070 | 0.190 | 32.20% | |
H5:TM → BPN → PA → JS | 0.017 | 0.006 | 2.74 | 0.006 | 0.008 | 0.033 | 4.45% |
TOTALIND | 0.199 | 0.036 | 5.455 | 0.133 | 0.276 | 52.09% | |
TOTAL | 0.382 | 0.044 | 8.667 | 0.302 | 0.474 | 100.00% |
Positive emotions play a mediating role between trait mindfulness and job satisfaction (
Basic psychological needs and positive emotions play a sequential mediating role between trait mindfulness and job satisfaction (
Structural equation.
This study discusses the influencing factors of preschool teachers’ job satisfaction from the field of metacognition. The results support the previous research that job satisfaction is positively correlated with the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (
In addition, the research on preschool teachers trait mindfulness and job satisfaction can provide some suggestions for kindergarten education practice and management practice. Firstly, kindergartens or education management departments should improve the mindfulness level of preschool teachers by adopting mindfulness training and offering mindfulness training courses and providing social support systems. Preschool teachers are facing a high professional pressure and high emotional environment. Working in this working environment with great psychological pressure, preschool teachers must have good emotional management ability and psychological tolerance. Through mindfulness training, improving preschool teachers mental health level and their ability to accept and tolerate children’s challenging and wrong sexual behaviors, guiding preschool teachers to look at problems from a positive perspective, and providing preschool teachers with a strong social support system will effectively improve teachers job satisfaction and job happiness.
Secondly, the basic psychological needs of preschool teachers should be met. In terms of curriculum implementation and work, managers should give preschool teachers autonomy. The authorization of managers for autonomy will improve the basic psychological needs of preschool teachers to a certain extent. The leaders of early education should strengthen the trust in the competence of preschool teachers and let preschool teachers have a sense of competence. At the same time, the leaders of early education should create a good working environment for preschool teachers, which make preschool teachers have a sense of belonging. These measures will improve preschool teachers job satisfaction to a great extent.
Finally, we should let preschool teachers have positive emotions, guide preschool teachers to make positive attribution, and create a good positive psychological environment for them, so as to improve preschool teachers positive emotions. Kindergartens should establish a strong emotional support system to create an environment conducive to releasing and eliminating emotions. At the same time, kindergarten leaders encourage preschool teachers to carry out internal self-dialog and positive psychological suggestion.
Firstly, the data of this study are from self-report, and future research may consider using more objective indicators. Secondly, the method used in this study is horizontal and cannot reflect the long-term performance of the mechanism studied in this study. Especially, in an emergency context due to the COVID-19 pandemic which is having a relevant impact on the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers. The future research should take into account the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thirdly, the study includes two mediating factors, but there should be more mediating factors in the impact of trait mindfulness on job satisfaction, such as the role of psychological elasticity, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence in this process. Finally, this study only studies the impact of preschool teachers individual level. Future research can consider the impact of organizational factors and leadership factors on preschool teachers job satisfaction, and can carry out cross-level research.
The results of this study show that trait mindfulness is positively correlated with job satisfaction. Trait mindfulness can affect job satisfaction not only through basic psychological needs, but also through positive emotions. In addition, the most important finding of this study is that basic psychological needs and positive emotions play a sequential intermediary role between preschool teachers trait mindfulness and job satisfaction. Moreover, this sequential mediating effect accounts for a high proportion of the total effect. We believe these findings will help enrich the literature on preschool teachers job satisfaction and kindergarten management practice.
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Wenzhou University. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.
BP designed, prepared, and carried out the data collection process, and written the article. ZS revised the section of the analysis and discussion and corrected the entire manuscript. YW analyzed and verified the data in this article. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
This work was supported by the second batch of teaching reform research projects of higher education in Zhejiang Province during the “13th Five-Year Plan” (project number: jg20190401). This project is supported by the Graduate Research and Innovation Fund of Wenzhou University.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
We are grateful to the Preschool Education Research Center of Wenzhou University for their support of this study.