ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1633440
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Health Psychology in Practice: Enhancing Well-being and Improving Health Outcomes Across Diverse ContextsView all 21 articles
The Relationship between Social Support and Employment Anxiety in Preschool Teacher Trainees in China: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital and the Moderating Role of Professional Identity
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of Teacher Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China., shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Normal University Tianhua College, Shanghai, China
- 3International Collaborative Programs and Services, Shanghai Normal University Tianhua College, Shanghai, China
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Amid the ongoing decline in birth rates, preschool education teacher trainees encounter formidable employment challenges. Thus, alleviating college students' employment anxiety and helping them find jobs holds great significance. This study examines the relationships between preschool teacher trainees' perceived social support, psychological capital, and employment anxiety. It also explores how professional identity may moderate the link between psychological capital and employment anxiety. A total of 1,195 students from four applied-oriented universities in Shanghai, China, majoring in preschool education and spanning from the freshman to senior years, participated in this study by completing the Social Support Scale, Employment Anxiety Questionnaire, Psychological Capital Questionnaire, and Professional Identity Scale. The results indicate that social support, psychological capital, professional identity, and employment anxiety show significant differences among undergraduate year levels and choices of major, while showing partial significant differences in terms of gender;social support significantly negatively predicts employment anxiety;psychological capital partially mediates the relationship between social support and employment anxiety; professional identity significantly moderates the relationship between psychological capital and employment anxiety. Governments, families, and higher education institutions can offer social support to college students and strengthen psychological interventions to alleviate their employment anxiety and enhance employment quality.
Keywords: Preschool teacher trainees, social support, Employment anxiety, Psychological Capital, professional identity
Received: 22 May 2025; Accepted: 05 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Wang and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Meng Zhang, College of Teacher Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China., shanghai, China
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