ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
What Makes Teaching Joyful? Unpacking the Wellbeing-Resilience-Enjoyment Chain in Higher Education Faculty
Provisionally accepted
- Jilin International Studies University, Changchun, China
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This study investigates the psychological and organizational determinants of enjoyment in teaching by university instructors. The study hypothesizes a model in which teacher self-efficacy and well-being enhance enjoyment in teaching through emotional resilience as a mediator and institutional support and professional commitment as moderators. Participants were 273 Chinese university teachers who had filled out validated measures for the study constructs. The findings indicated that well-being and self-efficacy were strong predictors of teaching enjoyment. Emotional resilience was found to mediate those relations, translating individual strengths into long-term joy of teaching. While professional commitment was a significant moderator of the emotional resilience-teaching pleasure relationship, institutional support had no moderating influence. The findings detail the central role of inner psychological abilities and professional identity in enriching beneficial teaching experiences. The study adds to the teacher well-being literature base and provides an enhanced understanding of the part that resilience can play in mediating internal assets and job satisfaction. The study offers valuable insights towards the development of emotionally healthy learning spaces and enhancing faculty engagement using a strength-based approach. This perspective aligns with a strength-based approach. It emphasizes building internal psychological resources such as self-efficacy, well-being, and resilience rather than focusing on deficits or problems.
Keywords: emotional resilience, enjoyment, Institutional support, self-efficacy, Teaching
Received: 18 Sep 2025; Accepted: 11 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 ZHAO, Yang and Tsai. 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: Dan Yang
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