Teacher Leaders’ Emotions Mirror Teacher Professionalism via Collegial Trust

Abstract

The current study explores teacher leaders’ emotions and its relationship with teacher professionalism and collegial trust in the Chinese context. A sample of 477 teacher leaders in China responded to three measures, namely, teacher leader emotions, teacher professionalism and trust in colleagues. To analyse the data, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were utilised. The results confirmed three hypotheses on the relationships between three constructs. Specifically, positive emotions (e.g., pride and love) from teacher leaders positively and significantly affected their trust in colleagues. Moreover, enjoyment positively affected, and fatigue and anxiety negatively affected, teacher professionalism. The structural model showed that enjoyment, anxiety, and fatigue of teacher leaders directly affected teacher professionalism but pride and love indirectly affected teacher professionalism mediated by their trust in colleagues. It is also interesting to note that pride negatively affected teacher professionalism through collegial trust. Implications and future directions are proposed in the form of theory and practice.