Teacher retention through the Job Demands-Resources Theory

Abstract

According to the Job Demands-Resources theory, there are diverse psychosocial factors at work (job demands and job resources) that impact on levels of teachers’ work engagement and their work attitudes. Moreover, emotional intelligence is considered as a relevant personal resource with positive effects on teachers’ occupational health. However, to date no integrative studies have been conducted to test simultaneous relationships among these contextual and personal factors and their associations with work engagement and work attitudes among teachers. Therefore, the main goal of this work was to analyze the relationships among antecedents (job demands and job resources) and consequents (work attitudes) of teachers’ work engagement, as well as to test the potential moderating effect of emotional intelligence. The research design is cross-sectional and a structural equation modelling analysis was conducted with a sample of 734 teaching professionals (63.8% women; Mage = 44.38; SD = 9.11) from different teaching levels. Well-validated scales were used to measure the main study variables: aggression against teachers, organisational social support, emotional intelligence, engagement, job satisfaction, and intention to leave. The results have shown direct and interactive associations among emotional intelligence and antecedents and consequences of engagement. These findings point to the development of integrative theoretical models considering the role of teachers’ emotional resources along with other personal and contextual factors. Finally, this research may contribute to the design of programs for developing emotional competencies targeting the improvement of teacher well-being and performance.