Investigating the effects of emotion regulation and creativity on Chinese EFL teachers’ burnout in online classes

Authors

  • HAOTING LI NINGBO UNIVERSITY, CHINA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi2023c.29635

Keywords:

Burnout, Emotion regulation, Creativity, EFL teachers, Online classrooms, Chinese EFL context

Abstract

The spread of the Coronavirus and the emergence of new technology have led to an abrupt shift in education and changed the mode of instruction. The new mode of instruction has faced teachers with new challenges, which may enhance the rate of job burnout. To avoid this phenomenon, the causes of teacher burnout in online classes should be widely identified. With this in mind, this inquiry investigated the effects of emotion regulation and creativity on EFL teachers’ burnout in online classes. We hypothesized that teachers’ creativity and ability to regulate their emotions can minimize the rate of burnout. To test this hypothesis, 329 Chinese EFL teachers were invited to respond to three validated questionnaires. The collected data were analysed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The study outcomes revealed a significant correlation between Chinese EFL teachers’ creativity, emotion regulation, and burnout. The results also showed that creativity and emotion regulation can make a significant change in the rate of teacher burnout. The present results are hoped to be illuminating for all online English teachers.

FUNDING INFORMATION. This work was supported by Ningbo University Teaching Research Project “Research on teaching strategy of ideological and political theory course based on acceptable psychology of college students” (JYXMXZD2023040).

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Acheson, K., Taylor, J., & Luna, K. (2016). The burnout spiral: The emotion labor of five rural US foreign language teachers. The Modern Language Journal, 100(2), 522–537. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12333

Baer, J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2012). Being creative inside and outside the classroom: How to boost your students’ creativity–and your own (Vol. 2). Springer

Banaji, S., Burn A., Buckingham D. (2010). The rhetoric of creativity: A literature review (2nd Ed.). The University of London.

Bielak, J., & Mystkowska-Wiertelak, A. (2020). Language teachers’ interpersonal learner-directed emotion-regulation strategies. Language Teaching Research. https://doi. 10.1177/1362168820912352

Bing, H., Sadjadi, B., Afzali, M. & Fathi, J. (2022). Self-efficacy and emotion regulation as predictors of teacher burnout among English as a foreign language teacher: A structural equation modeling approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 13: 900417. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.900417

Chang, M. (2009). An appraisal perspective of teacher burnout: Examining the emotional work of teachers. Educational Psychology Review, 21, 193–218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-009-9106-y

Chang, M. L. (2020). Emotion display rules, emotion regulation, and teacher burnout. Frontiers in Education, 5(1), 90. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.00090

Cole, P. M., Michel, M. K., & Teti, L. O. D. (1994). The development of emotion regulation and dysregulation: A clinical perspective. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 73–100.

Cremin, T. (2015) (Ed.). Teaching English creatively. Routledge.

Daniel, E., & Van Bergen, P. (2023). Teacher burnout during COVID-19: associations with instructional self-efficacy but not emotion regulation. Teachers and Teaching, 29(3), 310–328.

DaVia Rubenstein, L., McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2013). Teaching for creativity scales: An instrument to examine teachers’ perceptions of factors that allow for the teaching of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 25(3), 324–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.813807

Derakhshan, A, Eslami, Z. R., Curle, S., & Zhaleh, K. (2022). Exploring the predictive role of teacher immediacy and stroke behaviors in English as a foreign language university students’ academic burnout. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 12(1), 87–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/ssllt.2022.12.1.5

Derakhshan, A., Greenier, V., & Fathi, J. (2022). Exploring the interplay between a loving pedagogy, creativity, and work engagement among EFL/ESL teachers: A multinational study. Current Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03371-w

Derakhshan, A., Kruk, M., Mehdizadeh, M., & Pawlak, M. (2021a). Activity-induced boredom in online EFL classes. ELT Journal, 76(1), 58–68. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab072

Derakhshan, A., Kruk, M., Mehdizadeh, M., & Pawlak, M. (2021b). Boredom in online classes in the Iranian EFL context: Sources and solutions. System, 101, 102556. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102556

Derakhshan, A., & Nazari, M. (2022). “I am fed up with the criticisms”: Examining the role of emotional critical incidents in a novice teacher’s identity construction. The Asia Pacific Education Researcher, 32(4), 449-458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-022-00666-1.

Derakhshan, A., Wang, Y.L, Wang, Y.X, & Ortega-Martín, J. L. (2023). Towards innovative research approaches to investigating the role of emotional variables in promoting language teachers’ and learners’ mental health. International Journal of Mental Health Promotion, 25(7), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.32604/ijmhp.2023.029877

Derakhshan, A., & Zare, J. (2023). The impact of altruistic teaching on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ emotion regulation: An intervention study. Brain Sciences, 13, 458. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13030458

Dewaele, J. M., & Li, C. (2020). Emotions in second language acquisition: A critical review and research agenda. Foreign Language World, 196(1), 34–49.

Domenech, F., & Gomez, A. (2010). Barriers perceived by teachers at work, coping strategies, self-efficacy, and burnout. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 13, 637–654.

Dorman, J. (2003). Testing a model for teacher burnout. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology, 3, 35–47.

Dornyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fan, J. & Wang, Y. (2022). English as a foreign language teachers’ professional success in the Chinese context: The effects of well-being and emotion regulation. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.952503.

Fathi, J., & Derakhshan, A. (2019). Teacher self-efficacy and emotional regulation as predictors of teaching stress: An investigation of Iranian English language teachers. Teaching English Language, 13(2), 117–143.

Fathi, J., & Saeedian, A. (2020). A structural model of teacher self-efficacy, resilience, and burnout among Iranian EFL teachers. Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9(2), 14–28.

Fathi, J., Greenier, V., & Derakhshan, A. (2021). Self-efficacy, reflection, and burnout among Iranian EFL teachers: The mediating role of emotion regulation. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 9(2), 13–37. https://doi.org/10.30466/ijltr.2021.121043

Fisher, R. (2005). Teaching children to think (2nd Ed.). Nelson Thornes.

Fleming, K. D. (2012). The agony and ecstasy of workplace creativity: A qualitative study of how facilitators view affect in helping adults learn creativity. The Pennsylvania State University.

Frenzel, A. C., & Stephens, E. J. (2013). Emotions. In N. C. Hall & T. G. Emotion (Eds.), Motivation and self-regulation: A handbook for teachers (pp. 1–56). Emerald.

Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression: An evolutionary view. Academic Press.

Ghanizadeh, A. & Royaei, N. (2015) Emotional facet of language teaching: emotion regulation and emotional labor strategies as predictors of teacher burnout. International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 10(2), 139–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/22040552.2015.1113847

Ghonsooly, B., & Raeesi, A. (2012). Exploring the relationship between creativity and burnout among Iranian EFL teachers. International Journal of Linguistics, 4(3), 121–134. https://doi.10.5296/ijl.v4i3.2198

Greenier, V., Derakhshan, A., & Fathi, J. (2021). Emotion regulation and psychological well-being in teacher work engagement: a case of British and Iranian English language teachers. System 97, 102446. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102446

Gross, J. J. (1998b). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2, 271–299.

Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26.

Gross, J. J., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). Emotion generation and emotion regulation: One or two depends on your point of view. Emotion Review, 3, 8–16.

Gross, J. J., & Jazaieri, H. (2014). Emotion, emotion regulation, and psychopathology: An affective science perspective. Clinical Psychological Science, 2, 387–401.

Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348

Hargreaves, A. (2005). The emotions of teaching and educational change. In A. Hargreaves (Ed.), Extending educational change. Springer. https://doi.org/doi: 10.1007/1-4020-4453-4

Huang, X., Lee, J. C. K., & Frenzel, A. C. (2020). Striving to become a better teacher: Linking teacher emotions with informal teacher learning across the teaching career. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1067. https://doi.10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01067

Jeffrey, B., & Craft, A. (2004). Teaching creatively and teaching for creativity: distinctions and relationships. Educational Studies, 30(1), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305569032000159750

Khani, R. & Mirzaee, A. (2015). How do self-efficacy, contextual variables, and stressors affect teacher burnout in an EFL context? Educational Psychology, 35(1), 93–109, https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2014.981510

Landeche P. (2009). The correlation between creativity and burnout in public school classroom teachers (Unpublished master thesis). The University of Southwest Louisiana.

Lin, Y. S. (2011). Fostering creativity through education–a conceptual framework of creative pedagogy. Creative Education, 2(3), 149. https://doi.org/10.4236/ce.2011.2302

Loh, C. E. & Liew, W. M. (2016). Voices from the ground: The emotional labour of English teachers’ work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55, 267–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.016

Lumapenet, H. T. & Usop, M. P. (2022). School readiness towards the delivery of learning in the new normal education. International Journal of Early Childhood, 14(3), 2629–2637.

MacIntyre, P. D., Gregersen, T., & Mercer, S. (2020). Language teachers’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 conversion to online teaching: Correlations with stress, wellbeing, and negative emotions. System, 94, 102352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2020.102352

Maslach, C. (1983) (Ed.). Burnout, the cost of caring. Prentice Hall.

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103–111.

Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1996) (Eds.). Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual. Consulting Psychologist Press.

Maslach, C., Schaufeli, W. B., & Leiter, M. B. (2001). Job burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397

McCormick, J. & Barnett, K. (2011). Teachers’ attributions for stress and their relationships with burnout. International Journal of Educational Management, 25(3), 278–293. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513541111120114

Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: Dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review, 106(1), 3.

National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE) (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture and education. Department for Education and Employment.

Newton, L., & Beverton, S. (2012). Pre-service teachers’ conceptions of creativity in elementary school English. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 7(3), 165–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2012.02.002

Newton, L., & Newton, D. (2014). Creativity in 21st-century education. Prospects, 44(4), 575–589

Pawlak, M., Derakhshan, A., Mehdizadeh, M., & Kruk, M. (2021). The effects of class mode, course type, and focus on coping strategies in the experience of boredom in online English language classes. Language Teaching Research. https://doi.org/doi:10.1177/13621688211064944

Plucker, J. A., Beghetto, R. A., & Dow, G. T. (2004). Why isn’t creativity more important to educational psychologists? Potentials, pitfalls, and future directions in creativity research. Educational Psychologist, 39(2), 83–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep3902_1

Pressley, T., & Ha, C. (2022). Teacher exhaustion during COVID-19: Exploring the role of administrators, self-efficacy, and anxiety. The Teacher Educator, 57(1), 61–78.

Read, C. (2015). Seven pillars of creativity in primary ELT. In A., Maley, & N., Peachey, (Eds.). Creativity in the English language classroom (pp. 29–36). British Council.

Schaufeli, W., Maslach, C., & Marek, T. (1996). Professional burnout: Recent developments in theory and research. Taylor & Francis.

Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well–being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.513

Shang, W. (2022). Job stress and burnout among ideological and political education teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A moderated mediation model. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 1008854. https://doi.10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1008854

Simonton, D. K. (2014). Creative performance, expertise acquisition, individual differences, and developmental antecedents: An integrative research agenda. Intelligence, 45, 66–73.

Skaalvik, E., & Skaalvik, S. (2010). Teacher self-efficacy and teacher burnout: A study of relations. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 1059–1069. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2009.11.001

Solhi, M., Derakhshan, A., & Ünsal, B. (2023). Associations between EFL students’ L2 grit, boredom coping strategies, and emotion regulation strategies: A structural equation modeling approach. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2023.2175834

Susskind, J. M., Lee, D. H., Cusi, A., Feiman, R., Grabski, W., & Anderson, A. K. (2008). Expressing fear enhances sensory acquisition. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 843–850. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2138

Sutton, R. E., & Harper, E. (2009). Teachers' emotion regulation. In L. J. Saha, & A. G. Dworkin (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers and teaching (pp. 389–401). Springer. https://doi.10.1007/978-0-387-73317-3_25

Sutton, R. E., Mudrey-Camino, R., & Knight, C. C. (2009). Teachers’ emotion regulation and classroom management. Theory into Practice, 48, 130–137. https://doi.10.1080/00405840902776418

Tao, J., & Gao, X. A. (2022). Teaching and learning languages online: Challenges and responses. System, 107, 102819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102819

Thompson, R. A., Lewis, M. D., & Calkins, S. D. (2008). Reassessing emotion regulation. Child Development Perspectives, 2, 124–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2008.00054.x

Valente, S., Lourenço, A. A., Dominguez-Lara, S., Derakhshan, A., Németh, Z., & S. Almeida, L. (2022). Teachers’ emotion regulation: Implications for classroom conflict management. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 47(8), 18–32. Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ajte/vol47/iss8/2

Wang, H., & Hall, N. C. (2021). Exploring relations between teacher emotions, coping strategies, and intentions to quit: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 86(1), 64–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2021.03.005

Wang, L., & Kokotsaki, D. (2018). Primary school teachers’ conceptions of creativity in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in China. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 29, 115–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2018.06.002

Wang, Y., Derakhshan, A., & Azari Noughabi, M. (2022). The interplay of EFL teachers’ immunity, work engagement, and psychological well-being: Evidence from four Asian countries. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2092625

Wang, Y., Derakhshan, A., & Rahimpour, H. (2022). Developing resilience among Chinese and Iranian EFL teachers: A multi-dimensional cross-cultural study. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2042540

Wang, Y., Ramos, A., Wu, H., Liu, L., Yang, X., Wang, J., & Wang, L. (2015). Relationship between occupational stress and burnout among Chinese teachers: a cross-sectional survey in Liaoning, China. International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, 88, 589–597.

Xie, F. (2021). A study on Chinese EFL teachers' work engagement: The predictability power of emotion regulation and teacher resilience. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 735969. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.735969

Yüce, E. (2022). The immediate reactions of EFL learners towards total digitalization at higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kuramsal Eğitimbilim Dergisi (Journal of Theoretical Educational Science), 15(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.30831/akukeg.939836.

Yüce, E., Kruk, M., Derakhshan, A. (2023). Metacognitive knowledge and openness to diversity and challenge among Turkish pre-service EFL teachers: The mediating role of creative self-efficacy. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 50, 101386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2023.101386

Zhu, M., Liu, Q., Fu, Y., Yang, T., Zhang, X., & Shi, J. (2018). The relationship between teacher self-concept, teacher efficacy and burnout. Teachers and Teaching, 24(7), 788–801. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2018.1483913

Downloads

Published

2023-12-22

How to Cite

LI, H. (2023). Investigating the effects of emotion regulation and creativity on Chinese EFL teachers’ burnout in online classes. Porta Linguarum An International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Learning, (2023c), 177–193. https://doi.org/10.30827/portalin.vi2023c.29635

Issue

Section

2023c Special Issue "New Trends and Practices in Teacher Professional Development..."