IntroductionEmotions are an integral part of education, and the way teachers manage their emotions is crucial to educational success. This study focuses on teachers’ emotional labor in secondary school classrooms and examined the relationships between emotional labor strategies and display rules, trait emotions, emotional exhaustion, and classroom emotional climate.MethodsIn the study, 496 secondary school teachers (386 female) aged 21–59 years (mean age = 37.61 ± 8.87 years) completed five self-reported questionnaires. Data were analyzed using structural equation model in AMOS.ResultsThe results showed that (1) display rules provide positive situations to deep acting and the expression of naturally felt emotions and mediate teachers’ positive emotions and strategies; (2) positive trait emotions increase the expression of naturally felt emotions and negative trait emotions increase surface acting; (3) surface acting results in emotional exhaustion and has an adverse impact on classroom emotional climate; and (4) deep acting and the expression of naturally felt emotions positively affect classroom emotional climate.DiscussionThese findings revealed that deep acting and the expression of naturally felt emotions are positively related to positive emotions and the classroom setting, whereas surface acting plays a negative role in the emotional states of individuals and the classroom. The study gives the centrality of teacher emotions in the teaching and learning process, clarifies some antecedents and consequences related to emotional labor strategies in a classroom setting, and provides some ideas to optimize educational outcomes. The five variables presented in the study are good examples that can contribute to protecting teachers’ wellbeing and improving the psychosociological environment.
Teachers’ emotional labor is essential to teachers’ instructional quality, psychological health, and students’ learning effectiveness in classrooms. To assess how teachers manage their emotions to match the display rules of classrooms, this study developed and validated a self-report scale—the Teachers’ Emotional Labor Strategy in Classrooms (TELSC)—through three rounds of investigation with secondary school teachers. First, strategies and item statements were collected through existing scales, an open-ended questionnaire, and interviews. Second, the pilot study was conducted, and the results of content validity and exploratory factor analysis confirmed the 17-item formal scale with four dimensions: surface acting, deep acting, expression of naturally felt emotions, and emotion termination. The third round investigated 491 teachers and validated the scale: confirmatory factor analyses verified the four-factor structure; correlations among the four subscales and average variance extracted indicated good discriminant validity; correlations between subscales and emotional exhaustion, teacher efficacy, and years of teaching showed good criterion validity; and Cronbach’s α showed good reliability. Overall, the TELSC scale is an efficient instrument to measure the strategies that teachers use to manage their emotions in classrooms, and it can be applied to understand and improve teachers’ professional competence in teaching and emotional interaction.
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