A Correlational Predictive Study of Teacher Well-Being and Professional Success in Foreign Language Student Teachers

Abstract

The teaching profession has an important emotional burden that, together with the erosion of different elements that compose it from continuous educational reform to the bad behavior and demotivation of students has led to many teachers experiencing physical and psychological illness or leaving the profession. Nevertheless, studies and interventions in this regard are still insufficient in the Spanish context. This situation also exponentially affects pre-service teachers, which according to numerous studies is the stage during which the diminishing of teacher well-being begins and consolidates. Within this panorama, with this study the authors pursue to determine which dimensions of teacher well-being are capable of predicting the professional success of 88 preservice primary education teachers who specialize in a foreign language so that they can be addressed in the training process. To this end, an ex post facto study was carried out correlating the following instruments: the Teacher Distress Questionnaire, the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey with an adaptation of the Rueda de la vida escolar sobre el éxito y la satisfacción laboral del docente (Wheel of school life on teacher success and job satisfaction). Multiple linear regression revealed that of all the variables studied for teacher well-being (intrinsic motivation, expectations about good professional performance, professional distress, professional exhaustion, irrational beliefs, emotional intelligence and burnout) only emotional intelligence and intrinsic motivation have the ability to predict the success of teachers in training in their future professional performance. This result is of paramount importance for reconsidering the training that teachers receive during their university stage, which currently and substantially prioritizes the cognitive component over psychosocial and emotional components.