Emotional Labor Mediates the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Teaching Satisfaction Among English Teachers in China: A Structural Equation Model Analysis

SAGE Open

卷:16

Su Zou¹  Lisheng Liu¹ 

[1] Xuchang University, Henan, China

关键词: emotional intelligence;    school climate;    teaching satisfaction;    emotional labor;    teaching experience;   

DOI  :  10.1177/21582440261454762

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

Teaching satisfaction plays a crucial role in educators’ occupational mental health and directly affects instructional quality and student achievement. University English teachers often face high emotional regulation demands, emphasizing the need to examine how individual and environmental factors contribute to their satisfaction. Grounded in Emotional Labor Theory and Conservation of Resources Theory, this study developed and tested a structural model incorporating emotional intelligence, school climate, emotional labor, and teaching satisfaction. The study also investigated the mediating role of emotional labor and the moderating effect of teaching experience. A total of 976 English teachers from higher education institutions in China participated in the study. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that both emotional intelligence and school climate positively predicted teaching satisfaction. Emotional labor partially mediated these relationships, indicating that teachers’ internal emotion regulation processes serve as a psychological mechanism linking personal and contextual resources to satisfaction outcomes. Furthermore, teaching experience moderated the path between emotional labor and teaching satisfaction. These findings provide theoretical and practical insights into how emotional processes shape teachers’ professional experiences and suggest implications for designing experience-sensitive interventions and training programs to improve emotional resilience and job satisfaction in higher education settings.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
© The Author(s) 2026

【 图 表 】

Fig. 3