How the COVID-19 pandemic affects job sentiments of rural teachers

Stress-activated motility: study on the influence mechanism of COVID-19 event strength on employee safety performance in high reliability organizations

Objectives. Events have been an important research topic in the field of organizations, especially as the outbreak of COVID-19 has brought challenges to employees and organizations, affecting employee behaviour in the workplace. Based on the cognitive activation theory of stress, this study explored the mechanisms of the impact of COVID-19 event strength on employee safety performance in high reliability organizations. Methods. A quantitative research design was adopted with data collected from 759 urban rail transit organizational employees in China. Structural equation modelling analysis using Mplus version 7.4 was employed to test the hypotheses. Results. COVID-19 event strength can positively affect the safety performance of employees in high reliability organizations through a chain-mediating effect of work meaningfulness and engagement. Perceived trust positively moderates the chain-mediating effect and the relationship between COVID-19 event strength and work meaningfulness for high reliability organization employees. Conclusion. Based on the cognitive activation theory of stress, this study explored the mechanisms of the impact of COVID-19 event strength on employee safety performance in high reliability organizations, enhancing the literature on organizational events and safety performance, and expanding application of the cognitive activation theory of stress in high-reliability organizations.

Teaching in China's Heartland: A qualitative exploration of rural teacher job satisfaction

Enhancing rural teacher job satisfaction, which is a pivotal aspect in elevating the overall quality of rural education, serves as a crucial means to promote balanced educational development and to foster societal equity and cohesion. The objective of the study was to explore the factors that influence job satisfaction of rural teachers teaching in China's Heartland. 15 rural primary school teachers were meticulously chosen for in-depth interviews, utilizing a qualitative research paradigm and purposive sampling technique, spanning from March 2021 to July 2021. With reference to Hoppock's view of job satisfaction, this study designed an interview outline based on specificities of rural workplaces. Through in-depth interviews, a wealth of first-hand text materials was collected about rural teacher job satisfaction. Then these textual materials were processed with a rigorous tertiary coding based on grounded theory. This study found that rural teacher job satisfaction was influenced by various factors, encompassing both external and internal factors. External factors included national policies, campus culture, and rural environment. Internal factors included growth experience and self-cognition. Further, strong external support was strongly associated with improvement of rural teacher job satisfaction. Intra-individual characteristics of rural teachers were the most implicit influencing factors.

The relationship between preschool teacher trait mindfulness and teacher-child relationship quality: the chain mediating role of emotional intelligence and empathy

The teacher-child relationship plays an important role in children's future development. However, the existing research mainly focuses on the influence of preschool teachers' external conditions on the teacher-student relationship, while the research on the influence of teachers' internal psychological characteristics on the teacher-student relationship is relatively lacking. In this study, three hundred and seventeen preschool teachers were tested were tested with Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Emotional Intelligence Scale, Chinese Interpersonal Response Index, and Teacher-student Relationship Scale. The results showed that trait mindfulness positively predicted the quality of parent-teacher relationship (β = 0.173, p = 0.026). Emotional intelligence played a mediating role in trait mindfulness and teacher-child relationship quality (β = 0.118, p = 0.004), and empathy played a mediating role in trait mindfulness and teacher-child relationship quality (β = 0.112, p = 0.001). Meanwhile, emotional intelligence and empathy played a chain mediating role in trait mindfulness and parent-teacher relationship quality (β = 0.044, p = 0.038). On the one hand, this study enriches attachment theory. The conclusions of this study verify the diversity of proximal factors in attachment theory, and confirm the influence of teachers' own characteristics and abilities on the teacher-child relationship quality. On the other hand, by exploring the factors affecting the teacher-child relationship quality, we can find ways to improve teacher-child relationship from a new perspective, and then provide some new methods and approaches for improving the quality of preschool teacher-child relationship.