Professional agency in the classroom and burnout among early career teachers in China

Liyuan E; Auli Toom; Janne Pietarinen; Tiina Soini; Kaisa Haverinen; Kirsi Pyhältö

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1412446

Professional agency in the classroom and burnout among early career teachers in China

Front Psychol. 2024 Nov 6:15:1412446. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1412446. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Liyuan E¹, Auli Toom¹, Janne Pietarinen², Tiina Soini³, Kaisa Haverinen³, Kirsi Pyhältö^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Centre for University Teaching and Learning, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
² School of Applied Educational Science and Teacher Education, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland.
³ Faculty of Education and Culture, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
⁴ Centre for Higher and Adult Education, Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate early career teachers' professional agency in the classroom. In addition, the association between early career teachers' professional agency in the classroom and the burnout they experienced was examined. In this study, 779 early career teachers, teaching in primary and junior secondary schools in China, responded to the study survey in 2021. The Mplus statistical package (version 8.4) was used to conduct the analysis and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that early career teachers' professional agency in the classroom consists of three elements: motivation, self-efficacy beliefs, and skills to manage new learning, which entails building a collaborative environment by transforming teaching practices and reflection in the classroom. The results also showed that early career teachers' professional agency in the classroom was negatively related to their burnout.

Keywords: Chinese context; professional agency; structural equation modeling; teacher burnout; teacher learning.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council and the Academy of Finland grant number 326647.