How to keep teachers healthy and growing: the influence of job demands and resources

Evers, A. T., Yamkovenko, B. and Van Amersfoort, D. (2017) How to keep teachers healthy and growing: the influence of job demands and resources. European Journal of Training and Development, 41(8), pp. 670-686. (doi: 10.1108/EJTD-03-2017-0018)

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Abstract

Purpose – Education depends on high-quality teachers who are committed to professional development and do not get burned out. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how job demands and resources can affect the health and cognitive development of teachers using the Demand-Induced Strain Compensation model. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-sectional sample of 120 teachers in vocational education was used to investigate the proposed relationships and hypotheses with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression method. Findings – In terms of teacher health and development, significant main effects were found for several predictors. Autonomy was significantly and negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Autonomy, emotional supervisor and colleague support were significantly and positively related to teachers’ development. However, little support was found for matching hypotheses, suggesting that matching demands and resources do not offer more explanatory power for occupation outcomes than other types of interaction effects. Research limitations/implications – More powerful analyses techniques like structural equation modeling could be used in future research with a larger sample size. A second limitation is common method variance. Practical implications – Schools in vocational education should provide sufficient job resources, such as autonomy and emotional support, but possibly also put a limit on teacher task variety. Originality/value – Job demands and resources have until now mainly been related to negative outcomes such as poor health and ill-being, while the relationship with learning has also been hypothesized and is therefore meaningful to examine. In addition, it was investigated whether interaction effects of matching demands and resources, better explain these outcomes.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:Job demands, health outcomes, job resources, cognitive occupational outcomes, continued education, demand-induced strain compensation model, teachers’ professional development at work.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Van Amersfoort, Mr Daniel
Authors: Evers, A. T., Yamkovenko, B., and Van Amersfoort, D.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Education > Robert Owen Centre
College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
Journal Name:European Journal of Training and Development
Publisher:Emerald
ISSN:2046-9012
ISSN (Online):2046-9020
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited
First Published:First published in European Journal of Training and Development 41(8): 670-686
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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