Abstract
The appraisal theories of emotions and existing studies have indicated the relationships between emotions and goals. However, little research has investigated the role of teachers’ student-oriented goals for their emotions. This study examined how teachers’ teaching-related emotions relate to their student-oriented goals directly or indirectly through personal achievement goals. A sample of 676 senior secondary mathematics teachers in China (78.6% were female, 56.2% were more than 41 years old, and 64.3% had 15-year or above teaching experiences) voluntarily completed an online questionnaire, and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were performed to analyze the data. The results showed that teachers’ student-oriented mastery goals were positive predictors of their enjoyment/satisfaction and negative predictors of anger/anxiety. By contrast, teachers’ student-oriented performance goals predicted their enjoyment negatively and anger/anxiety positively. The indirect effects of student-oriented goals on teacher emotions through personal achievement goals were also significant. This study specifies the mechanisms underlying the relationships between teachers’ goals and emotions, substantiating and advancing the existing theories and the reciprocal model of teacher emotions.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Science Research Program of Ministry of Education (Grant Number 22YJA880016) and Shanghai Normal University (Grant Number SK202210).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by FH. Data analysis and interpretation were performed by ZJ. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZJ and FH. All authors revised and commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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The authors declare no conflict of financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Hongbiao Yin is a Member of the Journal’s Editorial Board.
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This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Shanghai Normal University (reference number [2022]077). All subjects participated in the study voluntarily.
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Hu, F., Jiang, Z., Yin, H. et al. Linking Teachers’ Student-Oriented Goals to Their Emotions in Mathematics Classrooms: The Mediation of Personal Achievement Goals. Asia-Pacific Edu Res 33, 1327–1337 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00805-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-023-00805-2