College of Humanities, Xiamen Huaxia University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Institute of Education, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Front Public Health. 2024 Mar 19;12:1308486. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1308486. eCollection 2024.
Turnover intention is one of the common disturbances that affect the career development and management of university teachers. With an aim to solve this thorny issue, the study examined the associations between turnover intention and work stress among local undergraduate university teachers in China.
A questionnaire survey was carried out on 7,565 local university teachers. Initially, confirmatory factor analysis was employed to validate the reliability and validity of the scale. Subsequently, descriptive statistics and correlation analyses were conducted. Following this, a latent moderated structural equation (LMS) was used to explore the relationship among work stress, job burnout, self-efficacy, and turnover intention. Moreover, the bias-corrected Bootstrap method was applied to further examine the mediating effects, moderating effects, and moderated mediating effects in the model.
The hypothesized moderated mediation model was verified significant. Work stress directly and positively predicted job burnout and turnover intention, with job burnout serving a partial mediating role between work stress and turnover intention. Additionally, self-efficacy negatively moderated the direct impact of work stress on job burnout, as well as the mediating effect of job burnout. As the self-efficacy of university teachers increased, the direct effect of work stress on job burnout and the mediating effect of job burnout decreased.
This study expanded the research on the antecedent variables of university teachers' turnover intention and revealed the individual contingency mechanism by which work stress affected turnover intention: the negative moderating effect of self-efficacy. Work stress induced university teachers' turnover intention, and this phenomenon was more obvious for faculties with low self-efficacy. Administrators of local undergraduate universities need to rationalize the allocation of teachers' job responsibilities and pay attention to the negative consequences of work stress in order to reduce turnover intentions. Particular attention should be paid to enhance teachers' self-efficacy. The findings of this study can provide in-depth recommendations for university faculty management and policy making, which can help shape a working atmosphere more conducive to teaching and research, thus enhancing the overall quality and competitiveness of faculty members within universities.
离职倾向是影响高校教师职业发展和管理的常见干扰因素之一。为了解决这个棘手的问题，本研究考察了中国地方本科院校大学教师离职倾向与工作压力之间的关系。
对 7565 名地方高校教师进行问卷调查。首先，采用验证性因子分析验证了量表的信度和效度。然后，进行了描述性统计和相关性分析。接着，采用潜在调节结构方程（LMS）探讨了工作压力、职业倦怠、自我效能感与离职倾向之间的关系。此外，采用偏校正自举法进一步检验了模型中的中介效应、调节效应和调节中介效应。
假设的调节中介模型得到了验证。工作压力直接正向预测职业倦怠和离职倾向，职业倦怠在工作压力与离职倾向之间起部分中介作用。此外，自我效能感负向调节工作压力对职业倦怠的直接影响以及职业倦怠的中介作用。随着高校教师自我效能感的提高，工作压力对职业倦怠的直接影响以及职业倦怠的中介作用都降低。
本研究拓展了高校教师离职倾向的前因变量研究，揭示了工作压力影响离职倾向的个体权变机制：自我效能感的负向调节作用。工作压力引发了高校教师的离职倾向，对于自我效能感较低的教师来说，这种现象更为明显。地方本科院校的管理者需要合理配置教师的工作职责，并关注工作压力的负面影响，以降低离职倾向。尤其应注重增强教师的自我效能感。本研究的结果可为高校教师管理和政策制定提供深入建议，有助于营造更有利于教学和科研的工作氛围，从而提高高校教师队伍的整体素质和竞争力。
