The Emotional Side of Teaching Conceptions - Exploring the Relationship between Conceptions of Teaching and Teacher Burnout, Well-Being, and Resilience

Oct 15, 2026

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This paper investigates the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of teaching and multiple indicators of their emotional experience. Using a sample of 200 teachers, the study identifies three dimensions of teaching conceptions: student-centeredness, educational purpose, and projection into the future. Statistical results show that student-centeredness correlates negatively with resilience and well-being, while educational purpose linked to psychosocial learning yields lower well-being and personal accomplishment and higher depersonalization. Cross-country and cross-level differences also emerge, informing teacher education and reform management.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Teaching conceptions as a research area

Dimensions and continua of teaching conceptions

Contextual and cultural dependence of teaching conceptions

Emotional experience in educational reforms

The Emotional Side of Teaching Conceptions: Exploring the Relationship between Conceptions of Teaching and Teacher Burnout, Well-Being, and Resilience Marc Clarà Alba Vallés Sílvia Cavalcante Aina Franch Jordi Coiduras Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain Patricia Silva Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain Nick Kelly Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia Tatiana López Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaís Priscila Marchán Universidad Casa Grande, Guayaquil, Ecuado Bárbara Padula Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between teachers’conceptions of teaching and several indicators oftheir emotional experience. With a sample of 200 teachers, the study identifies three dimensions of teaching conceptions, “student-centeredness,” “educational purpose,” and “projection into the future.” Statistical analysis revealed that student-centeredness is negatively correlated with teachers’ resilience and well-being. Additionally, we found that well-being and sense ofpersonal accomplishment are significantly lower, and depersonalization significantly higher, when the educational purpose is psychosocial learning as opposed to academic learning. We also found some differences in conceptions of teaching among different countries and among different educational levels. These results may have useful implications for teacher education and for the management ofeducational reforms. Keywords: teaching conceptions, teacher emotions, burnout, well-being, resilience, studentcenteredness Introduction Over the last decade, teachers’ conceptions of teaching have emerged as an important area of research. This has mainly been due to the hypothesis that these conceptions strongly influence teaching practice, rendering them critical in a context of worldwide educational reforms to promote more student-centered educational models (Alt, 2018; Chen, 2015; Masduki et al., 2019; Mirete et al., 2020; Muimongkol et al., 2021; Richter et al., 2021) . In this scenario, the relationship between teachers’ and students’ agency in the educational process has received most of the attention in the study of teachers’ conceptions of teaching (Chen, 2015) . In general, this dimension has been studied as a continuum from more teachercentered to more student-centered conceptions of teaching. For example, Muimongkol et al.(2021) qualitatively identified three different conceptions of teaching science along this continuum, namely “explaining,” “demonstrating,” and “doing experiments,” while Wu and Ding (2020) identified four conceptions in technology teachers: “transmitting,”“apprenticing,” “facilitating,” and “changing conceptions.” This continuum has also been addressed from a more quantitative approach, and some questionnaires to measure studentcenteredness have been developed (e.g., Chan & Elliott, 2004; Richter et al., 2021; Trigwell & Prosser, 2004) . However, although student-centeredness is the central dimension in the study of teaching conceptions, some authors have considered additional dimensions. For example, Wu and Ding (2020) added the dimension “teaching objectives and content,” and Chen et al. (2021) considered a somewhat similar dimension, which they called “orientation.”Within these dimensions, Wu and Ding (2020) identified the categories “knowledge,”“technology skills,” and “technology literacies,” while Chen et al. (2021) defined the categories “skill-oriented,” “community-oriented,” and “identity-oriented.” Other authors have also added dimensions related to how the teacher envisages or projects the student into the future. For instance, Jacobs et al. (2020) added the dimension “orientation to professional practice,” whereas Chen (2015) added the dimension “developing life-long learners.” In both cases, these dimensions are measured by means of questionnaires. Some authors have also used the

FAQs

What teaching-conception dimensions does the study identify?

The study identifies three dimensions: student-centeredness, educational purpose, and projection into the future.

How does student-centeredness relate to teachers’ emotional indicators?

Student-centeredness is negatively correlated with teachers’ resilience and well-being.

What differences occur in emotional indicators when educational purpose emphasizes psychosocial learning?

Well-being and sense of personal accomplishment are significantly lower, and depersonalization is significantly higher under psychosocial learning compared with academic learning.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Kurz