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Resilience of Chinese Teachers: Why Perceived Work Conditions and

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DOI: 10.1080/15366367.2019.1588593

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 Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and
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Resilience of Chinese Teachers: Why Perceived

Work Conditions and Relational Trust Matter

Qiong Li, Qing Gu & Wenjie He

To cite this article: Qiong Li, Qing Gu & Wenjie He (2019) Resilience of Chinese Teachers: Why
Perceived Work Conditions and Relational Trust Matter, Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research
and Perspectives, 17:3, 143-159, DOI: 10.1080/15366367.2019.1588593

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MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES
2019, VOL. 17, NO. 3, 143–159
https://doi.org/10.1080/15366367.2019.1588593

Resilience of Chinese Teachers: Why Perceived Work Conditions

and Relational Trust Matter
Qiong Lia, Qing Gub, and Wenjie Hea
a
Center for Teacher Education Research, Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University; bLondon Centre for
Leadership in Learning, University College London Institute of Education

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This paper aims to explore the conceptual construct of teacher resilience Teacher resilience; relational
and the impact of organizational and relational conditions on teachers’ trust; work conditions;
capacity to sustain their resilience. The research upon which the paper is teacher commitment
based adopted a mixed-methods design to investigate the nature of resi-
lience in a sample of 455 primary and secondary school teachers in Beijing.
The paper reports results from the questionnaire analyses. Confirmatory
factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to test
the direct and indirect effects of school leadership support, work conditions
and relational trust between colleagues in predicting teachers’ capacity to
sustain their resilience in the classroom. The results support the validity and
reliability of the construct components of teacher resilience. They also
demonstrate that the quality of work conditions and relational trust can
significantly predict teacher resilience. The findings highlight the impor-
tance of school contexts in developing teachers’ resilience qualities, and
have important implications for teacher recruitment and retention.

Introduction
Sustaining the commitment and resilience of teachers over the course of their professional lives is
a major issue of concern in many countries. Teacher resilience is a relatively new area of investiga-
tion which explores what enables teachers to sustain their capacity to teach well in adverse
circumstances and offers a positive perspective to studies of stress, burnout, and attrition
(Beltman, Mansfield, & Price, 2011; Gu & Day, 2007). Previous studies consistently suggest that
teaching is a physically and emotionally demanding job (Day & Gu, 2010, 2014a; Gu & Li, 2013;
Kyriacou, 2000). However, despite the internal and external pressures on teachers, research also
consistently shows that many teachers across the world have managed to maintain their passion and
commitment to teach to their best (Gu & Li, 2013; OECD, 2005). Results of the OECD’s lower
secondary international teacher survey, for example, showed that 78% of the surveyed teachers
would still choose to work as a teacher if they could decide again (OECD, 2014). We have thus long
argued that resilience is not a quality that is reserved for the heroic few (Day & Gu, 2014b). Rather,
they can be shared by many ordinary teachers who remain extraordinarily committed to serving the
learning and achievement of the children on an everyday basis, and also, over the course of their
professional lives. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and confirm the factor validity of the
construct of teacher resilience and explore the ways in which it is influenced by the contexts in which
teachers work and live.
There were two reasons why we decided to focus on resilience in Chinese teachers. First, as part
of character education, resilient qualities have been emphasized for thousands of years in the

CONTACT Qing Gu [email protected] London Centre for Leadership in Learning, University College London Institute of
Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL.
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
144 Q. LI ET AL.

Chinese culture. For instance, one of the oldest Chinese classics “I Ching”(易经) indoctrinated
people to believe that “As heaven’s movement is ever vigorous, so must a gentleman ceaselessly strive
along” (天行健，君子以自强不息) (Jin & Lv, 2005, p. 17). For teachers in Mainland China, decades
of rapid economic, political and social changes have led to many unprecedented government
education reforms and created profound challenges such as heavy workload, examination-oriented
learning assessment, and high parental expectations (Gao, 2008; Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012). What
keeps many Chinese teachers going in such changing and challenging circumstances was a key
research question that this study intended to answer.
The second reason is closely related to the quality retention of Chinese teachers in an education
system where most teachers were traditionally employed in permanent positions by local educational
authorities before the end of the 1990s (Gao, 2008). In the last decade, although new contract
employment practices have been adopted in schools, teaching remains a stable career for many.
Research shows that teachers’ dropout rates in China are low (Gu & Li, 2013; Liu & Onwuegbuzie,
2012). One crucial question is then centered on how to maintain teachers’ enthusiasm and commit-
ment to teaching in times of change. Research into teacher resilience has the potential to provide
productive insights for school leaders and policymakers into enhancing teaching and learning
quality.
Drawing upon the analysis of a questionnaire survey of 455 primary and secondary school
teachers in Beijing, this paper examines the theoretical underpinnings and measurement of teacher
resilience, and also explores the structural relationship of contextual factors that influence teacher
resilience.

Policy contexts and challenges for Chinese teachers

Since the last two decades, the Chinese government has launched a wide range of educational
reforms to improve teaching force quality. Major reform policies included the promulgation of the
Teacher Law in 1993, which officially identified teaching as a profession for the first time and
specified the legal requirements for teachers’ qualifications across different levels of education
(Ministry of Education, 1993); the Education Law in 1995, which intended to raise teachers’ social
status by improving their working and living conditions as well as professional learning and
development, thus making teaching the ‘‘most respected profession” in society (Ministry of
Education, 1995); and a major policy move at the turn of the century to create mechanisms to
promote teachers’ continuing professional development through the provision of in-service training,
school-based mentoring and lesson study (Ministry of Education, 1999, 2001).
The latest initiative was a major national strategic plan to improve education quality and
provision in the next decade – The Outline for Medium and Long-term Development and Reform
of Education (2010–2020). This plan placed teachers at the core of this strategic mission and
highlighted the importance of building a committed, professional, structually balanced and sustain-
able high-quality teaching force (Ministry of Education, 2010). Following this plan, the Professional
Standard for Teachers was issued in 2011, which specified a clear baseline of expectations for the
professional practice and conduct of teachers (Ministry of Education, 2011).
The curriculum reform implemented in the new millennium essentially calls for major changes in
approaches to student learning–from pure knowledge transmission towards fostering learning attitudes and
values, from pure “bookish” knowledge to improving relevance and interest in the content of a curriculum,
and from repetitive and mechanistic rote-learning towards increased student participation, real-life experi-
ence, building capacity in communication and teamwork, and developing the ability to acquire new
knowledge and to analyze and solve problems (OECD, 2012; Ministry of Education, 2001). Teachers are
expected to rethink and reconstruct their conventional beliefs about teaching and learning, transform their
pedagogical principles, and build a student-centered and creativity-oriented learning culture in their
classrooms (Gu & Li, 2013).
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 145

Implementing such deep educational changes in teaching and learning is a challenging task for
teachers (Lee & Yin, 2011). One of the major obstacles is that they have found the new curriculum
difficult to manage when preparing their students to perform well in public examinations – the
success in which is of critical importance to students’ future lives and remains the principal form of
assessment of teacher and school performance in China. Changes in the curriculum and examina-
tions intensified teacher’s heavy workload and contributed to a high level of occupational stress and
emotional exhaustion (Gao, 2008; Lee & Yin, 2011; Li, Zhang, & Zhou, 2011; Liu & Onwuegbuzie,
2012). Thus, nurturing teachers’ resilience and commitment is of urgent need in such reality of
teaching.

Conceptual framework
Conceptualizations of teacher resilience
Initially, the term ‘resilience’ was used to explain the capacity of children to adapt and thrive despite
experiencing adversity (Garmezy, 1974; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). However, it has been subsequently
shown that resilience is not solely a personal attribute, but a complex construct resulting from a dynamic
relationship between risk and protective factors (Benard, 2004; Luthar & Brown, 2007). As an emerging field
of research, and in part due to the complex nature of resilience, teacher resilience has been conceptualized in
the literature in a range of ways (Bobek, 2002; Gu, 2018; Le Cornu, 2009). For instance, from a professional
role specific to teachers, Brunetti (2006) defined teacher resilience as “a quality that enables teachers to
maintain their commitment to teaching and teaching practices despite challenging conditions and recurring
setbacks” (2006, p. 813). Moral courage and ethical values are found to provide important intellectual,
emotional and spiritual strengths for teachers, which enable them to be resilient over the course of their
careers (Day & Gu, 2010; Gu & Day, 2013; OECD, 2005; Palmer, 2007). Considering resilience as a sense of
teacher efficacy, Oswald, Johnson, and Howard (2003) defined teacher resilience as ‘‘capacity to overcome
personal vulnerabilities and environmental stressors, to be able to ‘bounce back’ in the face of potential risks,
and to maintain well-being’’ (2003, p. 50). Rather than the capacity to ‘bounce back’ or recover from highly
traumatic experiences and events, Gu and Day’s (2013) demonstrated that teachers resilience was “the
capacity to maintain equilibrium and a sense of commitment, agency and moral purpose in the everyday
worlds in which teachers teach“ (2013, p. 5). Additionally, teacher resilience is not solely related to individual
characteristics but contexts specific. It was ‘‘a dynamic construct subject to influence by environmental,
work-specific and personal contexts’’ (Sammon, Day, Kington, Gu & Smees, 2007, p. 694) or ‘‘a mode of
interacting with events in the environment that is activated and nurtured in times of stress’’ (Tait,
2008, p. 58).
In summary, teacher resilience is a dynamic process or outcome that is the result of interaction over time
between a person and the environment (e.g. Bobek, 2002; Day &Gu, 2010; Sumsion, 2004; Tait, 2008). Built
upon the above definitions of teacher resilience and our previous empirical findings (Gu & Li, 2013), this
study demonstrated that the construct of teacher resilience shares three key components: (1) Professional
commitment and motivation for teaching as the emotional source of resilience; (2) Self-efficacy as the social

Figure 1. Triadic relationships of the elements of teacher resilience.

146 Q. LI ET AL.

and cognitive source of resilience; (3) Job fulfillment or satisfaction as the affective source of resilience (see
Figure 1). The three facets interact with each other to enable teachers to sustain their passion, commitment,
and optimism in the teaching profession. Next, we turn to each of the individual components of teacher
resilience: professional commitment and motivation for teaching, sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment.

Components of teacher resilience

Professional commitment and motivation for teaching
Teacher commitment has been defined by Coladarci (1992) as the “degree of psychological attach-
ment to the teaching profession.” Research shows that it is an important predictor of teachers’ work
performance, absenteeism, retention, burnout, and turnover, and that it has a significant influence
on students’ motivation, achievement, attitudes towards learning and being at school (Firestone,
1996). Gu and Day (2007, p. 1311) found that having an inner motivation to teach, ‘‘an important
professional asset of teachers,” was associated with “a strong sense of professional goals and
purposes, persistence, professional aspirations and achievement.”
The previous literature identified components of teacher commitment such as commitment to
students, school priorities, and subject knowledge (Choi & Tang, 2009; Day, Elliot and Kington,
2005). The findings from experienced teachers in England and Australia suggest that commitment to
teaching goes beyond these (Day et al., 2005). Teacher commitment may be better understood as
a nested phenomenon involving a set of core, relatively permanent values based upon personal
beliefs, images of self, role, and identity, which is socio-politically constructed and subject to change
(Day et al., 2005). In addition, they found that teachers with sustained commitment worked
consistently hard, set high standards of performance and behavior, and demonstrated a continuing
willingness to professional learning as well as intellectual and emotional engagement. Similarly, Gu
and Li (2013) concluded in their study that commitment to children’s learning functions as a strong
emotional drive that enables many Chinese teachers to remain meaningfully engaged in the profes-
sion over the course of their professional lives.
Professional commitment of Chinese teachers embodied strong ethics of care for their students,
a very close connection between their students and themselves, and a strong desire for continuing
professional learning and development. These internal values and motivation fuelled teachers’
capacities to exercise emotional strengths and professional competence and subsequently provided
them with the resilience that enabled them to meet the challenges of the changing environments in
which they worked (Gu & Day, 2007). In sum, the current studies confirmed the centrality of
commitment to sustaining teacher quality. Sustained commitment to teaching is an important
emotional and motivational component of teacher resilience.

Sense of self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is grounded in the theoretical framework of social cognitive theory emphasizing that the
evolvement and exercise of human agency can exercise some influence over what people do
(Bandura, 1997). Efficacy beliefs determine how environmental opportunities and impediments are
perceived and affect the choice of activities, how much effort is expended on an activity, and how
long people will persevere when confronting obstacles (Bandura, 1997; Pajares, 1997). In educational
settings, research has shown that the teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs influence job satisfaction and
mediate job stress (Klassen & Chiu, 2010). Teachers with low self-efficacy for classroom manage-
ment may struggle to regulate classroom stress and be more likely to leave the profession (Jepson &
Forrest, 2006). In contrast, teachers with a strong sense of efficacy have been found to work harder
with struggling students (Gibson & Dembo, 1984), to be more willing to employ new strategies
because of a reduced fear of failure (Ross, Cousins, & Gadalla, 1996), and to face challenges to
influence student engagement and teachers’ job commitment (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy,
2001). From this perspective, teachers who have a strong belief in their capabilities to make
a difference to student learning set higher expectations, exert greater effort, and redouble their effort
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 147

to master the challenges (Bandura, 2000; Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Thus, we
argue that the extent to which teachers are able to continue to teach to their best in the workplace is
inherently influenced by the strengths of their efficacy beliefs.

Job fulfillment
Job fulfillment from overcoming challenges is an affective experience and brings about a social
return for resilient teachers. This positive experience enables teachers to sustain their passion,
commitment, and optimism in the teaching profession. Ryan and Deci (2000) highlight that
fulfillment and happiness are correlated most highly with an individual’s ability to exercise intrinsic
motivation – which, in turn, nurtures efficacy beliefs and passion in one’s work. Teachers’ commit-
ment was found to be reinforced by a personal sense of achievement, which played out differently
among teachers in different professional life and career phases. Mid- and early-career teachers
became more committed when they could ‘‘try out what was learnt’’ whereas the late-career teachers
related increased/sustained commitment to ‘‘goals being achieved’’ and ‘‘aspirations being fulfilled’’
(Choi & Tang, 2009). Feeling able and having achieved in one’s work could be a motivational drive
for resilient teachers to learn to adjust themselves amidst challenges.
Gu and Li (2013) argue that job fulfilment of Chinese teachers encompasses three key elements:
teachers’ interest in the job, their perceived effectiveness, and their ability to sustain their sense of
satisfaction as a teacher over time – all of which speak to a strong sense of moral responsibility and
commitment to have a positive influence on children’s growth and achievement. In addition, it is
important to note that for the Chinese, the lay theories of happiness emphasizes fulfillment of social
role obligations and achieving a dialectical balance between happiness and unhappiness – which is in
stark contrast to the Euro-American conception that emphasizes ‘personal accountability and
explicit pursuit of personal goals’ (Lu, 2010, p. 333). The element of ‘feeling happy and fulfilled as
a teacher’ in our conceptualization is grounded in a Confucian collective, moral discourse and must
be understood as entailing teachers’ pursuit of their moral duties for the society.

Research hypotheses
The nature of the sense of teacher resilience
We have proposed that there exits three components of teacher resilience theoretically. The main
hypothesis is：

H.1. The latent construct of teacher resilience comprises the three dimensions of vocational com-
mitment and motivation for teaching, sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment.

We predicted that teacher resilience is a second-order latent factor. The hypothesis is presented
conceptually as a structural model in Figure 2.

Work conditions and teacher resilience

As indicated above, resilience is conceptualized as a complex and dynamic construct subject to
influence by work-specific and personal contexts (e.g. Bobek, 2002; Day & Gu, 2010; Tait, 2008).
Beltman et al. (2011) found that these contextual factors may come from sources such as school
administration, relationships with school leaders, colleagues, parents and students, professional work
and family. For example, supportive school administrative culture means strong and open leader-
ship, fair distribution of resources, and encouraging feedback and recognition. ‘‘Strong caring
leadership’’ is a major source of personal support for teachers (Howard & Johnson, 2004, p. 412).
In contrast, unsupportive school administration could push ‘‘high efficacy teachers’’ to move to
148 Q. LI ET AL.

Figure 2. Structural model of relations between work conditions, relational trust and teacher resilience (N = 455).

another school where they felt a better fit between themselves and the philosophies and practices of
the school (Yost, 2006, p. 70).
The most common work context challenge for teachers was lack of time due to heavy workload
and non-teaching duties such as paperwork or meetings (e.g. Castro, Kelly, & Shih, 2009). High
workload, demoralizing policy initiatives and lack of professional and leadership support could
negatively influence the commitment of teachers across all phases of their professional lives (Day &
Gu, 2010). Other contexts significant to teachers’ morale and capacity to teach to their best included
their participation in schools’ decision-making processes and access to opportunities for professional
development (Day, Gu, & Sammons, 2016), as well as schools’ physical facilities and resources for
teaching (Olsen & Anderson, 2007; Prosser, 2008). In addition to these school-based contextual
factors, constraints from family could also exert extra pressure on teachers to manage work and
family commitments (Fleet & Kitson, Cassady & Hughes, 2007; Smethem, 2007) or to leave teaching
(Olsen & Anderson, 2007). Therefore, in our research, we hypothesized that school leadership,
teachers’ workload conditions, teaching resources, and teacher participation and development are
vital to teachers’ capacity to sustain their resilience and commitment. Thus, the following hypothesis
is proposed.

H.2. Work conditions in schools significantly affect teacher resilience.

Relational trust and teacher resilience

Teachers work in multi-layered relationships with colleagues, principal, students, and parents. A trusting
relationship is conducive to the improvement of teachers’ efficacy, commitment, and resilience (Lee, Zhang
&Yin, 2011). According to Hoy and Tschannen-Moran’s (2003) definition, trust reflects how an individual
or group is willing to risk vulnerability with regard to another party. The willingness is based on the
individual’s or group’s confidence that the party is benevolent, reliable, competent, honest and open.
Previous studies have found that relational trust is of great importance for building organizational learning
atmosphere and resilience (Gu & Li, 2013).
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 149

Parents and students are a major source of support, as well as challenge, for teachers to sustain their
capacity to be resilient. The inner city teachers in Brunetti’s (2006) study had a deep respect for the ways in
which their students overcame difficult circumstances and reported a strong responsibility and commit-
ment to supporting them. Trusting student–teacher relationships sustain teachers’ vocational commitment
in the face of challenges (Kitching, Morgan, & O’Leary, 2009). Research also shows that students in safe and
trusting environments feel comfortable to take risks and learn from their mistakes and that parents tend to
believe that teachers are motivated by their best interest in their students (Bryk & Schneider, 2002).
Supportive mentors and colleagues bring about hope and inspiration for teachers, helping them to cope
with difficulties at work, and maintain their commitment, especially in highly challenging situations
(Brunetti, 2006). Research on early career teachers has been consistently suggesting that positive mentor
relationships and collegial colleagues are main sources of support for their professional learning and
development which impact on their morale and importantly, their decision to stay or leave the school or
profession (Howard & Johnson, 2004; Jarzabkowski, 2002).
To sum up, trusting relationships in colleagues, students and parents as a social, emotional and
psychological atmosphere, are conducive to the learning and development of teachers’ efficacious beliefs
and commitment (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007; Yin & Lee, 2012). Hence, we hypothesize that:

H.3. Trusting relationships in schools are positively associated with teacher resilience.

Modeling the relationship of work conditions, trusting relationships and teacher resilience
One main purpose of this present study was to examine what factors contributed to teachers’ enthusiasm,
sense of commitment and fulfillment. Also, it used SEM analysis to investigate the relationships between
work conditions and relational trust in schools and teacher resilience. To achieve this, it assessed the
variance of each factor contributing uniquely and differentially to the prediction of teacher resilience. Based
on previous research on teacher resilience in China (Gu & Li, 2013), this study hypothesized that both work
conditions and relational trust in schools make a salient and positive contribution to the three components
of teacher resilience. Thus, the fourth hypothesis is proposed.

H.4. Work conditions and relational trust, directly and indirectly, influence resilience in teachers
(Figure 4).

Method
Participants
Six hundred kindergarten, primary and secondary school teachers in Beijing participated in the teacher
survey in 2012. They were randomly selected from 30 schools in three districts in Beijing taking into account
factors such as age, gender and years of experience in teaching. A total of 568 questionnaires were returned
representing a response rate of 85%. Given the considerable difference in the nature and contexts of teachers’
work between kindergartens and primary and secondary schools in China, this paper focusses on the
analyses of the survey responses from 455 primary and secondary teachers. The respondents were
predominantly female (80%) which largely reflects the composition of the teaching workforce in Beijing.
Their years of experience in teaching ranged from a few months to 30 years (M = 13.54, SD = 6.35).

Measures
Teacher resilience scale
Teacher resilience was measured originally with 26 items based on empirical work on teacher resilience,
commitment, and effectiveness (e.g. Gu & Day, 2007, 2013; Gu & Li, 2013). After analyzing the validity using
150 Q. LI ET AL.

exploratory factor analysis, 13 items remained in the resilience scale. They measured three different
dimensions of resilience including vocational motivation and commitment, self-efficacy, and job fulfillment
and professional optimism. Each of the items was measured along a 6-point Likert-type scale from 1
(“strongly disagree”) to 6 (“strongly agree”). The items include: “I’ve been feeling interested in my job overall.”
“I feel able to sustain your commitment to pupils.” “I feel able to generate enthusiasm for learning in your
class.” The alpha coefficient of the three components of resilience scale ranged from .87-.93, suggesting that
this measure was all reliably assessed.

Work conditions scale

This measure was built upon research on school leadership and school improvement (e.g. Gu & Johansson,
2013; Gu, Sammons, & Mehta, 2008) and existing scales developed in the organizational health research that
explore the impact of work conditions on employees’ mental health and wellbeing (e.g. Griffiths, Cox,
Karanika, Khan, & Tomas, 2006). Original 26 items were designed to ask teachers to rate the extent to which
they were satisfied with 1) leadership support (e.g. ‘support from line manager’; ‘feedback on my perfor-
mance’); 2) teaching resources (e.g. ‘clear school improvement goals’; ‘physical facilities for teaching’); and 3)
workload and variety (e.g. ‘flexibility of working hours’; ‘variety in different tasks’). Each of the items was
measured along a 6-point Likert-type scale from 1 (“strongly dissatisfied”) to 6 (“strongly satisfied”).
Exploratory factor analyses indicated that the above three factors explained 63.67% variance of the measure
of work conditions. The high value of the alpha coefficients of the three components of work conditions,
ranging from .84 −.92, suggests high reliability.

Relational trust scale

Relational trust in schools was built upon research on school leadership and school improvement (e.g. Gu &
Johansson, 2013; Gu et al., 2008) and also considered established measures for assessing trust in schools
(Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 1999, 2003). A total of 30 items were designed to measure the levels of relational
trust including trust in principals (e.g. ‘Teachers in this school have faith in the integrity of the principal.’),
trust in colleagues (e.g. ‘Teachers in this school trust each other.’), trusts in students and parents (‘Students in
this school can be counted on to do their work.’ ‘Teachers in this school trust the parents.’). Each of the items
was measured along a 6-point Likert-type scale from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 6 (“strongly agree”).
Exploratory factor analyses indicated that these above three factors explained 65.79% variance of relational
trust in schools. The values of the alpha coefficients of the three components of relational trust, ranging from
.85 −.92, suggest the measures displayed adequate internal consistency. All the measures were piloted with
a small group of Chinese teachers before they were finalized and translated into Chinese.

Procedure
Participants of this study completed three self-report scales assembled in a questionnaire with the
guidance of the researchers in participating schools. All participants completed the questionnaire
within half an hour. They were assured that the data would be kept confidential, and would be used
for research purposes only.

Data analysis
Data were analyzed by means of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling
(SEM) using the AMOS 7 program. SEM is a statistical methodology that takes a confirmatory approach to
the analysis (Byrne, 2001). In this approach, a hypothesized model of relations between variables is tested
statistically to determine the extent to which it is consistent with the data, which is referred to as the
goodness of fit. We evaluated model fit by using well-established indices such as CFI, IFI, TLI, and RMSEA
as well as the chi-square test statistics. For the CFI, IFI, and TLI indices, values greater than .90 are typically
considered acceptable and values greater than .95 indicate a good fit to the data (Bollen, 1989; Byrne, 2001;
Hu & Bentler, 1999). Furthermore, for a good fit, an RMSEA .06 or less are considered indicative of good fit,
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 151

≤.08 of fair fit, between .08 and .10 of mediocre fit and greater than .10 of poor fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999;
MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996).

Results
Test of hypothesis 1: The structure and measure of teacher resilience
In order to test hypothesis 1, we explored three theoretical models using confirmatory factor
analyses. Model 1 defined one first-order factor only and tested if teacher resilience could be treated
as a one-dimensional construct. Model 2 defined three first-order factors (vocational commitment
and motivation for teaching, sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment) corresponding to the three
theoretical dimensions. Compared to Model 1 and Model 2 as the competing models, Model 3
defined three first-order factors and one second-order factor underlying the primary factors.
Model 1 did not fit the data (χ2 = 1127.95.64, df = 65, CFI = .90, IFI = .89, TLI = .72, RMSEA =
.19). This indicated that teacher resilience was not one dimensional but a multiple dimensional
structure. Model 2 had a marginally acceptable fit to the data (χ2 = 244.64, df = 62, CFI = .95, IFI =
.95, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .08). The correlation coefficients of three latent variables in Model 2
indicated that the three first-order factors of vocational commitment and motivation for teaching,
sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment had significant high correlations (r = .72, r = .73, r = .68).
This showed that the three latent variables could have a second-order latent factor. We further tested
Model 3 and found that it also showed a marginally acceptable fit to the data (χ2 = 244.64, df = 62,
CFI = .95, IFI = .95, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .08). The analyses suggest that teacher resilience could be
treated as a multidimensional latent construct inherently supported by the three factors. The second-
order model with its standardized beta weights is shown in Figure 3. As hypothesized, teacher
resilience is a second-order factor composed of vocational commitment and motivation for teaching,
sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment.

Test of hypotheses 2 and 3: Relationships of work conditions, relational trust, and teacher
resilience
The responses of the 455 survey participants to all measures were first aggregated to yield 10 scores
based on the work conditions, relational trust, and the three subscales of teacher resilience including
vocational motivation and commitment, self-efficacy and job fulfillment and professional optimism.
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and the correlation matrix of these measures. Work
conditions and relational trust in schools were significantly and positively correlated with teacher
resilience, suggesting that the more supportive the school leadership, the more manageable the
workload allocation, the better teaching facilities and resources, and the greater participation
teachers enjoy in schools’ decision-making processes, the more likely they are to be committed
and resilient at work. Also, trusting relationships that they have with colleagues, the headteacher, and
parents and students contribute positively and highly significantly to their vocational motivation and
commitment, self-efficacy and job fulfillment and optimism. It is important to note that the positive
correlation between relational trust and teacher resilience is much stronger than that between the
latent variable of work conditions and teacher resilience, highlighting the vital importance of
relationships and trust in building and sustaining teacher resilience in workplace contexts.
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations of work conditions, relational
trust, and measure of teacher resilience (N = 455).
152 Q. LI ET AL.

Commitment
Commitment and
and
motivation
motivation for
for
teaching
teaching

Figure 3. Confirmatory factor analysis for teacher resilience.

Figure 4. Structural model of relationship of work conditions trust and teacher resilience.

Test of hypothesis 4: Structural model of relations between work conditions, relational trust
and teacher resilience
One of the purposes of this study was to explore if and how teacher resilience was predicted by work
conditions and relational trust. We tested a theoretical model with the three latent variables of work
conditions and the three latent variables of relational trust using the three latent variables of teacher
resilience as the outcome measure (Figure 3). The model had an acceptable fit to the data (χ2 = 78.55,
df = 23, CFI = .98, IFI = .96, TLI = .98, RMSEA = .07). All work conditions and relational trust
variables were significantly related to teacher resilience. The stronger predictor of teacher resilience
was relational trust (.63). Work conditions significantly predicted teacher resilience directly (.23),
and also indirectly through the relational trust as a mediating variable (.79).
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 153

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations of work conditions, relational trust, and measure of teacher resilience (N = 455).
Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Trust in colleagues -
2. Trust in parents and students .60** -
3. Trust in the head .69** .67** -
4. Leadership support .51** .51** .62** -
5. School condition and empowerment .51** .54** .63** .76** -
6. Workload and variety .37** .51** .48** .66** .74** -
7. Vocational motivation and commitment .48** .43** .39** .39** .36** .36** -
8. Self efficacy .40** .40** .37** .42** .35** .34** .67** -
9. Job fulfillment and optimism .52** .58** .57** .58** .52** .52** .65** .66** -
M 4.68 3.88 4.29 4.43 4.22 4.11 4.56 4.31 4.13
SD .87 .97 1.12 .84 .78 .81 .78 .81 .92
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

Discussion
This study investigated the construct of teacher resilience and the ways in which organizational and
relational factors influence the resilience of Chinese teachers in their workplace contexts. Relational
trust and work conditions as major school contextual factors embedded in teachers’ work-life
correlated substantially and significantly with teacher resilience. They explained a substantial
amount of variance in the prediction of teacher resilience. These findings and the especially higher
contribution of relational trust in schools to teacher resilience point to the importance of developing
collegial trust and support in school contexts for enhancing the resilience and commitment of
teachers.

Teacher resilience: A multidimensional construct

The present study tested the conceptualization of teacher resilience as a multidimensional construct
using a confirmatory factor analysis. The results demonstrated that teacher resilience was indeed
a second-order factor comprised three first-order factors: professional commitment and motivation
in teaching, teacher sense of self-efficacy, and job fulfillment. This multidimensional construct
encompasses cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of teacher resilience. Self-efficacy is
a belief, and therefore cognitive. Teachers who are efficacious tended to demonstrate cognitive
confidence when they encounter and overcome challenges in helping their student to learn.
Professional commitment and motivation in teaching plays an affective and motivational role in
the resilience building process. Teacher with strong commitment to work and student learning tend
to show stronger loyalty to their school, willingness to exert greater effort to support the improve-
ment and performance of the school, and stronger dedication to giving their best to the achievement
of the students, even in the face of challenging circumstances (Lee et al., 2011). Job fulfillment entails
a social and emotional return from their endeavor to make a positive difference to student devel-
opment and achievements. As we have reported in our earlier publications (e.g. Gu & Li, 2013),
teachers with a greater sense of job fulfillment tended to experience greater enjoyment and well-
being at work. This is achieved through intellectually and emotionally rewarding interactions with
their students over the course of their professional lives in teaching. All three elements of teacher
resilience have transactional relations with one another and they interact to reinforce one another.

Building resilience in the trusting and collaborative relationships

Findings of the present study indicated that teacher resilience could be significantly predicted by
relational trust in schools including trust in colleagues, and trust in students and parents. Relational
trust in colleagues demonstrated the largest variance contribution in predicting each of the three
components of teacher resilience. The results suggested that cultivating or building trusting and
154 Q. LI ET AL.

supportive relationships in schools could lead to increased resilience qualities in teachers, manifested
through enhanced vocational motivation and commitment, self-efficacy and job fulfillment and
professional optimism in face of challenging or threatening circumstances (e.g. heavy workload,
long working hours). These quantitative findings resonated with our qualitative observations of
Chinese teachers. Gu and Li (2013) interviewed six Chinese teachers and found that open and
trusting relationships with mentors and colleagues in teaching and research groups and collaborative
lesson planning groups fostered their professional learning, increased their self-efficacy and secured
a happy beginning for those early career teachers. At the same time, establishing a trusting relation-
ship with the parents and “having them on your side” helped to pave the way for teachers’ positive
teaching experiences and students’ positive learning opportunities. A positive, open and caring
emotional connection between teacher and student were also crucial for maintaining teachers’ job
fulfillment and commitment in teaching.
Also, consistent with the present results, Gu and Day (2013) reported in their study in England
that a school environment characterized with trusting relationships between different stakeholders
had a significant influence on teachers’ capacity to sustain their commitment and effectiveness.
Recent research in Australia, USA, Canada, and other western counties have also explored environ-
mental protective factors contributing to teacher collective resilience. The consistent conclusions
were that the role of teaching contexts such as mentor support for new teachers, support of peers and
colleagues, and support of family and friends in providing affordances or constraints for resilience
development contribute, powerfully and profoundly, teachers’ resilience building processes
(Brunetti, 2006; Freedman & Appleman, 2008; Howard & Johnson, 2004; Le Cornu, 2009; Yates,
Pelphrey, & Smith, 2008).
Further, Bryk and Schneider (2002) explained that teachers’ interpersonal worlds are organized
around multiple role relationships: “teachers with students, teachers with other teachers, teachers
with parents and with their school principal” (2002, p. 20). A trusting and collaborative relationship
between teachers was in particular of great importance in building their collective sense of resilience,
which in turn contributed to the strong associations between positive relationships, trust and student
attainment in schools. The TALIS survey (OECD, 2012) also found that teachers who exchange ideas
and coordinate their practices with other teachers in a trusting school climate reported more positive
teacher–student relations in their schools. Positive teacher–student relations are not only
a significant predictor of student achievement; they are also closely related to teachers’ job satisfac-
tion (OECD, 2012). This finding reinforces the important role of teachers’ positive evaluations of the
trusting and collaborative school environment in building and sustaining their capacity to remain
resilient and committed at school.
Building a trusting and collaborative relationship between different stakeholders is of critical
importance in fostering their collective sense of resilience in the face of challenging circumstances.
This is because trusting and open professional learning networks may act as social glue, helping
people to deal with the uncertainties in their changing world (Goodwin, 2005). Luthar (2006)
suggests that ‘resilience rests, fundamentally, on relationships’ (2006, p. 780). Jordan also maintained
that resilience resides not in the individual but in the capacity for connection. She argues that
traditional models see an ‘internal locus of control’ as an individual characteristic which has often
been associated with resilience whereas a contextual approach ‘‘might reconsider the concept of
internal sense of control, examining a person’s engagement in mutually empathic and responsive
relationships as the more likely source of resilience’’ (Jordan, 2006, p. 80). In sum, there is no doubt
that trusting and collaborative relationships and a sense of connectedness in which teachers engage
enable them to build a sense of belonging and shared responsibility and sustain their passion,
commitment and their resilience in teaching.
 MEASUREMENT: INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PERSPECTIVES 155

School leadership as central to fostering teacher resilience

Evidence from many studies has demonstrated that, just as individual and relational resilience can
increase and sustain teachers’ motivation, resilience and effectiveness in teaching, so too can school
contexts develop a culture of resilience for teachers and build organizational resilience (Allison &
Reeves, 2011; Everly, 2011; Hamel & Välikangas, 2003; Milstein & Henry, 2008). This kind of
resilience in the organizational setting serves as a learning community which helps to establish
a supportive and belonging environment for increased teacher efficacy, job fulfillment, and profes-
sional optimism. A culture of organizational resilience is built largely upon leadership which some
researchers refer to as “resilient leadership” (Allison & Reeves, 2011). Henry and Milstein (2006)
argue that teachers, students, parents, and support personnel are the fabric of the school and that
leaders are weavers of the fabric. Given this, it is perhaps then no surprise that this research showed
that school leadership support had a significant influence on each of the three components of teacher
resilience. Around 75% of resilient teachers reported that they were satisfied with the feedback on
their performance from their principals or frontline leaders. Another 70% of teachers reported that
they were satisfied with the recognition and appreciation of efforts from their school leaders.
This finding resonates with that of Brunetti (2006), who found in his study of inner-city
American high school teachers that what had kept them going was strong leadership. He concluded
that support from school leaders was a powerful incentive which kept many teachers his study to
remain in the classroom. Gu and Day (2007) demonstrated in their case studies of England teachers
that strong leadership support provided teachers with strength, confidence and a sense of belonging,
which enabled them to survive and successfully manage the complexities and tensions in their
everyday professional life, and continue to make a difference to the learning and achievement of the
pupils.
Over the last two decades amid incessant waves of education policies and reforms in Mainland
China, many teachers have experienced emotional drain and physical exhaustion in every school day
(Chan, 2013). The major challenges included long work hours, heavy workload, too much demand
from school managers, high expectation from parents and society, prescriptive teacher evaluation
based on student test scores, a lack of appropriate training, and low pay (Gao, 2008; Li et al., 2011;
Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012). Tackling these problems is of critical importance for schools. Our
finding in this study indicated that helping teachers to manage their workload volume and variety
significantly predict their commitment, job fulfillment, and optimism. As aforementioned before,
resilience is not simply an individual trait, but a capacity that arises through interactions between
people within organizational contexts. Hamel and Välikangas (2003) argued that key leaders func-
tion as a catalyst to increase group cohesion and dedication to the mission of the organisation.
Resilient organizations demonstrate four core attributes of optimism, decisiveness, integrity, and
open communications, which are not only essential in enabling individuals to rebound from
adversity, but also in providing the foundations of a resilient organizational culture that can further
contribute to increased resilience throughout the organization (Everly, 2011). In the education
setting, school leaders are central to building resources and developing strategies that enable teachers
to learn to solve problems collectively and to teach to their best. It is those who sit in the principal’s
office who design and create the physical, intellectual and collegial environments where teachers feel
nurtured to thrive and flourish socially and professionally (Gu & Day, 2007).

Limitations and future research

This study had three obvious major limitations. One major limitation had to do with the correla-
tional nature of the data. Given that school contextual factors were found to contribute to the
prediction of teacher resilience, the findings seemed to imply that enhancing school contextual
factors would lead to increased teacher resilience and sustain commitments. Strictly speaking, the
results only indicated that teachers within more trusting, collaborative and supportive school
156 Q. LI ET AL.

contexts tended to have a stronger sense of resilience in face of challenging circumstances or teachers
with a greater sense of resilience tended to work in more trusting, collaborative and supportive
school contexts.
The present findings were based on a sample of Mainland Chinese teachers from Beijing only,
which could be another major limitation. There exist substantial differences in the development of
education provision between eastern and western areas and between urban and rural areas in China.
These Beijing teachers could hardly be claimed to be representative of Chinese teachers. Therefore,
any generalization of the present findings requires future cross-replication with larger and more
representative samples of teachers in Chinese settings. In particular, compared to urban teachers in
China, rural teachers face more adverse circumstances such as poorer working conditions, lower
salary, fewer opportunities for promotion and heavier workloads because of teacher shortage. Thus,
what keeps rural teachers going in the teaching profession should be an interesting research question
in future studies.
Finally, one limitation in this present study could be the inclusion of the only one selected set of
variables, namely school trust relationship and working conditions in the prediction of teacher
resilience. Beltman et al. (2011) reviewed the contextual factors influencing teacher resilience and
concluded the potential support group of family and friends outside teaching was surprisingly rarely
mentioned in the current studies. How best to harness this support and understand the role it may
play in the development of teacher resilience remains a challenge. Future research needs to consider
the dynamic influences of individual, relational and organizational factors on the resilience building
processes and through this, provide a sound empirical foundation for the development of effective
intervention programs for the enhancement of resilience and commitment in teachers.

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