Relationship between teacher and student psychological well-being in a Japanese context

ABSTRACT

Psychological well-being (PWB) encompasses the positive aspects of mental health, such as hedonic wellbeing (experience of enjoyment and pleasure), eudaimonic wellbeing (experience of self-actualization), and life satisfaction (global evaluation of quality of life). Japanese teachers suffer from poor PWB with a high incidence of mental health problems. Despite the potentially significant impact of poor Japanese teachers’ PWB on their students’ PWB, these associations have remained largely unexplored. The present study investigated if teacher PWB has any relationship with student PWB and if teacher-student relationship, students’ abilities for resilience, and classroom climate mediate the teacher and student PWB relationship, with 46 teachers and 1,256 children aged 8–12 years from Japanese schools. A multilevel mediation analysis revealed an indirect positive relationship between Japanese teacher life satisfaction and Japanese student hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing mediated by students’ abilities for resilience. There was no relationship between teacher and student hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Nonetheless, the findings still imply that promoting teacher life satisfaction may contribute to the promotion of student hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Future researchers could investigate if a school-based intervention targeted at both Japanese teachers and students would more effectively promote PWB among students than would such interventions aimed only at students.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher well-being
• student well-being
• resilience
• classroom climate
• Japanese

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the school children, parents, and school teachers who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, YT, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

For this research, the authors did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Yu Takizawa

Yu Takizawa is an Assistant Professor of the Child Development and Learning Research Center, School of Regional Sciences at the Tottori University, Tottori, Japan. He also undertakes his doctorate at the Center for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

Yuki Matsumoto

Yuki Matsumoto is a Professor of School of Human Life Sciences, Tokushima Bunri University, Tokushima, Japan.

Yuma Ishimoto

Yuma Ishimoto is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education Center, Tottori University, Tottori, Japan.