Higher Education Teachers' Achievement Goals and Subjective Well-Being

• In Event: Emotional Well-Being in Faculty: Construct Assessment and Motivational Antecedents

Abstract

Subjective well-being (SWB) in higher education teachers is not only important for their own personal and professional experiences (Lackritz, 2004), but also for positive educational outcomes of their students and the institution as a whole (Watts & Roberston, 2011). Despite this, research suggests that compromised well-being is becoming a growing concern for higher education teachers (e.g., Mudrak et al., 2017; Shin & Jung, 2013; Watts & Robertson, 2011).

One avenue for better understanding SWB and supporting higher education teachers is through Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), which describes the types of goals that individuals tend to pursue in achievement contexts. Goal preferences act as a lens for how one evaluates current and future achievement situations in terms of cognitive, emotive, behavioral, and coping processes (Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro, & Niemivirta, 2008). Moreover, goal setting processes may be pursued in subjectively stressful situations. Based on this theoretical rationale, goals can be expected to matter for teachers’ SWB. This expectation has been empirically suggested concerning variables that fall into unidimensional assessments of SWB in school teachers (e.g., Tönjes & Dickhäuser, 2009) and by preliminary findings with higher education teachers (e.g., Daumiller et al., 2019). However, studies have yet to incorporate a multi-faceted perspective of SWB, which is important in gaining a comprehensive assessment of this topic as SWB is not a single construct but rather composed of multiple separable constructs that should each be examined (Diener et al., 2009).

The current study examined the link between higher education teachers’ achievement goals and their multi-faceted SWB. Higher education teachers (female = 36%) from Germany (N = 821), the USA (N = 452), and India (N = 204) completed measures of achievement goals (using an established scale by Daumiller et al., 2019) and SWB (including teaching emotions, professional burden, and satisfaction with life). Specifically, teaching emotions were assessed using 12 items measuring joy, anger, and anxiety (Frenzel et al., 2016), professional burden was assessed using 22 items measuring emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Maslach et al., 1996), and satisfaction with life was measured using five items assessing overall life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985).

Structural equation modelling (SEM) revealed mastery goals (task approach goals in terms of striving to do well on a task) to be adaptive across all facets of SWB, while the opposite was found for work avoidance goals (striving to get through the day with little effort). Moreover, the effects were robust across the three investigated cultural contexts. These findings indicate that in line with theoretical background, the goals that higher education teachers pursue are differentially related to facets of their SWB. Implications surrounding the value of future longitudinal studies directed at determining the predictive nature of the relationship are discussed.

Authors

• Raven Rinas, University of Augsburg

• Markus Dresel, Augsburg University

• Martin Daumiller, University of Augsburg