Psychological well-being and autonomy are guaranteed: an analysis of the significance of cognitive emotion regulation and reflective teaching in the careers of university EFL teachers

Abstract

Purpose

Psychological well-being is a central aspect of mental health, and it can be defined as the presence of enjoyment and fulfillment, as well as resilience. Different factors are critical in the tone and melody of language teachers’ psychological well-being. Cognitive emotion regulation (CER) pertains to the intentional cognitive strategies employed by educators in order to regulate and confront emotionally taxing content.

Design/methodology/approach

A quasi-experimental strategy was used in the present experimental analysis. A total of 87 EFL students were split into two groups: one to participate in the experiment and another to serve as a control. The control group of students got regular teaching without any changes or additions to their books.

Findings

Path analysis results demonstrated that cognitive emotion regulation and reflective teaching were able to accurately forecast the teachers' psychological well-being at the institution.

Practical implications

The study's results suggest that it is essential for teachers, including language instructors, to undergo training in cognitive emotion regulation and reflective teaching in order to ensure their psychological well-being.

Originality/value

To achieve an optimal level of CER, educators must be equipped with a repertoire of effective strategies to promote the necessary equilibrium. Reflective teaching encompasses the critical analysis of an educator's fundamental convictions about pedagogy and the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the evaluation of their teaching process. To date, no study reflects on the possible connections between these variables in a single study. In light of this, the focus of this study was to discover how reflective teaching and cognitive emotion regulation affect the psychological health of English as a foreign language (EFL) university professors.

Citation

Namaziandost, E., Heydarnejad, T., Ashkani, P. and Farokhipour, S. (2024), "Psychological well-being and autonomy are guaranteed: an analysis of the significance of cognitive emotion regulation and reflective teaching in the careers of university EFL teachers", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-05-2024-0246