Unpacking the role of school climate factors in fostering teacher enjoyment and self-efficacy in higher education

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329001 August 13, 2025 1 / 17 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Bing X, Cai J (2025) Unpacking the role of school climate factors in fostering teacher enjoyment and self-efficacy in higher education. PLoS One 20(8): e0329001. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329001 Editor: Henri Tilga, University of Tartu, ESTONIA Received: May 21, 2025 Accepted: July 9, 2025 Published: August 13, 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Bing, Cai . This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data availability statement: All relevant data files are available from the figshare database (accession number(s) https://doi.org/10.6084/ m9.figshare.29371211). Funding: This work was supported by the Hunan Provincial Education and Science Planning Project (Grant No. XJK23BGD023) awarded to JC. The funders had no role in study RESEARCH ARTICLE Unpacking the role of school climate factors in fostering teacher enjoyment and self-efficacy in higher education Xiaoyi Bing , Jianqiao Cai * School of Educational Science, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, China * caijianqiao128@hunnu.edu.cn Abstract The enjoyment and self-efficacy of teachers warrant significant attention, particularly given the global prevalence of high attrition and turnover rates in the profession. This study investigates the interrelationships among school climate factors, teacher

self-efficacy, and enjoyment in higher education settings. Specifically, it aims to (a) examine how teachers perceived school environment factors influence their self- efficacy and enjoyment and (b) determine whether teachers’ self-efficacy mediates the effect of perceived school climate factors on teacher enjoyment. In so doing, three instruments including Perceived School Climate Scale (R-SLEQ), Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES), and Teacher Enjoyment Scale (TES) were used. Employ- ing snowball sampling, we recruited 791 college teachers from 24 provinces in China. Structural equation modeling revealed that specific school climate factors significantly contribute to both teachers’ enjoyment and self-efficacy. Notably, colleague collabora- tion, resource availability, participative decision-making, and instructional innovation demonstrated direct positive effects on teacher enjoyment. Instructional innovation and colleague collaboration further exerted indirect effects on enjoyment through the mediation of self-efficacy. Finally, the practical implications of these findings for teacher education are discussed. Introduction Teachers experience a wide range of distinct emotions, varying in intensity while engaging in instruction and interacting with students [1]. These emotions have a salient impact on how well educational systems function [2]. While extensive research has examined negative affective states in teachers—including anger, burn- out, and stress [3–7], research on positive teacher emotions remains relatively scarce

[8,9]. This study focused on one key manifestation of positive emotion in teachers: enjoyment, given that educators’ positive emotions like enjoyment, happiness, and enthusiasm often arise from similar emotional triggers—particularly student engage- ment, good behavior, and learning motivation [10].