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 2 / 17 Teachers are expected to be joyful during teaching, as their enjoyment not only enhances student learning [11] but also reduces teacher burnout and promotes higher teaching quality [12–14]. While several studies have explored the anteced- ents of teaching enjoyment [15,16], critical gaps persist in our understanding. Nota- bly, the relationship between organizational factors and teacher enjoyment is not well understood, with most research focusing on enjoyment within the classroom context. Furthermore, while studies have shown a positive relationship between school climate and teacher enjoyment [17,18], there is a lack of research examining how specific aspects of school climate contribute to teacher enjoyment, or if certain factors hold more significance. Similarly, teacher self-efficacy—a key concept in the teaching domain—has been shown to correlate with school climate [19,20], yet its relationship with specific school climate factors remains underexplored. To fill these gaps, the present research sought to explore the hypothesis that teachers’ enjoyment and self-efficacy are positively associated with school climate factors, considering the ongoing interactions between teachers and the various environmental systems they are part of [21]. Additionally, drawing on prior studies in instructional research, we further propose that teacher self-efficacy acts as a key mechanism linking school climate factors to teacher enjoyment, given that school climate shapes teacher

self-efficacy while teachers’ emotional experiences stem from both the surrounding environment and psychological sources [22,23]. Accordingly, the study seeks to address the following research questions: (1) How do school climate factors directly influence teacher enjoyment in Chinese college settings? (2) How do school climate factors directly impact teacher self-efficacy in this context? (3) Do school climate factors indirectly influence teacher enjoyment through the mediation of teacher self-efficacy? Literature review Teacher enjoyment Consistent with prior research on teacher professional development, this study examines enjoyment as a key indicator of teachers’ positive emotions. Enjoyment was identified as a prominent and commonly observed positive emotion experienced by teachers, as noted in studies by Sutton and Wheatley, Burić et al., and Keller et al. [1,9,24]. It is described as an individual’s sense of happiness and satisfaction arising from teaching and interacting with students [24], or the enthusiasm felt while teach- ing, as described by Keller and colleagues [25]. Research demonstrates that teacher enjoyment yields significant benefits across multiple dimensions. At the student level, it enhances students’ perceptions of teach- ing quality [16,26], improves teacher-student relationship quality [8,27], and promotes student outcomes including learning enjoyment [11], motivation [28], engagement [10], and academic achievement [29]. For teachers themselves, enjoyment is asso-

ciated with enhanced job satisfaction [6,30–32], teaching motivation [33], well-being [34], health [35,36], and instructional behavior [8,37]. Frenzel identified three sources of enjoyment: anticipatory joy from an upcoming event, enjoyment derived from engaging in a pleasurable activity, or satisfaction and happiness stemming from a design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.