Organizational commitment and teacher wellness: The mediating role of mission among kindergarten teachers

Teacher well-being is increasingly recognized as critical for sustaining quality early childhood education.This study examined the relationships among organizational commitment, sense of mission, and wellness among kindergarten teachers in Taiwan, with a focus on the mediating role of mission.Using a cross-sectional survey, data were collected from 655 teachers across public, private, and community-based institutions.Measures included the Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment, a mission scale capturing teachers' sense of purpose, and a wellness scale assessing professional satisfaction and functioning.Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVAs, correlations, multiple regression, and mediation analysis using PROCESS were employed.Results showed significant demographic differences in organizational commitment by gender, age, tenure, job type, and education, although effect sizes were generally small.Correlation analyses revealed that mission was strongly associated with both commitment and wellness.Regression analyses demonstrated that affective commitment, continuance commitment, and mission were significant predictors of wellness, whereas normative commitment and demographic factors were not.Mediation analysis confirmed that mission partially mediated the effect of organizational commitment on wellness, highlighting its role as a psychological resource.These findings underscore the importance of fostering both institutional attachment and a sense of mission to promote sustainable teacher well-being.Implications for leadership practices, teacher development, and policy are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.