Effects of anxiety and enjoyment on engagement and exhaustion among in-service science teachers

The main objective was to study the relationships between key motivations for teaching science, emotions, and dimensions of well-being among in-service science teachers, using the Control-Value Theory/ General Theory of Human Emotions. Data from 452 in-service Chilean science teachers, collected via a questionnaire, was analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The findings highlight the strong positive relationship between anxiety and exhaustion, as well as between enjoyment and engagement among in-service science teachers. An important original contribution of this study concerns the mediation of anxiety and enjoyment of science teachers between the four motivations for teaching science (relevance, difficulty, personal efficacy, and outcome expectancy) and engagement of in-service science teachers. Regarding the practical implications, each variable studied should be improved due to its importance for in-service science teachers, and the set of variables should be optimised due to the direct, mediated indirect and total effects among them. In this respect, it is important to highlight how much remains to be done for pre-service and in-service teacher training, where the motivations for teaching science, and especially the emotions and well-being of science teachers, are barely addressed.