Professional identity, difficulties in emotion regulation, resilience, and psychological distress among physical education teachers in China’s rotation system

Background In China, Confucian cultural expectations and the teacher rotation system may create additional psychological demands for teachers, particularly physical education teachers whose personal willingness may be insufficiently considered during rotation. Professional identity, as an important psychological protective resource, may be associated with lower levels of psychological distress. This study examined how professional identity relates to psychological distress among rotated physical education teachers, with a focus on the mediating roles of emotion regulation difficulties and resilience. Methods This cross-sectional study recruited 460 physical education teachers involved in the teacher rotation system in Jiangsu and Anhui Provinces, China, using convenience and snowball sampling. Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Results Professional identity was negatively associated with psychological distress and emotion regulation difficulties, but positively associated with resilience. Emotion regulation difficulties were positively associated with psychological distress and negatively associated with resilience. Both emotion regulation difficulties and resilience mediated the association between professional identity and psychological distress. In addition, the serial mediation pathway through emotion regulation difficulties and resilience was significant. Conclusion Professional identity was negatively associated with difficulties in emotion regulation and positively associated with resilience. It was also indirectly associated with lower psychological distress among rotated physical education teachers through both difficulties in emotion regulation and resilience. Governments and schools should pay greater attention to the mental health of teachers in the rotation system and implement measures to strengthen their professional identity and resilience.