The relationship between emotional competence, psychological resilience, and job burnout among primary school physical education teachers: the mediating role of psychological resilience.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the relationships between emotional competence, psychological resilience and job burnout among primary school physical education (PE) teachers, and examine the mediating role of psychological resilience. METHODS: A total of 228 teachers from 24 primary schools in Chengdu were recruited via stratified random sampling. All participants completed three validated scales measuring emotional competence, psychological resilience and job burnout. RESULTS: Both emotional competence and psychological resilience were significantly and negatively associated with job burnout among primary school PE teachers (β = -0.49, p < 0.001; β = -0.52, p < 0.001). Among the dimensions of emotional competence, emotion regulation showed the strongest correlation with job burnout (r = -0.64, p < 0.01); among the dimensions of psychological resilience, resilience showed the highest correlation with job burnout (r = -0.61, p < 0.01). Psychological resilience played a partial mediating role in the association between emotional competence and job burnout, accounting for 55.1% of the total effect. CONCLUSION: Emotional competence of primary school PE teachers is directly associated with job burnout and also indirectly related to burnout levels via psychological resilience. It is suggested that education administrators improve primary school PE teachers' emotion regulation skills and organize systematic psychological resilience training to reduce job burnout.