[picture] | International Journal of Mental Health Promotion | [picture]

DOI: 10.32604/ijmhp.2022.022536

ARTICLE

Psychological Support for Public-Funded Normal Students Engaged in Teaching Profession

Shize Zhi¹,²,*

1 School of Public Administration, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China
2 Changsha Normal University, Changsha, 410100, China
Corresponding Author: Shize Zhi. Email: zhishize@163.com
Received: 15 March 2022; Accepted: 24 April 2022

Abstract: Among primary and secondary school teachers in China, 70% of teachers believe facing more significant occupational pressure. 63.8% of teachers clearly stated that occupational stress had caused a tremendous impact on them. And this has had adverse effects on them, such as mental, physical, and personal development. This paper studies the group of public-funded regular students from the perspective of psychological support. This paper uses the SCL-90 form to investigate the professional psychology of teachers for the psychological support of public-funded regular students engaged in the teaching profession. And it conducts a survey on the curriculum setting and satisfaction of the public-funded regular students during their study stage. The experimental results of this paper show that only 11.9% of public-funded regular students are very willing to take root and serve township education. Moreover, the psychological pressure of teachers at different educational stages is quite different.

Keywords: Public-funded normal students; teaching profession; psychological support; investigation and analysis

1  Introduction

Education is the foundation. Teachers are the base of the education plan. The rapid development of society and the economy has aroused great concern and diverse educational needs. The teaching profession is becoming more and more complex, and the requirements for teachers are becoming more and more strict. While imparting cultural knowledge to students, teachers should also consider the moral education of cultivating students’ good character and shaping good behavior and habits for students. The progress of society has made the burden on teachers’ shoulders a little heavier. There are many pressures, setbacks, and challenges that teacher has to face. Teachers should adapt to challenges and cope with stress in the context of today’s high standards, high expectations, and high demands. This has a significant impact on the overall development of education and teachers’ personal growth. In particular, the vigorous enrollment of public-funded regular students coupled with the development of education today. Therefore, it is urgent to explore the influencing factors of teachers’ psychological resilience development and take adequate measures to improve teachers’ psychological resilience.

This paper mainly has the following innovations in the research on psychological support for the teaching profession: (1) The research subject of this paper is public-funded regular students, which is rarely involved in other literature. However, as the expansion of public-funded regular students has become more and more accepted, the proportion of public-funded normal students in education is increasing. Therefore, it is necessary to take public-funded normal students as the research object. (2) For the study of psychological support, this paper analyzes the psychological status of the teaching profession and conducts a questionnaire survey on public-funded normal students in school. Such a comprehensive investigation before and after the event is very beneficial to the research of the entire public-funded normal students engaged in the teaching profession group.

2  Related Work

Research on teacher resilience began in the 1980s. It has become an essential topic of teacher research in the new century. However, most of the research on teachers’ psychological resilience comes from abroad, and there is relatively little research on teachers’ psychological resilience in China. The use of both languages is explored by Ganina et al [1]. They consider cross-cultural differences in the initial educational training of students in the preparatory departments of finance of the Russian government and how to improve their adaptation to the particularities of Russian university training. They discussed the characteristics of teaching mathematics to international students with English as the language of international communication and Russian as the host language [1]. He and others believe that in today’s music class, self-playing and singing is one of the core teaching skills of music teachers. Cultivating the independent performance and singing skills of students majoring in music education in colleges and universities can improve students’ comprehensive music literacy and increase the practicability of students’ music learning. This will play a massive role in the future work of music education [2]. Renard conducted research on teacher education in Thailand. They argue that Ayutthaya and similar centers are inherently multiracial, literate “civilized” elites. From a social perspective, Thais have a negative impact on the newly defined “others” in forestry, citizenship, and other fields [3]. The research by Moleyar aims to sensitize researchers to some of the ethical and public relations issues involved in decision-making in education. They shed light on the dilemma faced by school management at Vidyalaya schools in the Indian state of Karnataka in response to a notice from the state government to pay huge compensation and re-absorb a teacher who was physically disabled as a result of an accident in the school building [4]. Swai considers the local economy and proposes to take the bank as the research object. He researched the psychology of teacher vocational education. His experimental results confirmed the reliability of the problem [5]. Dickson et al. found that in Abu Dhabi, UAE, the public schools tend to recruit teachers for English lessons overseas with extensive years of teaching experience. They surveyed 249 foreign English-teaching teachers to explore how their teaching years varied with their classroom practices, beliefs, and confidence levels. Experienced teachers are more likely to show confidence in their abilities (self-efficacy). They found that teachers’ classroom practices with between 5 and 10 years of experience were most consistent with the inquiry-based and student-centered learning methods applied in Abu Dhabi classrooms [6]. Most related research is decision-making research for education and curriculum research for students. The research on public-funded normal students is in the minority, and there is no related research on the psychological support of public-funded normal students.

3  Publicly Funded Normal Students and Psychological Support

3.1 Publicly Funded Normal Students

The main object of the research on the training of public-funded normal students is the training of public-funded normal students in six subordinate normal universities. There are few studies on the training of public-funded normal students in local colleges and universities. Moreover, very few researches specifically target public-funded normal students in disciplines [7,8]. This article will be based on a profound grasp and reflection on the actual needs and policy orientation. Based on the specific situation of college training, it studies the problem of training teachers with “one specialization and multiple abilities” for the history of major public-funded normal students. The characteristics of public-funded normal students are shown in Fig. 1:

Figure 1: Characteristics of public-funded normal students

By 2007, six normal colleges and universities under the Ministry began implementing free education for normal students. However, judging from the overall development context, the education of public-funded normal students has only lasted for more than ten years. This obviously has problems such as lack of training experience and lack of summary and reflection [9,10]. However, the training of history teachers with “one specialization and multiple abilities” in Shandong Province has been less than four years since the public-funded normal student education was launched in 2016. Therefore, the obstacles and problems in the training process are more prominent and concentrated, and we need to think and examine them comprehensively. This in turn finds a more effective training path and continuously adjusts and optimizes the training of history teachers with “one specialization and multiple abilities”. This can also provide reference and reference for the training work of other provinces and cities, especially in poverty-stricken areas [11,12].

3.2 Professional Psychological Support for Teachers

(1) Mental toughness

Mental resilience [13] was first used in the West when the word “resiliency” was used, which means “bounce”, “recovery”. Then Western scholars evolved it into a psychological condition and ability. The expression of the term mental toughness has also changed accordingly. It has changed from “resiliency” to “resilience”, which means “resilience” and “resilience”. Scholars believe that the latter concept is more appropriate for the concept of mental toughness. After decades of development, “resilience” has also attracted the attention of reearchers in China. Domestic research on “resilience” is increasing. But the translation of this word is not uniform. Some scholars believe that the meaning of this word is similar to the word “psychologicalresilience” of “resilience” in physics, and should be translated as “psychological resilience”. Some scholars believe that this is a kind of ability that can come from adversity, so it is translated as “resistance”. Other scholars believe that the meaning of the word is to describe the ability to recover from adversity or difficulty, so it is translated as “resilience”. Since there is no unified definition of the concept of “resilience” in the academic world, there are different opinions on the Chinese translation [14,15]. The mental toughness diagram is shown in Fig. 2:

Figure 2: Mental toughness

(2) Social support

Support from the outside world is an important resource for personal and professional development. In the 1970s, social support was first introduced in the psychiatric literature as an object of scientific research and as a professional concept. Since then, research on social support has been carried out in various fields. Generally speaking, social support as a general concept is often seen as care and help from family, friends and people around. However, as a scientific research object and a professional concept, its connotation has not been unified for a long time. It is shown in Fig. 3.

Figure 3: Social support

Social support is a relatively complex concept with multiple structures. It includes not only environmental factors, but also the individual’s internal self-cognition of environmental factors. It is an interaction, which mainly between individuals and others.

3.3 Psychological Evaluation Criteria

At present, the methods commonly used to determine weights include fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method and grey theory method. However, these methods cannot solve the comprehensive evaluation problem of multi-person decision-making. It does not reflect the individual subjective preferences of review participants. The cloud model can describe qualitative concepts in natural language, and can establish a transformation model of uncertainty between values. And the aggregation algorithm of cloud model can solve the comprehensive evaluation problem of multi-person decision-making. Therefore, this paper intends to construct an indicator weight model based on the cloud model-analytic hierarchy process (CM-AHP) method [16,17].

(1) Judgment matrix based on cloud model scale

Assuming that there is a universe of discourse, the numerical features of the cloud U={x},x=1,2,⋯,9 are represented by expectation Ex , entropy Ex and super entropy En , then there is A=(Ex,En,He) . It uses the Nine Clouds Model A0,A1,⋯,A8 to establish the importance decision scale: The expectation is that Ex0,Ex1,⋯,Ex8 corresponds to nine values from 1 to 9, and the larger the value, the more important the evaluation index is. The numerical features of its importance scale are shown in Table 1. According to the principle of the golden section, it calculates A0,A1,⋯,A8 , Ex0,Ex1,⋯,Ex8 and He0,He1,⋯,He8, respectively. The calculation results are as follows:

En0=En2=En4=En6=En8=0.382α(xmax−xmin)/6=0.437 (1)

En1=En3=En5=En7=En0/0.618=0.707 (2)

He0=He2=He4=He6=He8=0.382α(xmax−xmin)/36=0.073 (3)

He1=He3=He5=He7=He0/0.618=0.118 (4)

In the formula: xmax=9 ; xmin=1 ;

α is the adjustment coefficient, and the general value is 0.858.

Among them, ui and uj are the importance elements. The calculated nine cloud models are (1, 0.437, 0.073), (2, 0.707, 0.118), (3, 0.437, 0.073), (4, 0.707, 0.118), (5, 0.437, 0.073), (6, 0.707, 0.118), (7, 0.437, 0.073), (8, 0.707, 0.118), and (9, 0.437, 0.073). It then judges the importance of the evaluation indicators in pairs, and finally determines the weights of the evaluation indicators according to the aggregation method of floating clouds.

When there are only two base clouds, the calculation method is as follows: Assuming that A1 and A2 are two base clouds in the universe of discourse U, then a floating cloud A can be generated between A1 and A2 to represent the blank language value of the qualitative concept between them. When A moves from A1 to A2 , the influence of A1 on A will gradually decrease, while the influence of A2 on A will gradually increase.

Ex=β1Ex1+β2Ex2 (5)

En=En1(Ex2−Ex)+En2(Ex−Ex1)Ex2−Ex1 (6)

He=He1(Ex2−Ex)+He2(Ex−Ex1)Ex2−Ex1 (7)

In the formula, β is the adjustment coefficient, which is determined by experts according to the specific situation. This lets β1=k1k1+k2 , β2=k2k1+k2 , and ki(i=1,2) be the aggregation times of the i-th cloud model. If the expert believes that no intervention in the assembly is required, then β1=β2=0.5 .

If there are m base clouds A1=(Ex1,En1,He1),A2=(Ex2,En2,He2)⋯Am=(Exm,Enm,Hem) , the floating cloud A1=(Ex,En,He) will be affected by the combined effect of A1,A2,⋯,Am . The way it is assembled is as follows:

Ex=α1Ex1+α2Ex2+⋯+αmExm (8)

En=α1(Ex1En1)+α2(Ex2En2)+⋯αm(ExmEnm)α1Ex1+α2Ex2+⋯αmExm (9)

He=He12+He22+⋯+Hem2 (10)

In the formula, α1,α2,⋯,αm is the adjustable criterion weight value.

(2) One-level cloud model based on scale judgment matrix

According to the aforementioned method, it first establishes a judgment matrix for the pairwise importance comparison of a certain layer of evaluation indicators relative to other indicators. Its form is as follows:

[a11a12⋯a1na21a22⋯a2n⋮⋮⋱⋮an1an2⋯ann]=[A11A12⋯A1nA21A22⋯A2n⋮⋮⋱⋮An1An2⋯Ann] (11)

The cloud model on the diagonal line is Aii=(1,0,0) . When comparing the pairwise importance of evaluation indicators, if the latter is more important than the former, there will be aij=1aji . Its calculation process is as follows:

aji=Aji=1aij=1Aij=(1Ex,En(Ex)2,Ee(Ex)2) (12)

It then uses the square root method to calculate the element’s expectation, ambiguity and relative weight, which is Wi(0)(Exi(0),Eni(0),Hei(0)) . This involves multiplication of cloud models. The operation result: if there are n clouds A1,A2,⋯,An in the universe of discourse, then A1=(Ex,En,He) is the calculation result, there are:

Ex=Ex1Ex2⋯Exn (13)

En=|Ex1Ex2⋯Exn|(En1Ex1)2+(En2Ex2)2+⋯+(EnnExn)2 (14)

He=|Ex1Ex2⋯Exn|(He1Ex1)2+(He2Ex2)2+⋯+(HenExn)2 (15)

Then the elements in Wi(0)(Exi(0),Eni(0),Hei(0)) are:

Exi(0)=Exi∑Exi=(∏j=1nExij)1n∑i=1n(∏j=1nExij)1n (16)

Eni(0)=Eni∑Eni=((∏j=1nExij)∑j=1n(EnijExij)2)1n∑i=1n((∏j=1nExij)∑j=1n(EnijExij)2)1n (17)

Hei(0)=Hei∑Hei=((∏j=1nExij)∑j=1n(EeijExij)2)1n∑i=1n((∏j=1nExij)∑j=1n(EeijExij)2)1n (18)

Finally, the consistency of the judgment matrix needs to be checked, where C=(λmax−n)/(n−1) , and λmax=1n∑i=1n(∑j=1nExijWi1W1j) . R is the average value of the consistency index of the random judgment matrix of the same price. It needs to satisfy I=C/R<0.1 .

4  Psychological Support for Public-Funded Normal Students

4.1 External Support Systems

The external support system includes the support and synergy provided by society, government, community, school, family, etc., to teachers’ psychology. It mainly includes three levels: macro, meso and micro. The macro level refers to national systems and policies. It includes six types: positive policy orientation, positive salary and benefits, positive teacher-respecting atmosphere, positive evaluation system, positive social environment, and positive prevention and control mechanism. The meso level mainly refers to schools. It includes a positive work environment, a positive school culture, a positive institutional mechanism, a positive interpersonal relationship, a positive family atmosphere, and a positive psychological service mechanism. Microsystems refer to families, including membership [18,19].

As shown in Fig. 4, the positive policy orientation is mainly reflected in the state’s emphasis on and investment in education and teachers. It establishes the strategic position of priority development of education through legislation and policies. It establishes the higher economic and social status of the teaching profession. It realizes the professionalization of the teaching profession, the institutionalization of teacher rewards, the scientific evaluation of teachers, the lifelong teaching of teachers, and the respect of teachers’ status.

Figure 4: Psychological external support system

Positive compensation benefits. It is mainly reflected in the form of legislation passed by the state. It guarantees that the salary and welfare of teachers is always above the medium level in various occupational divisions of the society. This includes the legislative provisions on teachers’ salaries, the implementation effects of teachers’ benefits, and the comprehensive evaluation of teachers’ material benefits.

Positive teacher atmosphere. It is mainly reflected in the general respect of the teaching profession by the society. It has high attractiveness and has become a profession sought after by the society. Teachers have a sense of identity with their professional identity, and the teaching profession brings teachers dignity and happiness.

Positive working conditions. It is mainly reflected in the work, study and living environment. Schools and society create a good working and living environment for teachers, so that teachers can feel a close psychological bond. Teachers have a sense of identity, belonging, and responsibility to the work environment.

Positive school culture. It mainly means that the school has established a teacher-oriented management concept, a united and harmonious working atmosphere, a scientific and fair assessment mechanism, a decision-making mechanism for democratic participation, a development environment of appreciation and encouragement, a warm and harmonious home atmosphere, and an inclusive fault-tolerant mechanism.

Positive relationships. It includes the relationship between teachers and families, the harmonious relationship between teachers and school leaders, colleagues and students, and the harmonious relationship between teachers and outside school. In addition to this, a positive family atmosphere and mental health services are also important.

Positive family atmosphere. It includes the health of family members, the convergence of value orientation and pursuit, and the understanding and care among members.

Active psychological services and prevention and control mechanisms. The mental health service mechanism includes institutions and places where society and schools have set up teachers’ mental health services, prevention, diagnosis, intervention, and feedback. It staffs mental health services and conducts mental health prevention, diagnosis, intervention and service activities. School configuration can carry out the measurement and investigation of teachers’ mental health. It evaluates the mental health status and finds out the problems existing in the teacher’s mind in time. It can be diagnosed in a timely manner, and appropriate interventions can be taken according to the specific situation. For general psychological problems, school mental health teachers can use team counseling, encourage communication and other methods to relieve pressure and clear the knot for teachers. For problems that cannot be solved, psychological counselors can guide and help to seek help outside the school [20]. The school establishes teachers’ psychological files to track teachers’ psychological changes. It also provides feedback with school administrators in a timely manner to ensure the mental health of teachers.

4.2 Internal Support System

The internal support system is the individual’s psychological self-help system. The psychological self-help system is under the control of self-consciousness, and consists of self-help consciousness, self-help goals, self-help environment, self-help methods and self-help activities to form an individual’s psychological activity process. Self-awareness is the soul and commander of the self-help system. When an individual has psychological problems, self-consciousness sends out self-help signals and determines self-help goals. It chooses the self-help method and evaluates the self-help effect. The construction of a teacher’s psychological self-help system should be considered from the following aspects, as shown in Fig. 5:

Figure 5: Psychological internal support system

Positive self-help awareness needs to be developed. Self-awareness includes different levels of self-knowledge, self-experience, and self-control. The interaction between the three is the main mechanism of self-awareness. Self-knowledge is an individual’s general awareness and evaluation of his physical and mental characteristics, as well as his relationship with others and the surrounding environment. It includes self-perception, self-concept, self-observation, self-analysis and self-evaluation. This is the premise and foundation of self-awareness. Self-cognition of teacher’s role mainly refers to teachers’ knowledge and understanding of the nature, status, meaning, value, responsibilities and other aspects of their occupation. Self-experience is an emotional experience based on self-knowledge and evaluation. It is an attitude of the subjective self towards the objective self, such as self-confidence, inferiority complex, self-esteem, complacency, guilt, shame, etc. High self-esteem can make people experience more positive emotions. Self-control plays the role of supervision, guidance and maintenance, so that one’s own behavior and thoughts and words conform to certain normative requirements. Since the economic and social status of teachers still needs to be further improved at this stage, the teaching profession has not yet become a popular profession sought after by people. Teachers’ self-awareness of their roles will inevitably lead to differentiation and contradictions, which will inevitably affect teachers’ self-experience. A positive consciousness system needs to be constructed, premised on teachers’ positive understanding of the nature, status, meaning and value of the profession. It is necessary to establish a positive self-image with a sense of professional identity as the core. The goal is to develop high self-esteem emotional experiences of joy, serenity, interest, hope, pride, motivation, admiration, and love. And through the self-control system, we can timely discover and actively change negative emotional experience and self-awareness, and eliminate psychological barriers. This promotes the mutual adjustment between teachers and the environment, and promotes the psychological growth and development of teachers.

Positive self-help beliefs need to be formed. There is a close relationship between people’s mental health and belief system. Teachers need to be helped to establish a positive belief system so that teachers fully realize the importance of mental health. This equips teachers with ways to improve mental health and reinforce positive beliefs. It needs the construction of school mental health mechanism, as well as the popularization, education and training of mental health knowledge. This makes teachers have a positive attitude towards psychological self-help and firmly believe that the goal of mental health can be achieved through their own efforts. When teachers have positive beliefs, they can translate beliefs into behavior. This in turn reinforces a positive view of life, work and self-worth.

Active self-help goals need to be established. It refers to the purpose and direction that an individual strives to achieve. That is to say, individuals resolve psychological contradictions and conflicts through their own efforts, so as to restore their psychology to a normal and harmonious state. Psychological research shows that people can only find true happiness and happiness by pursuing positive life goals, improving the essence of the lives with a positive attitude, and taking the continuous pursuit of positive life goals as the greatest joy in life. Helping teachers establish a positive target system should be carried out according to the origin of psychological problems and the characteristics and laws of psychological development. The goal of teachers’ mental health can be divided into ultimate goal, stage goal and specific goal. The ultimate goal of teachers is to achieve mental health. However, the situation of individual psychological problems is different, and the stage goals and specific goals are also different. For example, some reduce anxiety, and some change bad cognition. The stage goals and specific goals are achieved step by step, and finally the ultimate goal of mental health is achieved.

Active self-help approaches need to be chosen. This refers to the targeted use of self-regulation methods and techniques by teachers to promote individual mental health. These methods include stress coping, emotional regulation, and self-esteem maintenance. Positive psychology conducts psychological adjustment from two aspects: reducing negative emotions and increasing positive emotions.

Positive self-help behaviors are required. Positive psychology emphasizes that individuals construct a happy life through active progress and pursuit. It includes the improvement of ability in the pursuit of goals, as well as every small improvement and improvement in daily work, study and life. Positive personality traits need to be cultivated. Positive psychology advocates that individuals construct their own virtues and strengths and apply them in their daily lives to develop their own personality traits. Positive psychology believes that human beings have six virtues: wisdom and knowledge, courage, benevolence, justice, temperance, and spiritual excellence. The six virtues correspond to the 24 strengths. The path to virtue is called strength. By cultivating and learning these strengths, virtues can be realized.

5  Investigation and Analysis of Public-Funded Normal Students Engaged in Teaching Profession

5.1 Investigation and Analysis of the Status Quo of the Training of Public-Funded Normal Students

(1) Selection of survey objects

Since the implementation of public-funded normal student education in 2016, a total of four colleges and universities in Shandong Province have undertaken the task of training public-funded normal students majoring in history. They are S Normal University, Q Normal University, L University and J University. Among them, L University and J University have only begun to accept public-funded normal students of history majors in 2018. Therefore, this paper selects the four grades of S Normal University and Q Normal University from 2016 to 2018, and the two grades from 2018 to 2019 of L University and J University as the survey objects. A total of 425 questionnaires were distributed in this survey, 418 valid questionnaires were recovered, and the effective recovery rate of the questionnaire was 98.35%. This survey is mainly carried out and carried out from four aspects: students’ understanding of training goals, satisfaction with curriculum, learning initiative and employment expectations. The distribution of the number of respondents is shown in Table 2:

(2) Results of the current situation of cultivation

From Fig. 6, we can find that most of the students think that the current course of the first major is more reasonable. 25.7% of the students believed that the current curriculum can fully help them realize the professional study of history subjects, and they were very satisfied with this. 45.9% of the students were satisfied with it. 23% of the students believe that there are some problems in the current curriculum, and it is not possible to realize the professional learning of history, and they are not satisfied. 5.4% of the students think that it is completely impossible to achieve, and the current curriculum is not helpful to them, and they are very dissatisfied with this.

Figure 6: Statistical chart of the satisfaction data of the first major course setting

According to Fig. 7, we can see that students whose second major is Chinese are more satisfied with the curriculum, and 21.5% of the students are very satisfied. 49.6% of the students were quite satisfied, while 20.4% and 8.5% of the students were not very satisfied and very dissatisfied with the curriculum, respectively. Students whose second major is English are relatively less satisfied with the curriculum. Only 17.5% of the students were very satisfied with the curriculum, and 24% were quite satisfied. The proportions of not very satisfied and very dissatisfied reached 31% and 27.5%, respectively.

Figure 7: Statistical chart of the satisfaction data of the second major (Chinese/English) curriculum setting

According to Fig. 8, we can see that 33.5% of the students can preview frequently, and 26.5% of the students can preview occasionally. 17.6% of the students basically do not preview, and 22.4% of the students never preview. In terms of class concentration, 18.2% of the students were very focused in the class, and 21.6% of the classmates were relatively focused in the class. 33.2% of the students are not very focused in the classroom, and 27% of the students have a low degree of concentration in the classroom. In terms of after-class review, 33.5% of the students regularly review the knowledge they have learned, and 35.4% of the students review occasionally. 15.4% of the students basically do not review after class, and 17% of the students never review what they have learned. In terms of after-school learning, 19.5% of the students often study by themselves after class, and 22.4% of the students occasionally study by themselves after class. 27.3% of the students basically do not learn by themselves after class, and 30.8% of the students said they would never learn by themselves. From this, we found that public-funded normal students majoring in history are more proactive in pre-class preview and after-class review. They are not very active in classroom concentration and after-school self-study, and need to be further improved.

Figure 8: Statistics chart of learning initiative situation

According to the degree of willingness in Fig. 9, 72.4% of the students expressed their willingness to become a history teacher with “one specialization and multiple abilities”. Only 27.6% expressed their unwillingness to become a “one-specialized and multi-skilled” history teacher. Through interviews, the author found that most of the students believed that as a teacher, they should master more skills and improve their own comprehensive quality, which is beneficial to their professional development in the future.

Figure 9: Employment expectations

According to Fig. 9, the willingness to take root in the township shows that only 11.9% of the students are very willing to take root and serve the township education, and 44.9% of the students are more willing. There are 31.9% of the students who are not willing to go to townships to teach, and even 11.3% of the students are very reluctant to go to townships for education. From the above analysis, it can be seen that most public-funded normal students are willing to become “one-specialized and multi-skilled” history teachers who are capable of teaching multiple subjects. However, they are unwilling to accept the living and working environment of township education and become history teachers who take root and serve township education. Therefore, in general, most students have low expectations for teaching in towns and villages in the future.

5.2 Publicly-Funded Normal Students Engaged in Teachers’ Occupational Psychological Problems

(1) Survey data

The subjects of this survey are first-line full-time young teachers under the age of 35 in 11 primary and secondary schools in a county. It does not include school leaders and non-teaching staff. Among them, there are six schools in urban areas and five schools in townships. The purpose of the investigation is to understand the current situation of the mental health and psychological support system of young teachers in primary and middle schools, find out the reasons for the existing problems, and propose countermeasures and suggestions for solving them. A total of 350 questionnaires were distributed and 320 were returned. Among them, there were 308 valid questionnaires, accounting for 88% of the total questionnaires issued. Among the 308 respondents, 147 were male and 161 were female, accounting for 48% and 52%, respectively. There are 100 primary school students, 100 junior high school students and 108 high school students. 43 people with less than 3 years of employment accounted for 14%, 40 with 3–5 years accounted for 13%, 173 with 6–10 years accounted for 56%, and 52 with more than 10 years accounted for 17%. There are 264 undergraduates accounting for 86%, 35 junior college students accounting for 11%, and 7 graduate students accounting for 2%. The details are shown in Table 3:

The research tool includes a social support rating scale with a total of 10 items. It includes three dimensions: objective support, subjective support and the degree of utilization of social support. Objective support refers to the material assistance, group participation and social network that an individual obtains, including material assistance and direct services. Subjective support refers to the sense of security, satisfaction, respect, and positive emotional experience that an individual feels. Utilization of support refers to the utilization of social support by individuals according to their actual situation. Those who refuse to help will respond negatively to social support, and the support they receive will be greatly reduced. People who actively seek help will receive more social support. The scale has good reliability and validity.

(2) Survey results

The symptom self-rating scale is the SCL-90, which is suitable for minors over the age of 14 and all adults. It has a total of 90 items, including a wider range of psycho-symptomology content. It involves from feeling, emotion, thinking, consciousness, behavior to living habits, interpersonal communication, diet and sleep. It uses 10 factors to reflect the symptoms of 10 aspects. These are: somatization, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, terror, paranoia, psychosis, others. The first 9 assess whether individuals have psychological problems in the dimensions of perception, emotion, thinking, and physiology. “Other” reflects the individual’s diet, sleep and so on. It adopts a five-point scoring system, ranging from 1 to 5, indicating none, very mild, moderate, severe, and very severe. The scale has good reliability and validity. The SCL-90 questionnaire was collected and processed using SPSS statistical software. The results are as follows:

Statistical analysis results from Fig. 10 and Table 4: There were significant differences in the total scores of somatization, obsessive-compulsive disorder, interpersonal relationship, depression, anxiety, hostility, paranoia, and mental health among teachers in high school, junior high school, and elementary school. From the mean point of view, the teachers in the junior high school have the lowest performance scores in various symptoms and the best mental health. Teachers in high school and elementary school are on a par, and their mental health is generally poor.

Figure 10: Differences in SCL-90 factors of teachers in three grades

Statistical results of post hoc tests in Table 5: According to different indicators, it is found that there are significant differences in the groups of teachers in primary schools, junior high schools, and high schools. In somatization, there are significant differences between primary school teachers and junior high school teachers. In obsessive-compulsive disorder, there are significant differences between junior high school teachers and primary school teachers, and between junior high school teachers and high school teachers. In interpersonal relationships, there are significant differences between junior high school teachers and primary school teachers, and between junior high school teachers and senior high school teachers. In depression, there is a significant difference between primary school teachers and junior high school teachers. In terms of anxiety, there is a significant difference between primary school teachers and junior high school teachers. In hostility, there are significant differences between high school teachers and primary school teachers, and between high school teachers and junior high school teachers. In paranoia, there is a marginally significant difference between junior high school teachers and high school teachers. In the total score of mental health, there are significant differences between junior high school teachers and primary school teachers, and between junior high school teachers and high school teachers.

6  Conclusions

Mental toughness can improve teachers’ mental health in today’s increasing pressure on teachers, so that teachers can be relieved from setbacks and pressures as soon as possible, so that teachers can maintain their enthusiasm for education and teaching. The study found that in the actual education and teaching situation, teachers’ psychological toughness has not received corresponding attention. Based on positive psychology as the theoretical support, this paper studies the psychological support system for the special group of young teachers in primary and secondary schools, and expands the application horizon of positive psychology. However, limited to the theoretical and academic level of researchers, it is difficult to conduct in-depth research. There are many unsatisfactory points in the paper, which need to be further revised and improved in the future. Therefore, further research will be carried out in this area in the future.

Funding Statement: Philosophy and Social Science Foundation of Hunan Province (19YBQ010).

Conflicts of Interest: The author declares that they have no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present study.

References

 1.  Ganina, E. V., Dubinina, G. A., Stepanyan, I. K. (2019). Cross-cultural analysis of bilingualism in preparinginternational students for training professionally oriented disciplines. Humanities and Social Sciences Bulletin of the Financial University, 9(4), 142–147. DOI 10.26794/2226-7867-2019-9-4-142-147.

 2.  He, D., Luo, N. (2021). Spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of extreme rainfall based on intelligent recognition and evaluation of music teaching effect in colleges and universities. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 14(16), 1–13.

 3.  Renard, R. D. (2017). Creating the other requires defining Thainess against which the other can exist: Early-twentieth century definitions (Redefining “otherness” from Northern Thailand). Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 44(3), 295–320.

 4.  Moleyar, J. P. (2019). Accident at Vidyalaya School–an ethical dilemma. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 9(2). DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-05-2019-0103.

 5.  Swai, T. A. (2019). Municipal-owned community bank: Capital raising dilemma. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 9(2). DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-02-2018-0027.

 6.  Dickson, M., Mcminn, M., Kadbey, H. (2019). Do years of teaching experience make a difference for teachers working in Abu Dhabi government schools? Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences, 14(4), 471–481. DOI 10.18844/cjes.v11i4.347.

 7.  Manoilova, M. A. (2021). Human psychology in extreme conditions occupation of the Pskov region during the Great Patriotic War. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management, 9(8), 658–665. DOI 10.18535/ijsrm/v9i8.sh01.

 8.  Kim, D. (2017). Perception of special education teachers on sex education in high school. Journal of Rehabilitation Psychology, 24(1), 183–201.

 9.  Gill, S. A., Zeeshan, A. (2021). Relationship between elementary school teachers’ emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 58(2), 10117–10123.

10. Hidalga, Z., Gallego, L. V. (2017). Using metaphors to know the conceptions about the teaching profession in initial teacher education. International Journal of Educational Psychology IJEP, 6(2), 183–208. DOI 10.17583/ijep.2017.2602.

11. Ulrich, A., Frey, A., Ruppert, J. J. (2018). The role of parents in young people’s career choices in Germany. Psychology, 9(8), 2194–2206. DOI 10.4236/psych.2018.98125.

12. Rowicka, A. (2020). Knowledge of pedagogy students about burnout in the teaching profession. Problemy Opiekuńczo-Wychowawcze, 586(1), 48–59. DOI 10.5604/01.3001.0013.7924.

13. Srman, D. E., Hansson, P., Pritschke, I. (2019). Complexity of primary lifetime occupation and cognitive processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1–12. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01861.

14. Kiran, B., Daspurkayastha, M. (2020). Study on levels of peer pressure among adolescents. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 8(3), 2349–3429.

15. Dar, I. A. (2019). Influence of academic streams on career aspirations of Kashmiri adolescents. The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 7(2), 38–45.

16. Green, R. J., Rubio, R. J., Rothblum, E. D. (2019). Gay fathers by surrogacy: Prejudice, parenting, and well-being of female and male children. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 6(3), 269–283. DOI 10.1037/sgd0000325.

17. Jeawkok, N. (2021). Development of the occupational class and community welfare of fishing families through community enterprise: A case study in village 2, Ban Ao Nam, Krabi, Thailand. Psychology, 58(1), 3644–3659.

18. Imran, M., Ismail, F., Hussain, K. (2021). Achieving sustainable organisational performance through employee job satisfaction and organizational culture. Psychology, 58(1), 3089–3108.

19. Kuniyil, V. (2021). Parental concept of child development and hereditary occupation among the malayan community of North Kerala. Psychological Studies, 66(4), 445–454. DOI 10.1007/s12646-021-00632-9.

20. Cox, V., Ward, L. M. (2019). A wholistic view of black women on scripted TV: A content analysis. Journal of Black Psychology, 45(6–7), 00957984–01988707. DOI 10.1177/0095798419887072.

[picture] | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.