The General Mattering Scale, the Anti-Mattering Scale, and the Fear of Not Mattering Inventory: Psychometric Properties and Links with Distress and Hope Among Chinese University Students.

Purpose: Mattering is essential to university students' mental health. Feeling valued by others or unimportant can affect their overall well-being. However, most measures for assessing mattering have been developed and tested in Western countries, with limited evaluation of the measures when administered to university students in other regions. This study evaluated the reliability and validity of three mattering-related instruments - the General Mattering Scale (GMS), Anti-Mattering Scale (AMS), and Fear of Not Mattering Inventory (FNMI) among Chinese university students using classical test theory and Rasch analysis. Methods: The study comprised 3594 university students from 19 universities across 13 provinces in mainland China, with a balanced gender distribution of 47.2% females and 52.8% males. Participants' ages ranged from 18 to 37, averaging 20.02 years. Most (78.4%) were in four-year programs, with the rest in three-year programs. The majority were freshmen (54.2%), and 86.3% had siblings. The predominant major was engineering (43.4%), followed by roughly equal representations in science, social science, and literature/art. Results: The three scales showed high reliability and factorial validity, with Rasch analysis confirming their unidimensionality and monotonicity, although 2 of 15 items (one GMS item and one FNMI item) had lower fit. There were no substantial differences in item functioning between male and female respondents. Further analyses indicated that mattering, anti-mattering, and fear of not mattering all explained significant unique variance in levels of hope and distress. Conclusion: All three mattering-related instruments are suitable for assessing Chinese students' mattering, anti-mattering, and fear of not mattering and changes in levels of these mattering dimensions. Moreover, each measure represents a unique element of the mattering construct in terms of associations with levels of hope and distress assessed in during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Corrigendum: Teacher burnout and turnover intention in higher education: The mediating role of job satisfaction and the moderating role of proactive personality.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1076277.].

Teacher burnout and turnover intention in higher education: The mediating role of job satisfaction and the moderating role of proactive personality.

Introduction: Teacher burnout and frequent turnover negatively affect stability and productivity in the context of higher education. Despite the fact that the relationship between burnout and turnover intention has been thoroughly studied, the role of other factors in this relationship should be evaluated in order to better clarify underlying mechanisms, particularly in the context of higher education. Methods: In this study, we first aim to bridge a research gap by utilizing job satisfaction as a mediating variable for the relationship between burnout and turnover intention. Moreover, we uniquely evaluate the role of proactive personality as a moderating variable, first in terms of the relationship between burnout and job satisfaction, and then for the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. Based on 296 valid questionnaires collected from university faculty members in China, proposed hypotheses were evaluated empirically. Results: The results demonstrate that, as expected, burnout has a significant and positive impact on turnover intention, and job satisfaction has significantly negative impact on turnover intention, with job satisfaction partially mediating the relationship between burnout and turnover intention. Moreover, proactive personality moderated the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention, with this relationship being stronger for individuals with high proactive personality as compared to low proactive personality. Discussion: These findings provide a better understanding of the relationship between burnout and turnover intention of university instructors. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are provided.

Evaluating the immediate and delayed effects of psychological need thwarting of online teaching on Chinese primary and middle school teachers' psychological well-being.

Recent studies on the effects of mandatory online teaching, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, have widely reported low levels of satisfaction, unwillingness to continue online teaching, and negative impacts on the psychological well-being of teachers. Emerging research has highlighted the potential role of psychological need thwarting (PNT), in terms of autonomy, competence, and relatedness thwarting, resulting from online teaching. The aim of this study was to evaluate the immediate and delayed (longitudinal) effects of PNT of online teaching on teachers' well-being (including distress and burnout), intention to continue online teaching, and job satisfaction. Moreover, data collected from both cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys allowed for a systematic validation of an important instrument in the field of teacher psychology, the Psychological Need Thwarting Scale of Online Teaching (PNTSOT), in terms of longitudinal reliability and validity. The data reveal the usefulness of the construct of PNT in terms predicting and explaining teachers' willingness to continue using online teaching as well as the degree of burnout after a period of 2 months, such that PNT is positively associated with burnout and negatively associated with willingness to continue online teaching. As such, the PNTSOT is recommended for future research evaluating the long-term psychological, affective, and intentional outcomes stemming from teachers' PNT. Moreover, based on our findings that the impact from PNT of online teaching is persistent and long-term, we suggest that school leaders provide flexible and sustained professional development, model respectful and adaptive leadership, and create opportunities for mastery for the development of community of practice that can mitigate the thwarting of teachers' autonomy, competence, and relatedness during times of uncertainty. Additionally, in terms of the psychometric properties of the PNTSOT instrument, our empirical findings demonstrate internal reliability, test-retest reliability, measurement invariance, and criterion validity (concurrent and predictive) based on cross-sectional and longitudinal data.

The Effect of Primary and Middle School Teachers' Problematic Internet Use and Fear of COVID-19 on Psychological Need Thwarting of Online Teaching and Psychological Distress.

Problematic Internet use (PIU) is a risk factor for psychological distress during COVID-19, as teachers are a psychologically vulnerable population. We explored the role of PIU in terms of primary and middle school teachers' fear of COVID-19 and psychological need thwarting (PNT) of online teaching. We empirically evaluated the relationships among these research variables in explaining teachers' psychological distress during COVID-19. Online survey data were collected from 9030 teachers. A high proportion of participants demonstrated psychological distress: depression (20.4%), anxiety (26.4%), and stress (10.2%). Structural equation modeling was used to test our proposed conceptual model, wherein PIU behaviors served as predictors, mediated by fear of COVID-19 and PNT of online teaching, for teachers' psychological distress. With ideal model fit, the results of the path coefficients indicated that PIU behaviors were associated with fear of COVID-19 (p < 0.001); fear of COVID-19 and PNT of online teaching were associated with psychological distress (p < 0.001); and fear of COVID-19 was also positively associated with PNT of online teaching (p < 0.001). PSU and PSMU had an indirect positive effect on psychological distress through the mediator of fear of COVID-19 and PNT of online teaching. As such, we suggest that school administrators pay greater attention to teachers' psychological needs through efforts to enhance teachers' autonomy and relatedness from interpersonal relationships, alleviating PNT of online teaching. Our PNT of online teaching scale may also serve as a contribution for further research and practice.

The Influence of Parenting Style and Time Management Tendency on Internet Gaming Disorder among Adolescents.

The problem of adolescent online gaming addiction is related to individual-level characteristics and the influence of the family environment. The present study explores the potential role of adolescents' time management tendency in mediating the relationship between parenting style and adolescent internet gaming disorder (IGD). Responses from a total of 357 Chinese high school students were collected for a Pathological Video-Game Use Questionnaire, Simplified Parenting Styles Scale, and Time Management Tendency Scale. Overall, participants reported moderate use of online games (Mean = 1.41; SD = 0.41), lower than the median value of 2 on a three-point scale. In terms of the mediating role of adolescents' time management tendency, full meditation was observed for the relationship between the parenting style factor of "parents' emotional warmth" for both mothers and fathers and internet gaming disorder. The results highlight the benefits of emotional warmth in supporting self-efficacy, self-control, and autonomy through the promotion of time management, which is an important protective factor for IGD and can serve as a mediating personality variable. Although non-significant in the complete model, over-protection and rejection by parents should also be cautiously considered as potential risk factors related to addiction.

Psychometric Properties and Measurement Invariance for a Chinese Version of a Psychological Need Thwarting Scale for Teachers.

While teachers' psychological needs have been evaluated in terms of need satisfaction, need thwarting of teachers is under-researched. This study developed a Chinese version of a Psychological Need Thwarting (PNT) scale for teachers and evaluated both its psychometric properties and measurement invariance across groups. Psychometric criteria for the scale were evaluated, with satisfactory levels of internal reliability, test-retest reliability, convergent and divergent validities, and model goodness-of-fit. One item translated from the original PNT scale was removed due to cross-loading. Criterion validity was established, with R2 = 0.54 for the factor of burnout (emotional exhaustion). Measurement invariance was established using confirmatory factor analysis for the factors of gender, grade of instruction, and position. The teachers evaluated demonstrated higher levels of competence thwarting, as compared to autonomy and relatedness thwarting, but overall higher levels of thwarting as compared to previous research. Males reported higher levels of autonomy and competence thwarting as compared to females and secondary school teachers reported higher levels of relatedness thwarting as compared to primary school teachers. The developed scale can serve as a valuable tool in evaluating the thwarting of teachers' psychological needs, an issue which can profoundly impact teachers' and students' mental health and performance.