MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK STRESS AND CAREER COMMITMENT AMONG PRESCHOOL TEACHERS

Abstract [English]

To improve the gap in the literature, where much of the research on the relationship between work stress and career commitment among preschool teachers has been based on correlation analysis and has not provided comprehensive testing of the mediation pathways, a psychological capital mediation model is brought to this paper. This model takes the four dimensions of psychological resources, self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience and makes them a part of the same analysis model by integrating together and statistically testing the interaction pathways between variables. The standardized scales were used to collect data of a sample of 312 preschool teachers in constructing a mediation structure model of the "work stress--psychological capital--career commitment" joint estimation using bootstrap repeated sampling, testing of reliability and accuracy of data analysis, and mathematical modeling of structural equations. The control variables were co-regressed to enhance the accuracy of path estimation as well as stability of decomposition of the effects, which showed that work related stress had a significant effect on career commitment (β= -0.43, p < 0.001) and had a negative predictive effect on psychological capital (β = -0.52, p < 0.001). Psychological capital also had a strong positive effect on career commitment (β = 0.61, p < 0.001). The mediating indirect effect of -0.32 and the Bootstrap 95% confidence interval that was not equal to zero were significant mediating effects [ -0.40, -0.24]. The findings suggest that including the psychological capital as an important variable of psychological resource may lead to the significant effect of the explanatory contribution of the stress-commitment relationship and the increase in the accuracy of path determination at the broken dimension level