The Effects And Job Crafting Intervention Research Of Illegitimate Tasks On Mental Health Teachers

Illegitimate tasks are a prevalent issue among mental health teachers,who are often burdened with responsibilities beyond their job description.This negatively impacts their work status and physical and mental well-being.Illegitimate tasks are tasks that go against employees’ reasonable expectations.Previous research on illegitimate task has mainly focused on corporate employees,examining explicit behavioral outcomes such as turnover and counterproductive work behavior,without addressing the covert issue of universal withdrawal behaviors.Illegitimate tasks are detrimental and offer no benefits,yet there is a lack of exploration of coping mechanisms in reality.Therefore,this study aims to investigate the impact of illegitimate tasks on work withdrawal behavior among primary and secondary school mental health teachers and explore potential coping strategies.Mental health teachers also present different coping performances in the face of illegitimate tasks,such as job crafting.Job crafting is a process where employees redefine the scope of their work to increase the significance of their job and establish a stronger connection with their role.This approach enables employees to manage and replenish their work resources,which can mitigate the negative effects of stress.As such,this research will concentrate on job crafting as a coping mechanism for mental health teachers,emphasizing the importance of work meaning and identity as the two goals of job crafting.By doing so,we aim to gain a more profound comprehension of the psychological mechanisms that underlie job crafting.This study utilized the JD-R theory to develop a comprehensive framework that examines the direct impact of illegitimate tasks,work meaning,and work identity on the mental health teachers’ withdrawal behavior.The study also explored the moderating effects of work crafting as a stress coping strategy,using the mediated moderation model(me MO-II)and considering the roles of work meaning and work identity.A questionnaire survey was conducted with a sample of 299 primary and secondary school mental health teachers from across the country,and empirical analysis was performed using statistical software such as Spss25.0 and Mplus8.3.The results revealed:(1)illegitimate tasks are significantly positively correlated with withdrawal behavior;(2)work meaning and work identity are significantly negatively correlated with withdrawal behavior;(3)The moderating effect of work crafting on the relationship between illegitimate tasks and work withdrawal behavior is not significant;(4)both work meaning and work identity positively moderate this relationship;(5)The moderating effect of job crafting can be realized through indirect adjustment mediated by the work meaning,among which the impact path of preventive-oriented job crafting and task crafting is more significant;(6)job crafting failed to play an indirect moderating role through work identity,but the effect was significant in the influence path of preventive-oriented job crafting.In Study 2,an 8-day job crafting intervention was conducted on 11 mental health teachers.Analysis of pre-and post-test data revealed a significant decrease in withdrawal behavior both before and after the intervention.Additionally,two months after the intervention,improvements in both job crafting and work identity were sustained.These findings suggest that job crafting interventions can be beneficial for mental health teachers.This study has made important theoretical and practical contributions to the research on illegitimate tasks and job crafting.Firstly,in the research on illegitimate tasks,this study explains the mechanism of the impact of illegitimate tasks on withdrawal behavior and verifies that work significance and work identity as individual resources can reduce the occurrence of withdrawal behavior.Secondly,this study explores job crafting as a stress coping strategy and reveals the cross-regulation mode between job crafting and work meaning,providing a new perspective for exploring the internal mechanism of job crafting.Finally,this study realizes the application of job crafting intervention in workplace intervention,helping to improve work adaptability in mental health teachers,and has important reference value for optimizing management practices and interventions for organizational managers.