The Effect Of Preschool Teachers’ Job Autonomy On Teaching Self-efficacy: The Chain-mediated Role Of Professional Identity And Parent-teacher Relationship

Job autonomy refers to the level of autonomy that employees can independently plan work content and decide work forms in the workplace.It is an internal control process of voluntary and independent development.Such internal control can alleviate the conflict of wills brought by external control and is more conducive to the development of employees.Teaching self-efficacy is teachers’ cognition and judgment of their teaching effectiveness,the essential source of people’s active participation in the teaching profession,and the internal promotion of its continuous development and progress.It determines the development of teachers’ career motivation,belief and behavior.Previous studies have found that both job autonomy and teaching selfefficacy affect the quality of teachers’ teaching and educating,and there is a close relationship between them.The preschool teacher is the "foundation" of national education and personal success,small to affect a person,a family,large to affect a country,a nation.Therefore,it is of great research value and theoretical significance to explore the influence of preschool teachers’ job autonomy on their teaching selfefficacy.This study takes preschool teachers as the research subject,takes job autonomy as the independent variable and teaching self-efficacy as the dependent variable,and adopts the method of questionnaire research to explore the influence of job autonomy of preschool teachers on teaching self-efficacy,and further tests the chain mediating role of professional identity and parent-teacher relationship in the above influence.This paper aims to reveal the internal mechanism of the influence of preschool teachers’ job autonomy on their teaching self-efficacy,so as to provide references for better promotion of preschool teachers’ teaching self-efficacy and research in related fields.In this study,the kindergarten teachers’ Job Autonomy Scale,Preschool Teachers’ Teaching Self-efficacy Scale,Preschool Teachers’ Professional Identity Scale and Preschool Teachers’ parent-teacher Relationship Scale were adopted to conduct a questionnaire survey on on-duty kindergarten teachers in Changchun,there were 310 valid questionnaires.Reliability test,sample characteristics analysis,independent sample t test and series regression analysis were conducted with SPSS 26.0,and further Bootstrap method was applied to verify the chain mediation model and mediation effect,the conclusions were as follows:(1)Descriptive statistical analysis found that preschool teachers had a high degree of self-evaluation in terms of job autonomy,parent-teacher relationship,professional identity and teaching self-efficacy,among which the professional identity was the highest and the relative score of parent-teacher relationship was the lowest,indicating that preschool teachers need to be further strengthened in the aspect of parent-teacher relationship.(2)Demographic difference test found that the parent-teacher relationship of homeroom preschool teachers was better than that of other teachers;The teaching selfefficacy of married preschool teachers is obviously better than that of unmarried teachers.(3)Correlation test and regression analysis found that preschool teachers’ job autonomy,teaching self-efficacy,professional identity and parent-teacher relationship were significantly positively correlated.After adding control variables,job autonomy of preschool teachers has a significant positive predictive effect on professional identity,parent-teacher relationship and teaching self-efficacy respectively.Professional identity and parent-teacher relationship can positively predict teaching self-efficacy.In addition,professional identity can significantly positively predict parent-teacher relationship.(4)Professional identity and parent-teacher relationship of preschool teachers play a mediating effect on the relationship between job autonomy and teaching self-efficacy respectively.Professional identity and parent-teacher relationship play a role as a chain intermediary between preschool teachers’ job autonomy and their teaching self-efficacy,that is,the stronger the job autonomy,the higher the professional identity of preschool teachers,and in turn,the better parent-teacher relationship can be obtained,and finally the improvement of teaching self-efficacy can be realized.The research value of this paper is not only to enrich the theoretical research results of preschool teachers’ teaching self-efficacy,but also to provide experience and literature reference for theoretical exploration in related fields.In addition,it provides more guidance ways for preschool teachers to improve the level of teaching selfefficacy,which has rich theoretical and practical significance.