The Effect of Early Childhood Teachers' Job Satisfaction on Teacher-Child Interactions: The Moderated Mediating Effect of Teacher Efficacy and Resilience

This study examined the moderated mediating effect of teacher efficacy and resilience on the relationship between early childhood teachers' job satisfaction and teacher-child interactions. A survey was conducted on 409 early childhood teachers in Korea, and the collected data were analyzed using R 4.2.0 and the R version of PROCESSmacro 4.3. The results are as follows: first, early childhood teachers' job satisfaction had a positive effect on teacher efficacy and teacher-child interactions, and teacher efficacy had a positive effect on teacher-child interactions. Second, teacher efficacy had a positive mediating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and teacher-child interactions. Third, resilience had a buffering moderating effect on the impact of job satisfaction on teacher efficacy. Lastly, the mediating effect of teacher efficacy on the relationship between early childhood teachers' job satisfaction and teacher-child interactions showed conditional effects depending on resilience. These results suggest the need to support the resilience of early childhood teachers as a part of their professionalism to connect the healthy professional life of early childhood teachers with the healthy growth of children.