Effort-reward imbalance and emotional exhaustion among border-region physical education teachers: the roles of meaningful work and social support.

INTRODUCTION

Emotional exhaustion has become a prevalent psychological concern among teachers working in high-demand educational environments. Drawing upon effort-reward imbalance (ERI) theory and conservation of resources theory, this study examined the relationship between ERI and emotional exhaustion among teachers working in border regions of China, with meaningful work as a mediator and social support as a moderator.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 483 primary and secondary school physical education teachers. Data were analyzed using PROCESS Models 4 and 14 with 5,000 bootstrap resamples.

RESULTS

The results indicated that ERI was positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Meaningful work accounted for a significant indirect association between ERI and emotional exhaustion. In addition, social support moderated the association between meaningful work and emotional exhaustion, such that the positive association was weaker at higher levels of social support. The conditional indirect association between ERI and emotional exhaustion through meaningful work was also smaller at higher levels of social support.

DISCUSSION: These findings highlight the complex psychological role of meaningful work under chronically demanding work conditions and emphasize the importance of supportive school environments for maintaining teachers' psychological well-being.