Happy teachers are efficacious and committed, but not vice versa: Unraveling the longitudinal relationships between Hong Kong kindergarten teachers’ psychological well-being, self-efficacy, and commitment

Following social cognitive theory, this study examined the longitudinal relationships between kindergarten teachers' psychological well-being, self-efficacy, and commitment to children via a two-wave longitudinal design. Based on a sample of 782 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers, the results of the half-longitudinal mediation analysis showed that teachers’ psychological well-being enhanced their commitment to children through the mediation of self-efficacy over time. However, longitudinal reverse mediation and reciprocal relationships were not confirmed. These results support the significance of supplementing social cognitive theory with positive psychology and adopting longitudinal research to detect the direction of prediction of self-efficacy. The practical implications are finally discussed.