The impact of occupational burnout on teaching competence of teachers in Chinese higher vocational colleges: the mediating role of self-efficacy and psychological capital

Objective To explore the influence mechanism of occupational burnout on the teaching competence of teachers in higher vocational colleges in China, and to verify the separate single mediating and chain mediating effects of self-efficacy and psychological capital between the two variables. Methods A total of 1,326 teachers from higher vocational colleges in China were selected as research samples by adopting the stratified random sampling method. Data were collected using the Occupational Burnout Scale, Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale, Psychological Capital Scale, and Teaching Competence Assessment Scale. Data analysis was performed through common method bias test, correlation analysis, regression analysis, as well as structural equation modeling (SEM) combined with the Bootstrap method (with 5,000 resampling iterations). Results The structural equation model showed a good fit. Occupational burnout exerted multi-dimensional impacts on the teaching competence of teachers in higher vocational colleges. Specifically, occupational burnout had a significant negative direct effect on teachers’ teaching competence in higher vocational colleges; self-efficacy and psychological capital, respectively, played a significant single mediating role between occupational burnout and teaching competence; and the chain mediating effect of the path “occupational burnout → psychological capital → self-efficacy → teaching competence” was significant. Conclusion These findings not only enrich the theoretical research on the relationship between teachers’ occupational burnout and teaching competence, providing empirical support for understanding the association between occupational burnout and teaching competence, but also offer practical guidance for the construction of teacher teams in higher vocational colleges.