Competition pressure and psychological resilience among university teachers: a mixed-methods study of teaching competitions in Chinese higher education

Teaching competitions are an important way to enhance teachers’ teaching abilities. However, the traditional management model of school competitions generally has a tendency of “emphasizing skills over mental effort,” with a single evaluation dimension and a lack of systematic attention to teachers’ mental health and psychological resilience. This study focuses on the model innovation of “Mental Education Empowerment Dual-track Drive,” and builds a institution-level (school-level) competition management paradigm for the collaborative evaluation of teaching academic ability and psychological resilience development. This study conducted empirical verification in combination with the Yerkes–Dodson motivation-Efficiency inverted U theory. Based on semi-structured interviews with 14 participating university teachers and two rounds of questionnaire surveys, the study found that the competition pressure of the participating university teachers presented an “inverted U-shaped” distribution, with the peak pressure in the provincial competition selection stage being the highest (averaging 8.2 points). The psychological resilience of teachers presents a three-dimensional structure of “persistence–iteration–breakthrough,” and its functional exertion is context-dependent. There is a “triple disconnection” in current psychological support–disconnection in timing, disconnection in form and disconnection in evaluation. The research further revealed the notable differences in stress perception and support needs among independent participating university teachers and teachers of different teaching ages. Based on the negative case analysis method, the conclusion of the singularity of psychological support was corrected, and the optimal pressure range of university teaching competitions was calculated through quantitative questionnaires. Based on this, this paper proposes a four-dimensional reform path for the “dual-track drive” institution-level (school-level) competition management model: hierarchical psychological intervention, personalized support principles, full-cycle resilience cultivation, and reconstruction of the evaluation mechanism. The research provides theoretical basis and practical path for the innovation of the management mode of teaching competitions for university teachers.