Abstract Background In the higher education environment, college English teachers are confronted with multiple challenges such as teaching load, research pressure and cross-cultural expectations, which can easily affect their sense of teaching efficacy and professional happiness. These two aspects have significant impacts on the teaching quality of teachers and the development of students. The research takes the Positive Emotion-Engagement-Relationships-Meaning-Accomplishment (PERMA) model in positive psychology as the theoretical framework. The system designs and verifies a set of strategies for cultivating teaching efficacy and professional happiness for college English teachers, aiming to effectively enhance their professional psychological qualities and teaching practice abilities through structured and multi-level training strategies. Methods A randomised controlled trial design was employed, comprising pre-test, post-test, and a two-month follow-up assessment. One hundred and twelve full-time English teachers were recruited from six universities and randomly assigned to an intervention group (n = 56) or a control group (n = 56). The intervention group received an eight-week programme comprising weekly 90-minute group sessions and daily individual exercises. Content covered strengths utilisation, gratitude journaling, relationship building, mindfulness regulation, and goal attainment. Assessment utilised the Teacher Efficacy Scale (Short Form) and the Work-Related Emotional Well-Being Scale, all demonstrating good reliability (Cronbach’s α 0.85). Data analysis employed mixed-effects ANOVA and independent samples t-tests. Results Experiments show that the group and time interaction effects of teaching efficacy and professional well-being are significant. The scores of teaching efficacy (ΔM = 6.9) and occupational well-being in the post-test (ΔM = 4.8) of the intervention group were significantly higher than those in the pre-test (p.001), while there was no significant change in the control group. There was no significant difference between the two groups in the pretest (p.05). In the posttest, the intervention group was significantly higher than the control group. The teaching efficacy and professional well-being of the intervention group in the posttest were 6.1 and 3.6 higher than those of the control group, respectively. Effect size analysis showed that the Cohen's d values compared before and after the intervention group were 0.71-0.82, which was a medium to large effect. The specific experimental data are shown in Table 1. Discussion The training strategies proposed by the research institute can effectively enhance the teaching efficacy and professional happiness of college English teachers. The training strategies should focus on systematicness, that is, to design periodic and progressive comprehensive support activities around five dimensions: positive emotions, teaching engagement, interpersonal support, work significance and achievement goals. This path not only enhances teachers' psychological resilience and teaching enthusiasm, but also provides a clear framework for their practice. In the future, long-term effects can be further tracked and objective indicators such as teaching behaviors can be incorporated to continuously optimize the pertinence and effectiveness of the training strategies. Funding No. 202513389SD; No. ZC-2025-153; No. XY23BS08.
Long Zhao (Sun,) studied this question.