Relations between University Teachers’ Teaching-Related Coping Strategies and Well-Being Over Time: A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis

Background: University teachers’ well-being plays a critical role in their productivity and educational effectiveness. Apart from cross-sectional research on demographic and institutional/contextual correlates, insight into potential causes and consequences of faculty well-being is limited. This includes insight into relations between different coping strategies and well-being.Aims: We studied the interplay of different strategies for coping with teaching-related stress with university teachers’ well-being over the course of one semester.Sample: Participants were 489 German university teachers (age: M=41.1 years, SD=11.4) from 34 universities. Their demographics were characteristic for German university staff.Methods: Participants reported on their use of task-oriented, emotion-oriented, and avoidance-oriented coping to manage teaching-related stress and on their subjective well-being (positive and negative affect; job satisfaction) at the beginning (T1: November) and end (T2: February) of the winter 2020/2021 term. Interrelations were examined via cross-lagged panel analysis.Results: Task-oriented coping was positively related to the slope of changes in positive affect, and vice versa, over time. Emotion-oriented coping (rumination) was positively related to the slope of changes in negative affect, and negatively to the slope of changes in positive affect and job satisfaction. Negative affect was positively related to the slope of changes in avoidance-oriented coping.Conclusions: The findings provide directions for further developing supportive measures for promoting well-being in university teaching staff by highlighting the relevance of different coping strategies as causes and consequences thereof. Task-oriented coping may be particularly adaptive for well-being: at the same time, interventions aiming to promote well-being may also facilitate task-oriented coping behaviors.