Teacher well-being plays an important role in education reform because it marks teachers’ positive evaluation of and healthy functioning in their work environment. However, there has been insufficient research on the relationship between distributed leadership and teacher well-being and on how organisational trust works as a mediator between these two constructs. Based on responses from 587 teachers in primary schools in southwest China, this study examined how distributed leadership contributes to teacher well-being with attention to the mediating role of organisational trust. Using structural equation modelling and bootstrapping tests, the analysis showed a nonsignificant direct effect between distributed leadership and teacher well-being. Organisational trust and its two dimensions, namely trust in the working team and trust in the principal, had significant mediating effects on the relationship between distributed leadership and teacher well-being. However, the dimension of trust in the work setting did not appear to be a significant mediator. This study contributes to a better understanding of the transferability of leadership theories across cultures and to a deepening comprehension of strategies for improving teacher well-being in Chinese schools and similar contexts. Implications of the study and future research direction are presented.

In the 21st century, creativity is a core competence and key thinking quality. Researchers and educators have been interested in exploring the effects of different stressors on individual creativity for decades. Using structural equation modeling and quantile regression, this study investigated the relationship between academic challenge stress and self-rated creativity of graduate students among 1210 Chinese graduate students. The study separately tested the mediating effect of resilience, the mediating effect of academic self-efficacy, and the chained mediating effect of both. This study analyzed the heterogeneity of the effects of academic challenge stress, academic self-efficacy, and resilience on self-rated creativity of different students. The research results showed that academic challenge stress had a direct positive effect on graduate students’ self-rated creativity. The mediating effect of resilience and academic self-efficacy and the chain mediating effect were established. The quantile regression revealed a decreasing marginal benefit of academic challenge stress and resilience for self-rated creativity and an inverted U-shaped relationship between academic self-efficacy and self-rated creativity.

It is well known that the proper allocation of learning time is particularly important for promoting students’ academic performance. Based on the data from PISA 2018, this research used the method of threshold regression and quantile regression to explore the optimal length of learning time to promote the students’ academic performance. At the same time, this research also explored the heterogeneity of the effect of learning time on different academic levels of students. The results show that for four Chinese provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu province and Zhejiang province, students who study in rural areas and private schools usually have longer learning time than students in cities and public schools. Moreover, it is suggested that there is no significant association between school quality and students’ learning time. The average learning time of students from the four Chinese cities and provinces is obviously longer than that in OECD countries. Moreover, it is found that the impact of learning time on academic performance across subjects is inverted U-shaped, and the optimal study time can be found in the learning of mathematics, science, and reading related subjects. As for the effect of learning time, the results showed that learning time commitment is more effective for students who are academically disadvantaged. At the same time, this study found that there is a relationship between students’ excessive learning time and students’ subjective well-being and attitudes toward learning activities. The non-cognitive factors can influence students’ academic performance gradually. According to the results of this research, it is suggested that students need to balance their learning time allocation against the appropriate learning time standards. Moreover, schools should adopt different learning time allocation schemes for students at different academic achievement levels. The teachers also should uphold a more scientific design of students’ after-school homework, and teachers and parents should also focus on improving students’ learning efficiency.