This study aims at testing the application of the job demands-resources model on university teachers in mainland China. It investigates the relationship between the job characteristics of university teaching and teachers’ well-being. Based on the analyses of a sample of 2,758 university teachers, the results of structural equation modelling support the health impairment and motivational processes suggested by the model. Specifically, job demands consisting of teaching demands, teaching-research conflict and new challenges reduced university teachers’ job satisfaction through the mediation of emotional exhaustion; job resources comprising teaching resources, social support and administrative support increased university teachers’ job satisfaction through the mediation of work engagement. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The relationship between grit and success has been investigated extensively in various contexts. However, the association between grit and language performance, especially in a Chinese high school context, remains underexplored. This study investigates grit, the positive emotion of enjoyment, the negative emotion of anxiety, foreign language performance, and how enjoyment and anxiety mediate the relationship between grit and foreign language performance. A questionnaire was administered to 697 Chinese high school students, followed by a language test after 2 weeks. The results showed that more than half of the students had a moderate-high level of grit and foreign language enjoyment and that nearly half of them experienced a low-moderate level of foreign language anxiety. It was also found that grit, foreign language enjoyment, and foreign language performance were positively correlated with each other, and all three variables were negatively correlated with anxiety. Both foreign language enjoyment and foreign language anxiety mediated the relationship between grit and foreign language performance to a significant degree, and the mediating effect of foreign language anxiety was stronger than that of foreign language enjoyment.

Approaches to writing play an important role in both the writing processes and outcomes. However, little is known about whether L2 writers adopt different combinations of approaches in academic writing contexts and what factors predict such combinations. Hence, this study aimed to identify different profiles of approaches to writing in an L2 academic context and examine how they are predicted by writing self-efficacy and large language model (LLM) acceptance. To this end, a total of 578 Chinese graduate students were recruited to participate in the study. Latent profile analysis revealed three distinct writing profiles: unorganized (Profile 1), dissonant (Profile 2), and deep and organized (Profile 3), with the majority of students categorized under the dissonant profile. Additionally, multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that writing self-efficacy positively predicted profile membership, with the strongest effect observed for Profile 3, followed by Profile 2 and then Profile 1. LLM acceptance also positively predicted profile membership, with the strongest effect for Profile 2, followed by Profile 3 and then Profile 1.

This study investigated the associations between university teachers’ emotional job demands, teaching support, and well-being, and examined the mediating effect of emotional regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) in the job demands-resources (JD-R) model. The results of a survey of 643 university teachers in mainland China indicated that emotional job demands and teaching support, which facilitated teachers’ use of reappraisal strategies, had desirable effects on their well-being. Reappraisal was beneficial to teachers’ well-being, and suppression was harmful. These findings support the mediation role of emotional regulation, and evidence the applicability of the JD-R model to a higher education context.