Work

The predictive association between the teaching environment and psychological wellbeing: psychological safety, university belonging, and learning engagement

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Objective To examine the predictive association between the teaching environment and psychological wellbeing in survey data and to investigate the serial indirect association under a prespecified ordering involving psychological safety, university belonging, and learning engagement. Methods A fixed random seed was used to split 815 complete survey questionnaire records into an EFA group ( n = 408) and a CFA group ( n = 407), on which principal axis factoring and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted, respectively. After the measurement structure was confirmed, recursive equations and bootstrap intervals were estimated using the full sample. Results The background distributions were similar across the two groups. The EFA retained five factors, and the five-factor CFA model showed good fit, χ 2 (485) = 529.551, CFI = 0.994, and RMSEA = 0.015. The total association between the teaching environment and psychological wellbeing was 0.435, and the full serial indirect association was 0.036. Among six competing orders estimated under identical constraints, the theoretically specified order showed the best relative fit, although its absolute fit remained inadequate. Conclusions The five variables were interrelated yet distinguishable in the survey data. The proposed ordering may serve as a theoretical model for testing in future studies using authentic samples; the cross-sectional survey findings cannot establish a causal ordering.

Source: Frontiers in Psychology

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1983869

Authors: Min Jin, Qi Wang

Institution: Shangluo University

Language: English

Topic: Educational Environments and Student Outcomes

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,801