Editorial

Teachers and teaching constitute a large domain in educational psychology. By applying various models and theories, many studies have generated new knowledge in these areas. Examples include Rimm-Kaufman, Baroody, Larsen, Curby, and Abry (2015) on student–teacher interactions, and McCormick and O’Connor (2015) on teachers’ influences on students. Likewise, the contributors of this issue have demonstrated their enthusiasm in exploring relevant topics.

Zhang and Jing (2016) explored the predictive power of five organisational commitments for seven teaching styles and suggested some strategies to promote certain teaching styles by fostering organisational commitments. Also drawing on Chinese data, Han, Yin, and Wang (2016) highlighted how teacher engagement mediates the effect of teachers’ goal orientations for teaching on teacher commitments.

Engagement also influences teachers’ well-being. Bermejo-Toro, Prieto-Ursúa, and Hernández (2016) showed that engagement plays a modulating role between burnout and personal and job resources within a group of Spanish teachers. This finding complemented the longitudinal study of Helms-Lorenz and Maulana (2016) on beginning teachers in the Netherlands, which gave evidence to the benefit of induction programmes on their well-being. However, in-service teachers should not be the only group whose well-being concerns us. Using a sample of student teachers in Greece, Kokkinos and Stavropoulos (2016) found that all the burnout dimensions studied could be predicted by contextual but not personal variables. Educators should be able to promote student teachers’ well-being by improving the practicum conditions.

Studying another aspect of prospective teachers, Thomson (2016) used schooling metaphors to investigate the different schooling beliefs across prospective teachers in the US with different motivational profiles. The schooling metaphors can also be used as reflective tools by prospective teachers to understand their schooling beliefs.

Apart from teachers’ schooling beliefs, perceptions of other factors also affect their practices. Meng, Muñoz, and Wu (2016) surveyed Chinese high school teachers’ perceptions of teaching effectiveness, and explored the cultural influences that could explain the differences between Chinese and US education in this regard. In Bruggink, Goei, and Koot (2016), a sample of Dutch teachers’ perceptions of students’ additional support needs were found to have no statistically significant relationships with teachers’ personal and professional characteristics. Contextual factors mattered more. This is echoed by Haataja, Sainio, Turtonen, and Salmivalli (2016). In studying the low recognition rate of stable victims in schools joining the KiVa antibullying programme in Finland, the authors found that apart from students’ personal factors, contextual factors, including schools’ commitment to the programme, played a significant role.

These studies highlighted various directions to enhance professional development. With the correlations found between teachers’ maintenance behaviour, maintenance intention, and their attitude toward the relevant behaviour, Cheng (2016) showed that professional training might be improved by focusing more on teachers’ attitudes.

The above articles moved us one step forward in our study of teachers and teaching. To go even further, experimental studies using larger samples and more rigidly validated instruments help us consolidate a firm foundation of knowledge in this area. Promising directions for future studies also include cross-cultural comparisons on related topics and explorations of the teacher’s role in students’ e-learning or mobile learning.

I would like to thank all the reviewers for their high quality review and professional advice given to the authors. I am confident that the 10 papers in this issue, embodying the joint effort of the authors and the reviewers, can enrich our vision in this important domain of study. I hope you enjoy reading this collection.

Magdalena Mo Ching Mok