Longitudinal trajectories of teacher emotions among teachers in role transition: the role of emotional intelligence and teacher-student relationships

To explore the longitudinal trajectories of teacher emotions across the role transition and their association with emotional intelligence and teacher-student relationships. This study investigates 238 teachers reported their teacher emotions, emotional intelligence and teacher-student relationships. Latent class growth analyses revealed three trajectories of positive emotions and two trajectories of negative emotions, highlighting the heterogeneity in teacher longitudinal emotions in the role transition period. Moreover, teachers reporting higher levels of emotional intelligence at internship were more likely belonging to high-stable trajectory of positive emotions, and teachers with high-stable trajectory of positive emotions scored higher on teacher-student relationships, whereas teachers with high-stable trajectory of negative emotions scored lower on teacher-student relationships. These findings suggested that person-centered and longitudinal designs are valuable direction for theoretical studies of teacher emotions, and practically, monitoring the trajectories of teacher emotions and providing emotional intelligence training are important for teacher development.