A three-wave study of job resources, self-efficacy, and work engagement among Italian schoolteachers

By utilizing a three-wave longitudinal design, the present study tested the motivational process of the Job Demands-Resources model among Italian schoolteachers (N=104). Specifically, it aims to test how job resources, self-efficacy and work engagement are related over time. Results of structural equation modelling analysis showed that the model with reciprocal relationships between resources and work engagement exhibited the best fit with the data. Job resources and self-efficacy had a short- (4 months) and longer term (8 months) lagged effect on work engagement, but the reverse pattern was true as well: Work engagement had a short- and long-term lagged effect on job resources and self-efficacy. These findings suggest that is important to think in terms of reciprocity: Resourceful environments and self-efficacy beliefs mean engaged teachers, and vice versa.