特殊教育法修正案於2023年6月21日經總統令發布施行，旨在落實融合教育的實踐，強調特殊教育教師與普通教育教師的教學經驗共享與合作。本研究試圖從職場正向心理資本整合模式的觀點，探討特教法修正後，國小資源班教師於特教理念化為實踐的過程中，教師心理資本與教學效能間的關聯性，並檢視情緒勞務與職場友誼在心理資本與教學效能間的中介角色，以建構一個最優化的結構模型。研究方法：採問卷調查法，自編問卷包含心理資本、情緒勞務、職場友誼與教學效能等四個量表。預試階段，以桃竹苗四縣市教師為樣本，採便利志願取樣，有效問卷為133份，進行項目分析、信度分析與探索性因素分析。正式問卷階段，以行政區域為分層依據，採方便取樣，有效問卷共367份，使用結構方程式與多重中介效果分析。研究結果發現：(1)國小資源班教師在心理資本、情緒勞務、職場友誼與教學效能的表現屬於中高水平；(2)國小資源班教師心理資本可直接正向影響教學效能；(3)國小資源班教師心理資本可透過深層表達與友誼機會性的中介作用，間接正向影響教學效能。最後，研究者針對上述結果，提出相關建議供教師個人、學校行政單位與後續研究參考。

Purpose and Hypotheses

Taiwan’s Special Education Act was amended by presidential order on June 21, 2023. The amendment promotes inclusive education, teaching experience sharing, and collaboration between special education teachers and general education teachers. Teachers are crucial to students’ learning outcomes; in other words, teaching effectiveness directly impacts student achievement. Based on the integrated model of positive psychological capital in the workplace, this study investigated the relationship between psychological capital and teaching effectiveness among elementary-school resource room teachers in implementing special education principles following the amendment to the Special Education Act. It also examined the mediating roles of emotional labor and workplace friendship, aiming to construct a structural model with the greatest explanatory power. The hypotheses of this study were as follows: (1) Psychological capital had a significant positive impact on teaching effectiveness. (2) Psychological capital exerted a significant negative influence on teaching effectiveness through the mediating effect of surface acting. (3) Psychological capital exerted a significant positive influence on teaching effectiveness through the mediating effect of deep acting. (4) Psychological capital exerted a significant negative influence on teaching effectiveness through the mediating effect of genuine expression. (5) Psychological capital exerted a significant positive influence on teaching effectiveness through the mediating effect of friendship opportunity. (6) Psychological capital exerted a significant positive influence on teaching effectiveness through the mediating effect of friendship prevalence.

Methods

This study employed a questionnaire survey with four self-developed scales for psychological capital, emotional labor, workplace friendship, and teaching effectiveness. A pilot study was conducted with elementary-school resource room teachers in four counties and cities in the Taoyuan–Hsinchu–Miaoli region. All participants were recruited through convenience sampling, and data were collected using Google Forms. After data had been collected, 17 questionnaires with patterned responses were excluded, and 133 valid questionnaires were retained. The formal survey used the 3,949 elementary-school resource room teachers reported in the 2023 Yearbook of Special Education Statistics as the population. A sampling strategy combining stratified sampling by administrative region and convenience sampling was applied. After 3 questionnaires with patterned responses had been removed, 367 valid questionnaires were retained. Reliability and Validity Analyses: An item analysis, reliability analysis, and exploratory factor analysis were subsequently conducted, resulting in four factors (self-efficacy, hope, optimism, resilience) with 21 items for psychological capital; three factors (surface acting, deep acting, and genuine expression) with 15 items for emotional labor; two factors (friendship opportunity and friendship prevalence) with 12 items for workplace friendship; and three factors (teaching preparation, teaching guidance, and classroom management) with 15 items for teaching effectiveness. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the overall model exhibited a favorable fit (χ²/df, GFI, AGFI, SRMR, RMSEA, CFI, and IFI met the recommended criteria). Composite reliability (CR) exceeded .70, average variance extracted (AVE) surpassed .50, and the confidence intervals for all dimensions did not include 1, indicating satisfactory internal consistency and construct validity of the four scales in this study. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 25.0 and SPSS AMOS 29.0. The mediating effects of emotional labor and workplace friendship on the relationship between psychological capital and teaching effectiveness were tested using the bootstrap method with 1,000 resampling.

Results

The mean scores represented moderately high levels of psychological capital, emotional labor, workplace friendship, and teaching effectiveness. Psychological capital exerted an indirect positive influence on teaching effectiveness through the partial mediating effects of deep acting and friendship opportunity. Surface acting, genuine expression, and friendship prevalence did not have significant mediating effects.

Conclusions

This study reached the following conclusions: First, surface acting and genuine expression showed no mediating effect between psychological capital and teaching effectiveness. Possible explanations include: (1) Eastern collectivist cultures prioritize group harmony and interdependence, often encouraging emotional suppression to meet social expectations, whereas Western individualist cultures emphasize personal independence and self-expression and tend to view inauthentic displays as depleting inner resources. (2) The scale, adapted from instruments developed in Western contexts, may have been influenced by the Confucian doctrine of the mean, prompting teachers to adopt more moderate and conservative response styles. This, in turn, may have affected self-ratings on items assessing heartfelt, spontaneous, and natural emotional expression, introduced response bias, and contributed to findings that differ from those reported in previous studies. Second, the friendship prevalence did not significantly mediate the relationship between psychological capital and teaching effectiveness. This suggests that elementary-school resource room teachers recognize the importance of maintaining collaborative relationships with relevant professional teams and general education teachers within the implementation of the Curriculum Guidelines for 12-Year Basic Education and the Curriculum Guidelines for Special Needs Areas for Students with Disabilities. Furthermore, the sense of responsibility and role expectations associated with Eastern culture may suppress teachers’ genuine thoughts and teaching difficulties, thereby reducing item variability. Third, resource class teachers scored lowest on the “optimism” dimension of psychological capital. It is suggested that teachers become familiar with the models and processes of professional team collaboration, identify and utilize available resources and support both within and beyond the school, proactively share special education expertise with general education teachers, and maintain effective communication with special education administrative units. These strategies may facilitate the effective implementation of special education initiatives and help teachers sustain positive and optimistic beliefs and attitudes. Fourth, resource class teachers scored lower on the “teaching guidance” dimension of teaching effectiveness, with the item “regularly assessing the appropriateness of student placements each semester” receiving the lowest score among all teaching effectiveness items. It is suggested that teachers are encouraged to enhance their self-efficacy by gaining alternative experiences through in-service training and sharing effective teaching practices with peers. Engaging in professional dialogue with colleagues may help teachers become familiar with systematic methods and procedures for regularly evaluating student placements, thereby ensuring that each student learns in the most appropriate educational environment. Accordingly, this study offers the following recommendations: This study focused on public elementary-school resource room teachers. The findings cannot be generalized to special education teachers teaching in non-resource rooms, and teachers from outlying islands were underrepresented in the sample. Future research may expand to include special education teachers in non-resource rooms and increase the representation of special education teachers in outlying island regions. In addition, given the inconsistencies between the present findings and previous literature, future studies are encouraged to use interviews or open-ended questionnaires to further explore elementary-school resource room teachers’ perceptions of emotional labor, and cultural factors should be examined to better understand underlying influences. Future studies should incorporate negative emotional expression as an additional variable to examine whether different types of emotional expression (positive vs. negative) exhibit distinct mechanisms affecting teachers’ emotional labor and teaching effectiveness. Future research should reconsider the conceptualization of teaching effectiveness based on the Implementation Principles for Resource Rooms in the National Education Stage, refine questionnaire items, and develop quantitative indicators that are more closely aligned with the special education context.