1 Introduction

Teachers grappled with several work-related challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the sudden shift to online learning, increased work demands, and a lack of support from colleagues and school administrators (Baker et al., 2021; UNESCO, 2021). Amidst the array of work-related challenges, compounded by health and personal difficulties stemming from the pandemic, recent studies have revealed a notable upsurge in stress levels among teachers during such a global health crisis (Kush et al., 2022; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021). Further, studies have also shown that the increase in stress levels adversely impacted teachers’ well-being (Hascher & Waber, 2021; Herman et al., 2021; Jeon et al., 2018; Katsantonis, 2020; Kupers et al., 2022; Li & Zhang, 2019; Ramberg et al., 2020). It is, therefore, crucial to identify work-related factors that can effectively mitigate the negative impact of stress on teachers’ well-being, to enable them to cope resiliently and thrive in their work amidst the global health crises and beyond. One of the crucial work-related factors includes support from principals.

The role of school leaders, such as principals, in supporting teachers during the pandemic has gained increasing attention in the literature. Previous research has demonstrated that principal autonomy-support (PAS), defined as the perception of teachers that their principal motivates and empowers them (Collie et al., 2020; Klassen et al., 2012), is positively associated with teacher well-being (Aelterman et al., 2007; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Holliman et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015). Past findings also showed that PAS is negatively linked to work stress experienced by teachers (Nie et al., 2015) and even to teachers’ emotional exhaustion (Collie, 2021; Collie et al., 2018). The autonomy-support that principals can offer to teachers could therefore potentially mitigate how the increase in stress can influence teachers’ well-being.

Aside from these practical research gaps regarding the potential role of principal autonomy support on the stress-well-being link among teachers, empirical and theoretical gaps also exist in this line of research. While recent research has investigated how the pandemic influenced teacher well-being (e.g., Baker et al., 2021; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021), these studies have been mostly conducted in the Western context. Relatedly, there has been relatively less research attention that has been placed on developing countries where teachers are suggested to be at risk of having lower levels of well-being (see Nalipay et al., 2022; Yu et al., 2022). And although the research on teachers’ mental health during the recent pandemic has focused on mental health symptoms (Katsantonis, 2020; Martínez-Monteagudo et al., 2019; Santamaría et al., 2021; Silva et al., 2021) and specific types of well-being such as psychological well-being (Randall et al., 2021) and subjective teacher well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2021), none so far has examined teachers’ positive well-being, which integrates three interrelated yet distinct dimensions of well-being (e.g., emotional, social, and psychological well-being; Keyes, 2002). Finally, while previous studies have examined the direct effects of stress, PAS, and well-being on one another, the interaction effect of stress and PAS on well-being during the pandemic remains underexplored.

With these practical, empirical, and theoretical research gaps, the aim of this present study is to examine the moderating role of PAS on the link between stress and positive well-being among teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using hierarchical multiple regression, we examined the moderating effect of PAS using data from 1,150 K–12 teachers collected during the early months of the pandemic in 2020. To guide the framing of our research questions, we use the self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and positive well-being Keyes' (1998, 2002). In the following literature review, we provide an overview of current educational and psychological research examining the link between teachers’ stress and positive well-being. Additionally, we explore the role of autonomy-support from principals in such a link, highlighting its potential significance in supporting teacher well-being. By synthesizing existing literature, we highlight the key research gaps that inform this study’s research hypotheses.

1.1 The link between teacher stress and positive well-being

The relationship between stress and well-being among teachers has recently garnered growing research attention. Broadly, stress refers to a state of persistent tension and irritability, when a person can have difficulty relaxing, feels nervous, and feels easily upset (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). For teachers, stress refers to the negative emotional experience that is triggered by their perception of an external context as a threat to their self-esteem or well-being (Herman et al., 2021; Kyriacou, 2001). Aside from having adverse health consequences, stress is also known to negatively affect work performance across a variety of jobs (An et al., 2020; Deng et al., 2019; Nisar & Rasheed, 2020). When stress levels are high, not only do the workers’ job performance suffers but also their well-being (Hirschle & Gondim, 2020; Li et al., 2021). The negative effects of stress do not exempt teachers. Evidence shows that the sudden shift to online learning and increased workload during the pandemic has led to increased stress and other mental health symptoms for teachers (Baker et al., 2021; Kush et al., 2022; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021). The empirical and theoretical link between stress and well-being at work has been well-documented for over a century (see Bliese et al., 2017), with more recent findings demonstrating the same phenomenon among school teachers (Kupers et al., 2022; Lau et al., 2022; Padmanabhanunni et al., 2023).

Teacher well-being, on the other hand, also became a hot topic recently as it not only improves teachers’ life satisfaction and job commitment (Randall et al., 2021; McInerney et al., 2014), but it also has downstream effects on their teaching quality (Baker et al., 2021; Hascher & Waber, 2021), leading to improved student learning outcomes (Turner et al., 2021). Well-being has been characterized by subjective life satisfaction and positive and negative affect (Diener, 1984; Pavot & Diener, 2013), which consequently covered other dimensions such as self-acceptance, environmental mastery, and positive relations (Ryff, 1989). More recently, Keyes (2002) integrated emotional, social, and psychological well-being into the concept of positive well-being. Emotional well-being refers to positive feelings and life satisfaction, social well-being refers to positive functioning in a community (e.g., social coherence, social acceptance, and social contribution; Keyes, 1998, 2002), and, similar to Ryff's (1989) work, psychological well-being is characterized by subjective evaluation of one’s own optimal functioning (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Previous studies highlighted that higher stress among teachers is linked with lower well-being (Holmes, 2005; Jeon et al., 2018; Ramberg et al., 2020; Romano & Wahlstrom, 2000). However, the dimensionality of well-being explored in previous research has been limited to psychological well-being (Jeon et al., 2018) and work-related well-being (Katsantonis, 2020; Li & Zhang, 2019). In this study, we used Keyes' (1998, 2002) triarchic conceptualization of well-being.

Research on teacher well-being has demonstrated the deleterious effect of stress on teachers’ well-being. For example, one study examined different potential predictors of psychological well-being of preschool teachers in the United States (U.S.) and found that higher stress within their work environment is associated with lower psychological well-being (Jeon et al., 2018). Another study investigated the link between work stress and the work-related well-being of kindergarten teachers in China and reported higher stress levels are associated with lower work-related well-being (Li & Zhang, 2019). A larger cross-cultural study on a population of primary school teachers from across fifteen countries found that higher workload stress is associated with lower workplace well-being (Katsantonis, 2020). These studies show that even before the pandemic, the link between stress and well-being among teachers has been empirically supported.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, studies have reported an increase in teachers’ stress (Kotowski et al., 2022; Pöysä et al., 2021) specifically, during the first few months of the pandemic in 2020 (MacIntyre et al., 2020; Pöysä et al., 2021). Further, transitioning from almost no online teaching activities to fully-online delivery of instruction is seen as one of the main difficulties that teachers went through in the early months of the pandemic, aside from low work-life balance and others (Kotowski et al., 2022). Given these, findings from previous studies have highlighted that during the ongoing pandemic, teachers’ stress is also linked with lower well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2021; Lau et al., 2022; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021; Padmanabhanunni et al., 2023; Randall et al., 2021). However, similar to studies before the pandemic, current studies that examined stress and teacher well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2021; Katsantonis, 2020; Randall et al., 2021) did not include the three dimensions of positive well-being (i.e., emotional, social, and psychological). Further, proximal factors (e.g., principal autonomy-support) that can potentially mitigate the negative effect of stress on well-being among teachers remain underexplored.

1.2 The role of principal autonomy-support: self-determination theory

One potential factor that may influence how stress affects teachers’ well-being is the support provided by school leaders, such as principals (Hascher & Waber, 2021). According to self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2000), an individual’s well-being is contingent on an environment that is conducive to one’s basic psychological needs. In the work context, autonomy support is considered an important need-supportive context that satisfies one’s basic psychological need for autonomy (Deci et al., 1989; Slemp et al., 2018). The positive effect of autonomy-support has also been widely supported in educational contexts (Aelterman et al., 2007; Berkovich & Hassan, 2022; Chang et al., 2015; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Corbin et al., 2023; Holliman et al., 2022; Reeve et al., 2004). For example, in an experimental study, autonomy-supportive teachers were found to increase student-level classroom engagement (Reeve et al., 2004). On the other hand, autonomy-supportive superintendents were found to increase principal-level affective commitment and job satisfaction among a sample of principals (Chang et al., 2015). Lastly, at the teacher-level, principals’ autonomy-support (i.e., PAS) has been shown to influence teacher well-being (Aelterman et al., 2007; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Holliman et al., 2022), including their life satisfaction and work motivation (Ebersold et al., 2019; Maas et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015).

More specific to teacher well-being, studies before the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that PAS is positively associated with teacher well-being (Aelterman et al., 2007; Bingham, 2022; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Harkiolakis & Komodromos, 2023; Holliman et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015), while also being negatively linked to work stress (Nie et al., 2015) and emotional exhaustion experienced by teachers (Collie et al., 2018). Such findings indicate that teachers who perceive their principal as providing autonomy-supportive supervision are less likely to experience negative effects of stress on their well-being. This may be because autonomy-supportive supervision provides teachers with a sense of control and empowerment, which can enhance their resilience and ability to cope with stress (Collie et al., 2020). Autonomy-supportive supervision may also create a positive work environment that promotes well-being by fostering positive relationships and open communication between teachers and their principals (Nie et al., 2015).

During the pandemic, recent studies have reaffirmed the findings from pre-pandemic investigations, highlighting the association between higher levels of principal autonomy-support and reduced stress and burnout among teachers (Chang et al., 2022). Similarly, evidence suggests that teachers in more supportive work environments reported a greater sense of professional accomplishment and overall well-being, even in the face of a global health crisis (Kraft et al., 2021). These findings may be due to the inherent capabilities of principals to provide and offer support resources to teachers such as open communication lines, fair expectations, recognizing effort, and organizational capacity-building initiatives (Hayes et al., 2021; Kraft et al., 2021; McLeod & Dulsky, 2021; Weiner et al., 2021). These support resources are particularly crucial for teachers during times of crisis, reinforcing the potential of PAS to serve as a buffer against the adverse effects of stress on teacher well-being.

2 Research context and research gaps

To reiterate, current studies have largely focused on the relationship between stress, principal autonomy-support, and teacher well-being within a Western context, thereby leaving Eastern societies relatively underexplored. This research gap is more evident in lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) like the Philippines, where the need to comprehend teacher stress and well-being is magnified in light of the pandemic and the increased mental health burden on such populations (Alloh et al., 2018; Yatham et al., 2018). The Philippines’ status as an LMIC results in schools often being understaffed and under-resourced (World Bank, 2020), which is a pre-existing condition that further exacerbates the stressful impact of the pandemic. Emerging data substantiate this by revealing increased mental health burden during the pandemic among both the general population (Dizon et al., 2023; Mendoza & Dizon, 2022; Mendoza et al., 2022) and teachers in the Philippines (Mendoza et al., 2023; Nalipay et al., 2022; Oducado et al., 2021; Talidong & Toquero, 2020).

Moreover, while the reviewed studies conducted during the pandemic have mainly adopted a unidimensional conceptualization of teacher well-being, it has largely overlooked the broader aspects of positive well-being (i.e., emotional, social, and psychological), particularly in LMICs like the Philippines. Additionally, the studies have examined the theoretical links between stress, PAS, and well-being but have largely ignored the potential interaction between stress and PAS in influencing positive well-being during a global crisis. This research context and these research gaps inform the research questions this study aims to address.

2.1 The present study

Therefore, our study aims to address these gaps by examining the moderating role of PAS in the relationship between stress and positive well-being during the pandemic in the Philippine context, which offers a unique contribution to the understanding of teacher well-being in an Eastern context. Guided by self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), we hypothesize that stress will be associated with lower teacher psychological, emotional, and social well-being and that the autonomy-support from the principal can mitigate such stress-well-being link (see Fig. 1). Specifically, our hypotheses are as follows:

  1. 1.

    Stress will have a negative and statistically significant association with emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

  2. 2.

    Principal autonomy-support will have a positive and statistically significant correlation with emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

  3. 3.

    Principal autonomy-support will significantly buffer the potential relationship of stress to emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Specifically, PAS will moderate the relationship between stress and well-being by reducing the effect of the former on the latter.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Conceptual framework. The moderating role of principal autonomy support in the relationship between stress symptoms and well-being

Full size image

3 Methods

3.1 Participants and procedures

The participants of this study are 1,150 K-12 teachers (Mage = 36.71, SD = 10.32) from 30 primary to secondary education institutions located in a city in Central Luzon, Philippines. Most teachers were females (n = 963, 83.74%). Nearly half of the teachers were junior high school teachers (i.e., Grades 7 to 10; 46.66%), followed by primary school teachers (i.e., Grades 1 to 6; 37.93%).

The data used in this study was collected online in May 2020, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study complied with the ethics requirements from the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Guidelines (American Psychological Association, 2017). Two registered psychologists reviewed the instruments used, evaluated the clarity and readability of the Informed Consent, and ensured appropriate referral health and mental health services upon survey completion. All participants signed the informed consent containing the details of their participation, including the nature and objectives of the study, their rights as participants, and data confidentiality. Self-report measures on demographic variables, mental health and well-being outcomes, and other relevant social factors were included in the online survey. Emergency health services were presented at the end of the survey.

3.2 Measures

Demographics. The demographic sheet inquired about information on age, sex (male, female), and marital status (single, married/cohabitating with a partner, others).

Teacher well-being. We used the Mental Health Continuum Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2002; Lamers et al., 2011). This is a 14-item measure of general well-being, with items about emotional (3 items; e.g., “satisfied with life”), social (5 items; e.g., “that you had something important to contribute to society”), and psychological well-being (6 items; e.g., “that your life has a sense of direction or meaning”). Respondents rate the items from 1 (never) to 6 (every day). In the current study, the scale’s three-factor structure had an excellent fit to the data SBχ2(74) = 416.163, CFI = 0.953, TLI = 0.942, RMSEA = 0.079, SRMR = 0.034. The reliability of the MHC-SF in this study is high (α = 0.94; see Table 1).

Table 1 Descriptive statistics, intercorrelations and scale internal consistencies of variables
Full size table

Stress symptoms. We used the 7-item Stress subscale of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) to measure stress symptoms. The intensity of stress symptoms is determined by the sum scores of responses to its 7-item subscale (e.g., “I found it hard to wind down”), with response options ranging from “0 = Did not apply to me at all” to “3 = Applied to me very much or most of the time”. In this study, the scale’s unidimensional factor structure had an excellent fit to the data SBχ2(14) = 102.889, CFI = 0.962, TLI = 0.944, RMSEA = 0.097, SRMR = 0.029 and the Cronbach’s alpha of this subscale was high (α = 0.89).

Principal autonomy support. Teachers’ perceived autonomy support from their principals was measured by adapting six items from The Work Climate Questionnaire (WCQ; Baard et al., 2004). We adapted the six items of the short form by replacing the word “my manager” with “my principal” so that the responses could reflect teachers’ perceptions about their principals’ autonomy support. A sample item is “My principal conveyed confidence in my ability to do well at my job”. Responses to the items were made on a 7-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”, with high scores indicating greater perceived autonomy support. The scale’s unidimensional factor structure had an excellent fit to the data SBχ2(9) = 68.022, CFI = 0.977, TLI = 0.962, RMSEA = 0.121, SRMR = 0.018 and its reliability in the present study was high (α = 0.95).

3.3 Data analysis

Before conducting the moderation analyses, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) using the lavaan package (Rosseel, 2012) was conducted to examine the factor structure of the instruments. All variables were included in the correlation analyses. For the main analysis, we used hierarchical multiple regression using the regress command. For each of the three outcome variables (i.e., psychological, emotional, and social well-being), we ran the following steps: First, we entered the demographic variables in the model (Model 1). In Model 2, we entered the independent variable (stress) as a predictor of well-being. Finally, Model 3 then included the interaction term between the independent variable and principal autonomy support to test for moderating effects. We computed and plotted the Johnson-Neyman technique and the analysis of the simple slope in R (R Core Team, 2016). The Johnson-Neyman technique determines the value throughout the range of the scores of the moderator at which the influence of the independent variable on the dependent variable changes from statistically significant to not (see Hayes, 2013; e.g., Mendoza & Yan, 2023).

4 Results

4.1 Correlates of well-being: stress and principal autonomy support (PAS)

The descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and scale reliabilities are shown in Table 1. First, we have looked at the correlations between stress and well-being outcomes. Results show that greater symptoms of stress were correlated with lower overall well-being (r =  -.33; p < .001). Further, stress was also negatively correlated with emotional (r =  -.29; p < .001), social (r =  -.28; p < .001), and psychological well-being (r =  -.31; p < .001). PAS is found to be positively correlated with overall well-being (r = .28; p < .001) as well as with emotional (r = 0.28; p < .001), social (r = .24; p < .001), and psychological well-being (r = .27; p < .001), respectively. Overall, greater stress symptoms were associated with lower well-being, while greater PAS was correlated with higher well-being.

4.2 Moderating effects of PAS between stress and psychological well-being

All models analyzed through multiple linear regression included age, gender, and marital status as demographic covariates. Following the hierarchical regression steps identified in the data analysis plan, results for the main effects indicate that psychological well-being is negatively predicted by stress (β =  -0.30; p < .001; see Table 2). This means that teachers who reported greater stress symptoms tend to report lower psychological well-being. Lastly, the interaction term stress × PAS (β =  -0.07; p < .01; see Table 2) was significant. The overall regression model was also significant, R2 = 0.20, F(6,1143) = 47.246, p < .001.

Table 2 Multiple linear regression testing the moderating role of PAS on the link between stress and psychological well-being
Full size table

The Johnson-Neyman plots illustrate that the effect of stress on psychological well-being remained statistically significant in the entire range of PAS scores (see Fig. 2). A test of simple slopes (Bauer & Curran, 2005; Preacher et al., 2006) shows that stress symptoms were indeed negatively associated with psychological well-being in low, estimated β =  -0.47, t(1143) =  -9.50, p < .01, moderate, estimated β =  -0.37, t(1143) =  -10.61, p < .01, and high PAS respondents, estimated β =  -0.28, t(1143) =  − 5.65, p < .01 (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Moderating role of principal autonomy support between stress symptoms and psychological well-being (in color)

Full size image
Fig. 3
figure 3

Moderating role of principal autonomy support between stress symptoms and psychological well-being (in color)

Full size image

On the other hand, although stress symptoms were also found to be significantly and negatively associated with emotional and social well-being (see Tables 3 and 4), in testing the moderating effects of PAS on such relationships, it did not significantly moderate them.

Table 3 Multiple linear regression testing the moderating role of PAS on the link between stress and emotional well-being
Full size table
Table 4 Multiple linear regression testing the moderating role of PAS on the link between stress and social well-being
Full size table

5 Discussion

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented challenges to teachers, who have had to adapt to sudden school closures and the transition to online teaching and learning. This sudden change has increased stress and other negative emotions among teachers, leading to a decline in their well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2021; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021; Randall et al., 2021). Our study aimed to examine how autonomy-supportive principal supervision moderates the relationship between stress and well-being among teachers during the pandemic. Specifically, we examined the link between stress symptoms and the three types of positive well-being (i.e., psychological, emotional, and social well-being) and whether principal autonomy support (PAS) moderated such relationships among a sample of K-12 teachers in the Philippines. The findings indicated that stress symptoms were negatively associated with psychological, emotional, and social well-being (supports H1). In addition, PAS was positively associated with the three types of well-being (supports H2). Further, PAS significantly moderated the link between stress and psychological well-being (partially supports H3) but did not moderate the association between stress and emotional and social well-being. Substantively, the findings suggested that the negative link between stress and psychological well-being is stronger for teachers with lower autonomy-support from principals. Conversely, when teachers have higher autonomy-support from principals, the relationship between stress and psychological well-being weakens.

The results corroborated previous findings, mainly from Western contexts, that stress is negatively correlated with well-being among teachers (e.g., Hascher & Waber, 2021; Jeon et al., 2018; Katsantonis, 2020; Li & Zhang, 2019; Ramberg et al., 2020). Higher stress in the workplace was associated with lower psychological well-being among preschool teachers in the U.S. (Jeon et al., 2018) and kindergarten teachers in China (Li & Zhang, 2019). The same finding was also found true across fifteen other countries through a large-scale international survey among primary school teachers (Katsantonis, 2020). More so during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, teachers’ stress has been reported to increase due to the many challenges of transitioning the mode of delivery of instruction from face-to-face classes to fully-online (Kotowski et al., 2022; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Pöysä et al., 2021). Such an increase in teachers’ stress has been linked with lower well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Herman et al., 2021; MacIntyre et al., 2020; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021; Randall et al., 2021) and even identified teachers to have worse well-being compared to other professions (Kush et al., 2022). Our findings extend the generalizability of previous research on teacher stress and positive well-being primarily rooted in Western or developed contexts to an Eastern, lower-middle-income country (LMIC).

Furthermore, our study found that principal autonomy-support moderated the link between stress and psychological well-being, such that the negative association between stress and psychological well-being was stronger for teachers with lower levels of principal autonomy-support and weaker for teachers with higher levels of principal autonomy-support. Past studies that investigated PAS and teacher well-being also found that a higher PAS among teachers was associated with greater well-being (Aelterman et al., 2007; Collie, 2021; Collie & Martin, 2017; Holliman et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015). In contrast, teachers with lower PAS tend to have higher stress and are more prone to emotional exhaustion (Collie, 2021; Collie et al., 2018; Nie et al., 2015). The findings of this study were aligned with the results of previous empirical research, highlighting how the interaction between principal autonomy-support and stress holds positive implications for teachers’ psychological well-being. To further discuss these findings theoretically, we draw from self-determination theory.

Based on self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), autonomy-support is a basic psychological need that plays a crucial role not only in motivation but also in promoting well-being. Within the educational context, principal autonomy-support has been recognized as a key factor in promoting teacher well-being (Aelterman et al., 2007; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Holliman et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015). Autonomy-supportive supervision, characterized by principals who motivate and empower teachers, has been linked to positive outcomes such as higher teacher well-being and lower work stress (Aelterman et al., 2007; Collie & Martin, 2017; Collie et al., 2020; Holliman et al., 2022; Nie et al., 2015). In the face of numerous challenges experienced by teachers during the pandemic, such as increased work-related stressors and diminished colleague support (Baker et al., 2021; Kush et al., 2022), the findings of this study highlighted the potential of principals to alleviate pandemic-related stress and improve teacher well-being through their autonomy-supportive leadership.

To foster autonomy-supportive leadership, principals can create an environment where teachers feel comfortable openly sharing their emotions about work-related stress or issues (Hayes et al., 2021; Kraft et al., 2021; Weiner et al., 2021). Principals must also continue their efforts in providing teachers with choices and options in carrying out their teaching responsibilities, allowing them the freedom to explore new pedagogies or learning strategies that they believe can enhance student academic achievement (Collie et al., 2018). Understanding and acknowledging the individual concerns of teachers also play a crucial role in reassuring them that their voices are heard (Lee et al., 2020). Moreso, principals can serve as a buffer against the detrimental effects of stress on teachers’ psychological well-being by conveying confidence in their abilities to perform their jobs effectively (Chang et al., 2022; Ebersold et al., 2019; Haw & King, 2023; Nie et al., 2015). In the context of online teaching modality, principals should consider prioritizing support for teachers who are engaged in remote/online teaching, as they may be more susceptible to distress (Kush et al., 2022).

Briefly, we also wanted to discuss our null findings. While stress was negatively related to emotional well-being, we did not find PAS significantly moderated this relationship. In addition, although stress was also negatively linked to social well-being, such a relationship was not significantly moderated by PAS. These non-significant findings suggest that, aside from PAS, there could be additional factors that play a more significant role in moderating the link between stress and emotional/social well-being among teachers. Specifically, during the height of the pandemic, stringent social distancing measures were implemented, limiting in-person social interactions among teachers. This may have created a context in which factors such as in-person social support from co-teachers become more crucial in alleviating the negative effects of stress on teachers’ emotional and social well-being (Wong & Zhang, 2014). Autonomy-supportive principals in a socially-distanced or online setting may not fully provide the level of in-person support that could effectively mitigate the impact of stress on emotional and social well-being. Although not evaluated in this study, factors such as social support from family, friends, and religious affiliations—which were limited due to the pandemic—may play a role in mitigating the effect of stress on the emotional and social well-being of teachers.

To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between stress, principal autonomy-support, and emotional and social well-being, further research is needed. Future studies could explore the role of in-person social support, as well as other contextual factors, to better understand the complex interplay between stress, principal support, and teachers’ emotional and social well-being. By considering a broader range of factors, we can enhance our understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to teachers’ well-being during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, our study substantiates the role of principal autonomy support in mitigating the negative effects of stress on teachers’ well-being, especially in psychologically challenging situations such as the pandemic. This corroborates the importance of principal autonomy support to teachers, which is valuable and especially vital in stressful situations in LMIC contexts. These findings contribute to the global literature on teacher stress and well-being, extending understanding to an Eastern, LMIC context, and underlining the relevance of strategies such as autonomy-supportive leadership. This supports the importance of empowering teachers to make decisions and support their autonomy in teaching and learning to attenuating the negative consequences of stress on their well-being amid stressful and uncertain situations.

5.1 Study limitations and future directions

The present study has limitations that should be considered when interpreting the results. First, the study used a cross-sectional research design, which does not allow for the examination of causality or temporal relationships between the variables of interest. This means that the results cannot be used to establish a clear causal link between principal autonomy-support, stress, and teacher well-being. Secondly, although self-report measures are known for their ease of administration and can aid more efficient data collection during the pandemic, the use of self-report measures to assess these variables may have introduced some bias, as participants may have been subject to response or recall errors. Future research employing longitudinal study designs would provide a clearer understanding of these relationships.

Furthermore, despite the large sample size, convenience sampling was used given the nature of the data collection (i.e., web-based survey) and the in-person data collection limitations imposed during the time the data was collected (e.g., data collected in May 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines). As the sample in this study consisted of teachers from a single country and from one of its school districts, this may limit the generalizability of the findings to other contexts, both within and between countries. Future studies should aim to include diverse and representative samples to enhance the generalizability of the results.

Related to the study’s generalizability, we also note that the mean scores of teachers’ stress were indicative of a relatively lower stress index. This could be interpreted as the sampled teachers were not experiencing stress at the time or were experiencing stressors that were not captured by the stress subscale of the DASS-21. Future research should consider using measures specifically tailored to assess teachers’ occupational well-being and stress to provide a more comprehensive understanding of their experiences. Still, we point this out to draw caution in interpreting or generalizing the results. Additionally, the study did not control for other potential confounding factors that could have affected the relationship between the variables, such as pre-pandemic teacher well-being and teaching workload. Including these variables in future studies would enable a more comprehensive analysis of the relationship between principal autonomy-support, stress, and teacher well-being. Overall, these study limitations point to important future research directions on teachers' positive well-being.

5.2 Conclusion

The findings of this study hold theoretical and practical import given that most of the ongoing research in the educational context has focused on students’ learning challenges specifically in remote learning (Dhawan, 2020; Engzell et al., 2021; Van Lancker & Parolin, 2020) and lesser research examined how the pandemic influenced teacher well-being (Baker et al., 2021; Kush et al., 2022; Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al., 2021). This study addresses this gap by highlighting the importance of principal autonomy-support in mitigating the detrimental consequences of stress on teachers’ well-being during the pandemic. This study also highlights the crucial role of principal autonomy-support in reducing the detrimental consequences of stress on teachers’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the results suggest that autonomy-supportive supervision can mitigate the negative effects of stress on teachers’ well-being. Hence, encouraging autonomy-supportive supervision emerges as a promising strategy for supporting teachers’ well-being in times of crisis that impact teaching and learning modalities. These findings have implications for policy development and the design of interventions aimed at promoting teacher well-being, not only during the pandemic but also in future challenging circumstances. By prioritizing autonomy-supportive practices, educational institutions can enhance teacher resilience and create environments that foster their overall well-being.