Teacher Well-Being—A Conceptual Systematic Review (2020–2023)

Abstract

Teacher well-being (TWB) is increasingly recognized as being influential on educational outcomes, teacher retention, and overall school performance. However, despite a growing body of empirical research, TWB remains conceptually ambiguous, with multiple, often conflicting definitions and models, which hinders the comparability of findings. The essential question (What are the conceptual models of TWB that form the basis of studies?) is answered with a Conceptual Systematic Review (CSR), analyzing 168 recent publications, to synthesize the usage and frequency of TWB-related terms. The CSR identifies three perspectives—Conditions, Components, and Outcomes—each comprising multiple categories and subcategories that often show overlaps or inconsistencies. Our review reveals that within a widely shared notion of TWB as a psychological construct with positive cognitive and affective connotations, certain sets of factors, in particular individual factors such as beliefs/evaluations and emotions/affect, are proposed as conditions in some studies and as components in other studies. These results call for clearer distinctions between TWB’s constitutive elements and its (hypothetically) determining elements. By offering a systematic framework for understanding and sorting research on TWB, the reported review provides a foundation for future studies. Ultimately, a precise conceptualization could inform future interventions and policies aiming to foster TWB.

1. Introduction

Research related to teacher well-being (TWB) has gained increased focus in recent years. This trend is evident not only in the rising number of publications on the subject but also in its growing relevance to both education and society (Dreer, 2023; Hascher & Waber, 2021; McCallum et al., 2017). Research indicates that low levels of TWB are negatively associated with teaching effectiveness, teacher and school performance, educational governance, and student outcomes such as successful learning and academic achievement (Beames et al., 2023; Duckworth et al., 2009; Hascher & Waber, 2021; McCallum et al., 2017; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Low levels of TWB are also related to elevated turnover intentions (Beames et al., 2023; Sorensen & Ladd, 2020; Travers, 2017), which could be one of the many reasons for the reports of teacher shortages that occur worldwide (Cano et al., 2017; Dreer, 2023). This underlines the crucial role of teacher well-being not only for student outcomes and school quality but also for economic and policy considerations (McCallum et al., 2017).

Despite the relevance of and accumulating research on TWB, there remains a paucity of consensus on its definition, constituent elements, and operationalization (Fox et al., 2023). Conceptualizations of TWB range from general well-being approaches that emphasize cognitive and emotional evaluations of life (Aldrup & Klusmann, 2021) to approaches that define TWB as the absence of negative aspects such as burnout and stress (Brandt & Lopes Cardozo, 2023). The literature also includes approaches that delineate TWB in terms of physiological or somatic symptoms (Blumhardt, 2020). A notable line of inquiry describes TWB in terms of occupational well-being, thereby adapting the aforementioned general aspects to the workplace (Sandilos & DiPerna, 2022). Yet another subset of approaches take into account the particular requirements of the teaching profession in their concept by relating well-being, for example, to interactions with students (Collie et al., 2015). Accordingly, scales on TWB encompass dimensions such as workload well-being, organizational well-being, and student interaction well-being (Collie et al., 2015) or even teacher self-efficacy and the teacher’s sense of connectedness (Renshaw et al., 2015). This heterogeneity of concepts is a common critique in reviews on TWB (e.g., Dreer, 2022; Hascher & Waber, 2021). Thus, TWB is identified as a tangled term. In consequence to the heterogeneity of operationalizations, the comparability of empirical findings is severely impeded (Cumming, 2017; Dreer, 2022, 2023; Hascher & Waber, 2021; McCallum et al., 2017). While critical research-focused reviews on TWB exist (e.g., Berger et al., 2022; Dreer, 2023; Hascher & Waber, 2021; McCallum et al., 2017), a review approach that thoroughly addresses theory-based concepts and connotations, as well as the dimensional structures and determinants of TWB, remains to be undertaken. This prompts the following pivotal question: What are the conceptual models of TWB that form the basis of scientific publications?

The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive classification of the predominant and less prevalent versions of the multifaceted concept of TWB, thereby paving the way to a substantiated scholarly discussion on the features of TWB that are distinctive and essential for this concept. This endeavor thus serves as a preliminary stage of future research synopses, like meta-analyses, which will inevitably be biased whenever decisions on the inclusion or exclusion of studies are not fully informed on conceptual variants of TWB. Moreover, incommensurable concepts of TWB impede the comparability of empirical findings on its effects (Hascher & Waber, 2021; Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). The results of the conceptual review reported in this paper can assist in identifying research gaps and promoting consistent conceptual designs when planning subsequent studies on TWB.

2. Methods

To answer the question on conceptual models of TWB underlying empirical studies, we conducted a Conceptual Systematic Review (CSR) according to Schreiber and Cramer (2022). Very broadly, the research question could also have been answered by a scoping review. However, while a scoping review usually asks for evidence regarding the topic of interest and relations to other variables, a CSR specifically addresses the usage of terms in available publications on a topic, which serves our goal of disentangling the conceptual models of TWB in the scientific literature (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005). A CSR aims to develop systematic frameworks for the utilization of terminology within a particular domain of research (“systematics of term use”), thereby mapping the field of inquiry. Thus, it can advance a particular concept’s understanding and representation in teacher research and training. The method uses elements and quality criteria from systematic literature reviews, such as the selection and analysis of literature, and from content analysis, namely the development of a coding framework. It can therefore be classified as a hybrid/mixed-method approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022).

Schreiber and Cramer (2022) suggest six stages for conducting a CSR. In stage 1, a tangled term must be discerned in order to decide whether this reviewing method is applicable. In stage 2, initial heuristics regarding the term under study are identified, followed by an analytical classification of these heuristics in stage 3. Stage 4 consists of the development of the text corpus under study, which is then coded in stage 5, and the initial framework of stage 3 is inductively expanded. The last stage presents the results, namely the qualitative systematics of term use as well as the quantitative instances of term use.

• Stage 1: Identifying Well-Being as a Tangled Term

The first step is to decide whether a CSR is applicable. A CSR is appropriate if there has been little or no empirically based systematic interest in the term. Another reason would be the exclusion of a systematic review due to difficulties in properly defining the search terms or the scope of the relevant literature. A tangled term is characterized by an inconsistent use of the term in specific fields, backgrounds, or throughout the literature, leading to ambiguity and misunderstanding. Tangled terms are often referred to as umbrella terms, which are the specific focus of the CSR method (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). Umbrella terms have multiple connotations that often lead to confusion and, in an empirical context, impair the comparability of findings (Walker & Avant, 2019).

• Stage 2: The identification of Heuristics

The aim of this stage is to make a first attempt to disentangle the term TWB by identifying existing theories and different strands among conceptual understandings. In the CSR method, these are referred to as heuristics; in other contexts, they are also known as conceptualizations or taxonomies (Krippendorff, 2019). Heuristics are usually neither empirically grounded nor do they serve analytical quality criteria. The identified heuristics are “explicit and/or implicit attempts at mapping the term in question” (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022, pp. 5–6).

• Stage 3: The Classification of Heuristics

The identified heuristics in stage 2 form the deductive basis for a preliminary version of a coding framework, which is now elaborated in the third stage. To this end, the identified heuristics are classified according to the perspectives on which they focus. The perspectives in turn contain different categories that reflect the respective focus (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). Classifications differ from heuristics by the application of analytical quality criteria in order to ensure distinctiveness in a coding framework and a reliable coding process later on (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022; White & Marsh, 2006). The quality criteria for the classification of heuristics are therefore definiteness, selectivity, and independence (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). This means that the perspectives and their categories have to be clearly defined and distinct from each other in order to ensure reliable and objective coding (Kolbe & Burnett, 1991). In addition, the categories have to be independent, which means that a coding unit can be assigned to exactly one category. Categories can have subset relations with other categories, so-called dependent subcategories, but only if they do not depend on each other (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022).

• Stage 4: Corpus Development

After the deductive development of a coding framework, the corpus to be coded needs to be generated by searching databases for relevant scientific publications. In the case of a tangled term, the term itself is the best parameter for finding relevant scientific publications due to its polysemous use. In order to untangle the term in the most comprehensive sense, it is suggested to include all publications, such as journal articles, dissertations, and scientific publications in the gray literature, and not to limit it based on scientific quality criteria such as peer-reviewed publications. This ensures that the publications that are most likely to have originally contributed to the confusion of the term are also taken into account (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022).

• Stage 5: Empirical Systematization of Classifications

This stage involves an inductive extension of the framework that was deductively developed in stage 3, taking into account the definitions and term usage of the final corpus. This step provides additional quality criteria. Generality is ensured by assigning each coding unit to exactly one category in one perspective, which also ensures the exhaustiveness of the framework. To facilitate the assignment of coding units, coding guidelines have to include the names and definitions of the perspectives and categories as well as typical examples and, if possible, further operationalizations or notes. This ensures the quality criterion of operationalizability. The reliability of a CSR contains two aspects. On the one hand, reliability can be ensured when the final corpus is coded by two or more coders (Krippendorff, 2019). On the other hand, reliability can be obtained by reflexive dialogs between the coders to ensure high intercoder agreement (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022).

3. Heuristics of Teacher Well-Being

As outlined in the introduction, the characteristics of a tangled term apply to TWB. Therefore, a CSR can be conducted.

General heuristics differentiate well-being in terms of philosophical concepts such as hedonism and eudaimonia (Thönes, 2024). Hedonistic approaches define TWB as a state in which positive affects outweigh negative ones (e.g., Kouhsari et al., 2023). Eudaimonic approaches, on the other hand, define well-being as a process of fulfilling one’s own potential (Kaynak, 2020). For a compilation of general well-being theories and general heuristics, we refer to Thönes (2024). As the term of interest is teacher well-being in the sense of well-being within the teaching profession, general well-being theories and general heuristics in the sense of non-domain-specific concepts are not incorporated in the process of identifying TWB heuristics. Nevertheless, the classification of hedonistic and eudaimonic approaches also applies to TWB heuristics and helps enhance their comprehensibility.

Several domain-specific heuristics have been proposed around the notion of TWB, still varying in their breadth and depth. A review of teacher well-being was presented by McCallum et al. (2017). Referring again to a broad concept, namely to the World Health Organization’s definition of health, the authors describe two dimensions of well-being among teaching professionals: objective and subjective well-being. The objective dimension encompasses external factors and conditions, including the economic and political environment, as well as health and education. In contrast, the subjective dimension of well-being is intrinsic to the individual and includes “factors such as happiness, emotion, engagement, purpose, life satisfaction, social relationships, competence and accomplishment” (McCallum et al., 2017, p. 6). Another important aspect seems to be the cultural environment. For example, the East Asian view of well-being focuses on social harmony, whereas the European and American view emphasizes the individual’s fulfillment. The authors therefore conclude that “well-being is diverse and fluid respecting individual, family and community beliefs, values, experiences, culture, opportunities and contexts across time and change. It is something we all aim for, underpinned by positive notions, yet is unique to each of us and provides us with a sense of who we are which needs to be respected” (McCallum & Price, 2015, p. 16; as cited in McCallum et al., 2017).

Another heuristic is the OECD framework on teachers’ well-being by Viac and Fraser (2020). They distinguish three perspectives on TWB: working conditions, components, and outcomes. Working conditions consider the policy settings of education systems, also called the working conditions at the system level, as well as the quality of the working environment at the school level based on the Job Demands–Resources Model (JD-R; Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The conditions are considered to influence each component of TWB. Teacher well-being itself consists of different components, which are synonymously called different “aspects” of well-being: cognitive, subjective, social, and physical and mental. Cognitive well-being is defined as teachers’ professional skills and abilities, such as the capacity to concentrate at work (van Horn et al., 2004). The subjective dimension corresponds to Diener’s (2006) subjective well-being (SWB), which consists of life evaluation, positive and negative affect, and eudemonia or the purpose of life. Social well-being spans all relational factors that determine the quality of social interactions. Physical and mental well-being refers to the psychosomatic symptoms of stress, differentiated by bodily systems. In the perspective of outcomes, the OECD framework distinguishes between inward outcomes, which are the consequences of TWB for the teacher themself such as levels of stress and burnout or turnover intentions, and outward outcomes, which are the consequences of TWB on classroom processes or student well-being (Viac & Fraser, 2020).

In their systematic literature review on TWB, Hascher and Waber (2021) differentiate between different research fields that address TWB as a multidimensional construct. They distinguish between the research fields of the Psychology of Well-Being, Positive Psychology, the Psychology of Work and Organization, the specific occupational view on Teacher Wellbeing, Health Science, and Others like individual psychology, sociology, or interdisciplinary research approaches. In this approach, the Psychology of Well-Being refers to subjective well-being (SWB), which is declared “as a multidimensional construct that consists of positive and negative dimensions and emotional and cognitive factors” (Hascher & Waber, 2021, p. 6). Positive Psychology states well-being to be its main subject, focusing on the flourishing of individuals and society. The central model regarding well-being is PERMA, which is an acronym for five elements that enhance well-being: Positive emotion, Engagement, positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (Seligman, 2011). In the context of Psychology of Work and Organization, well-being is derived from concepts of the Psychology of Well-Being, which are specified in professional contexts. The Job Demands–Resources Model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) is one of the bases of well-being in this research field. Teacher well-being is the specification of the Psychology of Work and Organization and explicitly addresses TWB. Health science is based on the WHO’s definition of well-being, closely associating well-being with mental health (Hascher & Waber, 2021). Besides these short characteristics, there is no further information on specific operationalizations or definitions of TWB in different research fields. Furthermore, Hascher and Waber (2021) investigated the correlates and predictors of TWB. In this course, they present TWB as a result of the interaction between the individual and the environment. This leads to two factors influencing TWB—subjective and objective factors—which are further divided into the following subgroups: general individual, work-related individual, and work-related contextual. Furthermore, Hascher and Waber (2021) criticize the lack of differentiation between the predictors, indicators, and outcomes of TWB, which is fundamental for a job-related multidimensional conceptualization of TWB.

There are also some less elaborate heuristics. For example, Dreer (2022) states that TWB can be operationalized as one-dimensional, e.g., job satisfaction, or multi-dimensional. The one-dimensional approach is considered inappropriate because, as the other heuristics have shown, TWB appears to be a very complex construct. Multi-dimensional approaches are differentiated by research fields, as shown before, or by different underlying theories, such as the Job Demands–Resources Model (JD-R) by Bakker and Demerouti (2007), the PERMA framework (Seligman, 2011), or socio-ecological frameworks like Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework (Berger et al., 2022). Regarding the multi-dimensional approach to TWB, Aldrup and Klusmann (2021) state that TWB consists of affective and cognitive dimensions with positive and negative aspects, respectively. Besides some exemplary indicators for the positive (e.g., enthusiasm) and negative affective dimensions (e.g., emotional exhaustion), these dimensions are not further set out.

4. Deductive Framework of Teacher Well-Being

As stated above, this review considers only heuristics specific to teacher well-being. In order to develop a first attempt for a coding framework of TWB, the above-mentioned heuristics of TWB are classified into distinctive perspectives and categories.

The deductive framework underlying this CSR consists of three perspectives: conditions, components, and outcomes (see

Table 1. Deductive framework of teacher well-being.

Perspective	Definition of Perspective	Category	Definition of Category
Conditions	Conditions represent the circumstances under which teachers are most likely to develop well-being, encompassing all factors that are hypothesized to influence or be related to TWB.	Contextual Factors	Contextual factors include all the circumstances that make up the environment in which a teacher works. Therefore, they influence teachers’ well-being but are mainly beyond the teacher’s control. Regarding Bronfenbrenner’s’ socio-ecological framework, contextual factors can be located in the exo-, macro-, and chronosystems of teacher well-being (Berger et al., 2022; Hartcher et al., 2023).
		Relational Factors	Relational factors involve all circumstances that arise in the interaction and relationships with other individuals (microsystem) or groups of individuals (mesosystem) (Berger et al., 2022; Hartcher et al., 2023).
		Individual Factors	Individual factors include the elements influencing teachers’ well-being that are located within a teacher and are thus under their control, at least to some extent (Berger et al., 2022; Hartcher et al., 2023).
Components	Components encompass all constructs that serve as descriptive labels of well-being as a salient feature in the experience and behavior of a teacher or that are declared to be part of an internal state of well-being.	Domain-Specific Beliefs and Evaluations	Domain-specific beliefs and evaluations refer to relatively enduring examinations and overall appraisals of particular aspects (domains) of a teacher’s life, often derived from past experiences. Beliefs/evaluations include affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).
		Emotional/Affective Experiences	Emotional/affective experiences describe how a person perceives events, situations, or other people and all emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a person can express within a specific context (Reisenzein & Döring, 2009).
		(Psycho-)Physical Components	Psycho-physical components describe functional indicators in bodily systems that may be caused by psychological factors (American Psychological Association, 2018).
Outcomes	Outcomes cover allimplications of teachers’ occupational well-being on other constructs.	Inward Outcomes	Inward outcomes pertain to all implications of TWB on factors that lie within the individual teacher as a person.
		Outward Outcomes	Outward outcomes encompass all effects of TWB that pertain to the environment and systems surrounding teachers.

). This trichotomy is similar to the OECD Framework (Viac & Fraser, 2020). Although we subsume further dimensions under these perspectives, the perspectives as such are clearly distinctive from an empirical–analytical standpoint. Thus, they are also highly compatible with the critique of a lack of differentiation between predictors, indicators, and outcomes of TWB, which is essential for a job-related, multidimensional conceptualization of TWB (Hascher & Waber, 2021) The perspectives, their definitions, and their specifications are presented below.

Perspective 1: Conditions. Conditions are any factors that are hypothesized (in an analytical model) to influence or relate to TWB and thus represent the circumstances under which teachers are most likely to develop well-being. In the subsequent coding process, all statements indicating an influence or relationship to TWB are assigned to this perspective. This perspective also relates to the objective factors identified by McCallum et al. (2017) and Hascher and Waber (2021) by covering constructs that do not (yet) depict the experiential (subjective) core of “being” well. The perspective on conditions is further subdivided into the categories of contextual, relational, and individual factors with respect to Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework, which has been widely adapted to TWB and consists of six different interrelated layers: chronosystem, macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, microsystem, and the individual (Berger et al., 2022; Cumming et al., 2021; McCallum & Price, 2015). Contextual factors relate to the outermost layers of the chronosystem, the macrosystem, and the exosystem. While the chronosystem includes all changes over time and therefore all historical factors, the macrosystem “describes the [broad] political, economic, legal, and cultural influences on educator wellbeing” (Berger et al., 2022, p. 2921). The exosystem encompasses structures that shape teachers’ work environment and therefore indirectly influence their well-being (Berger et al., 2022). This subcategory can also be found in the aforementioned heuristics regarding the importance of the cultural environment (McCallum et al., 2017). The perspective of working conditions found in the OECD framework is similar to the category of contextual factors in our deductive framework. Working conditions are further differentiated into system-level conditions, analogous to the macrosystem, and school-level conditions, analogous to the exosystem (Viac & Fraser, 2020), both of which are located in the macrosystem and build two subcategories of the category of contextual factors. The microsystem of Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework, which encompasses all person-to-person relationships a teacher has, and the mesosystem, which includes all interactions between the teacher and several people, groups or certain surroundings, are represented in the subcategory of relational factors (Berger et al., 2022). In addition, relational factors are extracted from the review by Hascher and Waber (2021) as they consider these factors to be among the most important. Individual factors are extracted from the same two heuristics. In Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework adapted to TWB, the individual layer “includes an individuals’ predisposing factors that may influence wellbeing, such as life experiences and temperament” (Berger et al., 2022, p. 2921). Regarding the review by Hascher and Waber (2021), individual factors encompass the subgroups general individual and work-related individual of the objective dimension. These include demographic characteristics like age and gender as well as factors that “characterize a teacher’s individual professional trajectories” (Hascher & Waber, 2021, p. 12).

Perspective 2: Components. Components encompass all constructs that serve as descriptive labels of well-being as a salient feature in the experience and behavior of a teacher or that are declared to be part of well-being as an internal state of an individual. With this definition we broaden and specify the perspective of components compared to the definition of the OECD framework, which states that components are different “aspects” of TWB (Viac & Fraser, 2020). The components are further differentiated into three categories extracted from the reported heuristics, where the following dimensions of TWB are found: affective, cognitive, subjective, social, physical, and mental. As these dimensions are neither clearly defined nor distinct, we did not adopt these dimensions directly but rather integrated them into more distinct and clearly defined categories. For example, the affective and cognitive dimensions proposed by Aldrup and Klusmann (2021) as the first classification layer are integrated into two categories that seem better suited to sort the abundant features of TWB proposed in the literature: emotional/affective experiences and domain-specific beliefs and evaluations. Whereas the first category purely addresses affective aspects, like affective constructs, feelings, emotions, sentiments, or mood, the latter category encompasses both affective and cognitive components (Gill & Hardin, 2015; Watt & Richardson, 2015). Emotional and affective experiences describe how a person perceives an event, situation, or other people (Reisenzein & Döring, 2009). The affective aspect of beliefs and evaluations consists of the emotional or affective experience of certain situations. The cognitive aspect refers to the evaluation and analysis of these situations based on their emotional content. This distinction is in line with the Affective Events Theory (AET). The AET posits that specific work-related events can elicit emotional reactions that affect an individual’s behavior as well as attitudes and beliefs towards their job (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). More precisely in the case of this deductive framework, domain-specific beliefs and evaluations are understood as relatively persistent examinations, overall appraisals, or associations regarding different aspects of teachers’ lives. These aspects/domains specify the objects of one’s beliefs/evaluations and, thus, form further subcategories of the coding framework: self, work, life in general, and relationships (Skott, 2015). These domains are extracted from the subjective and social dimensions identified in the heuristics and are also common in research on teachers’ beliefs (Levin, 2015; McCallum et al., 2017; Viac & Fraser, 2020). Similarly to the mental and physical dimension of well-being (Viac & Fraser, 2020), the third category, the (psycho)-physical component, includes aspects in the bodily systems that may be caused by psychological factors. The proposed categories of our deductive framework are compatible with common psychological classifications (American Psychological Association, 2018; Heinecke-Müller, 2021).

Perspective 3: Outcomes. Outcomes refer to the implications of TWB on other constructs. In the subsequent coding process, all statements that imply any influences of TWB on other constructs are assigned to this perspective. The perspective of outcomes is split into inward outcomes and outward outcomes, which is analogous to the OECD framework (Viac & Fraser, 2020). Inward outcomes refer to all effects of TWB on factors that are internal to the individual teacher and that specifically affect the teacher. On the other hand, outward outcomes address all implications of TWB that concern their environment and other people. Since this perspective could not be found in any other heuristic, it is highly congruent with the outcome-perspective of the OECD framework.

The three perspectives—conditions, components and outcomes—are interrelated. Conditions influence or relate to the components of TWB and shape the circumstances under which the components are built. The components, in turn, influence the outcomes of TWB (see Figure 1).

5. Corpus Development

For the present study, we conducted a systematic database search in June 2024, searching in the EBSCO-Host, PSYNDEX, ERIC, Teacher Reference Center, Open Dissertations and peDOCs databases using the search string (teacher OR educator) AND (wellbeing OR well-being). The search was limited to the years 2020 to 2023. This short period of time was chosen because of the previous literature review by Hascher and Waber (2021), which examined the main fields of TWB research, including their definitions and operationalizations, between the years 2000 and 2019. They also very clearly emphasized the lack of theoretical foundation and explicitly called on the research community to strengthen the theoretical foundation. Furthermore, the OECD framework was published in the year 2020. This framework builds the basis for questions on TWB in the PISA 2021 teacher questionnaire (Viac & Fraser, 2020). These events could have influenced the conceptual approaches applied to TWB, which is why we chose to exclude the years before 2020. The first step in developing the literature corpus for this study was taken in June 2024, so only publications until the year 2023 are included. As shown in Figure 2, this search yielded to 1661 publications. We also performed a search using German synonyms and found 55 publications. In total, the first result was 1716 publications, of which 254 duplicates were removed, and 37 publications were excluded due to the unavailability of a full-text version, leaving a total of 1425 publications for further investigation. In the final literature corpus, only publications in the German or English language were included that specifically focused on teachers in primary or secondary education. In addition, the publications had to have TWB as a central issue. Taking these criteria into account, the final literature corpus consists of 168 publications1.

The next step to develop the corpus is a syntactic selection of all instances of term use by lexically scanning the literature corpus for the term well-being in all its notations and abbreviations (Krippendorff, 2019; Schreiber & Cramer, 2022), which was performed in summer 2024. In the literature corpus at hand, 11,219 instances of term use were found. The following semantic selections narrow down the initial syntactic selection by identifying all instances of term use that can be used to define, describe, or clarify the tangled term. These instances represent the coding units in subsequent content–analytical steps. Therefore, every instance of term use that does not specifically add value, attributes, or qualities of the term is declared as not codable and excluded from further analysis. Furthermore, every instance of term use that appears in the title, the reference list, in tables, or images is not codable since it does not clarify the tangled term (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). This semantic selection led to the exclusion of 42.26% of the found instances of term use, resulting in a final corpus of 4741 coding units. Usually about 80% of the instances of term use are not codable according to Schreiber and Cramer (2022).

In order to assign the coding units to the perspectives and categories of the framework, their respective context must be considered. These context units also become relevant in the next stage of the CSR (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). Syntactic and semantic selection as well as every further stage was conducted with assistance from MAXQDA, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software.

The final corpus of this CSR was coded by three coders—the authors of this paper and a further research assistant Multiple coding iterations were conducted, with a subsequent re-evaluation of the coding framework following each round. In reflexive dialogs, the perspectives, categories, and further dimensions were refined, with the coding guidelines being specified by adding typical examples and operationalizations. Where necessary, new sub-dimensions were defined to further elaborate the dimensions. This stage was performed in the final two quarters of 20242.

6. Results

As mentioned above, the CSR methodology uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods, resulting in two outcomes. The qualitative research method aims to disentangle the term in question, resulting in a systematization of the usage and definition of the term. The quantitative research methods are applied to show the frequency of term usage (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022).

Following this structure, the systematic use of the term is first presented by describing the deductive framework in more detail and presenting its inductive extension. Second, the frequency of term usage is given.

6.1. Qualitative Results: Systematic Use of the Term TWB

As mentioned above, the systematic use of the term TWB is distinguished into three perspectives: conditions, components and outcomes. Furthermore, the three perspectives and their categories, subcategories, and dimensions are presented in more detail. Figure 3 provides an overview of the inductively expanded perspectives and their categories. These explanations represent the framework that was inductively expanded as coding proceeded. Due to the wide range of constructs associated with TWB, it is impossible to cover them all within this paper. Instead, this text provides an overview of the first three to four coding levels with examples of constructs3.

6.1.1. The Perspective on Conditions

Conditions as factors hypothetically influencing or related to TWB are divided into the categories of contextual, relational, and individual factors, as stated above and as Hartcher et al. (2023, p. 330, with reference to further sources) put it: “Wellbeing is influenced by various individual, relational and contextual factors”. During the coding process, this initial classification revealed itself as still rather complex and led to an even more fine-grained division into categories, subcategories, dimensions, and sub-dimensions.

Table 2. The systematization of the use of the term TWB regarding the perspective of conditions.

Category	Subcategory	Definition of Subcategory	Dimension	Definition of Dimension
Contextual Factors	System-level conditions	National structures and systems in which teachers live and work and which therefore indirectly influence TWB (Viac & Fraser, 2020). These factors are located in the exo- and macrosystems (Berger et al., 2022).	Country	Factors influencing TWB due to the country they live and work in.
			Policy system	Any laws, regulations, and guidelines that shape teachers’ environment and therefore their well-being.
			(Socio-)economic conditions	All factors influencing TWB that depend on the economical and societal background.
			Educational system	The organizing principles and structures of formal education.
			Socio-cultural conditions	All factors influencing TWB that depend on the society and its culture, including expectations on and perceptions of the teaching profession in society.
	School-level conditions	All non-economic factors influencing teachers’ employment and well-being that occur in a school and may vary from school to school.	School leadership	All factors that influence TWB and originate from the school’s principal and the school management team.
			Well-being support from school	The measures a school undertake to enhance TWB.
			School quality	The assessment of how good a school is, including its resources.
			School climate and culture	The ambience as well as the shared values and beliefs of the school community.
	Job-level conditions	All non-social factors that directly affect teachers’ jobs and vary from teacher to teacher.	Training and professional development	A teachers’ education, encompassing initial teacher training as well as trainings and interventions throughout teachers’ working lives (Viac & Fraser, 2020).
			Classroom environment	All factors influencing TWB that are located in the classroom.
	Pandemic/COVID-19	All circumstances caused by a widespread disease.	School closures	The exceptional regulation that schools must be closed in order to maintain safety and withstand the further spread of a highly contagious disease.
Relational Factors	(no further distinction) 1
Individual Factors	Domain-specific beliefs and evaluations (in) 2	Relatively enduring examinations and overall appraisals of or associations with particular aspects (domains) of a teacher’s life, often derived from past experiences, that influence TWB. Beliefs/evaluations include affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).	Work-specific beliefs and evaluations (in)	Beliefs and evaluations pertaining to teachers’ work lives.
			Self-specific beliefs and evaluations (in)	Beliefs and evaluations pertaining to oneself, thus describing teachers’ self-concept and self-worth.
			Life-specific beliefs and evaluations (in)	Beliefs and evaluations pertaining to teachers’ personal lives.
	Knowledge and competencies	The scope of teachers’ understanding or information and their skill set, especially when applied to different problems and situations (American Psychological Association, 2018), that influence TWB.	Stress management skills (in)	Teachers’ understanding or information regarding stress, especially teachers’ ability to deal with stressful events.
			Pedagogical–psychological knowledge	Teachers’ understanding, information, and ability to create optimal teaching and learning situations (Voss & Kunter, 2013).
			Social–emotional competence	The ability to understand and regulate one’s emotions and to interact with others in a positive way.
	Health status (in)	The condition of one’s mind, body, and spirit, the idea being freedom from illness, injury, pain, and distress (American Psychological Association, 2018) which influences TWB.	Burnout (in)	A state of physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion caused by prolonged overload (American Psychological Association, 2018).
			Stress (in)	The physiological or psychological response to internal or external stressors (American Psychological Association, 2018).
			Mental health	A state of mind characterized by emotional well-being, good behavioral adjustment, relative freedom from anxiety and disabling symptoms, and a capacity to establish constructive relationships and cope with the ordinary demands and stresses of life (American Psychological Association, 2018).
	Emotional/affective experience (in)	The subjective perceptions of events, situations, or other people and all emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a person can express within a specific context, which, as a condition, influence TWB. This involves emotion states as well as affective traits (Reisenzein & Döring, 2009).	Positive emotions/affect (in)	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that are pleasant and desired that influence TWB.
			Negative emotions/affect (in)	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that are unpleasant and undesired that influence TWB.
	Dispositional characteristics (in)	Teachers’ relatively consistent behavioral, cognitive, or affective patterns that are unique to each person and that influence TWB (Lopez et al., 2009; Roberts & Robins, 2000; Watson & Naragon, 2009).	Personality	The enduring configuration of characteristics and behavior that comprises an individual’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns (American Psychological Association, 2018).
			Psychological principle of bad is stronger than good	The psychological phenomenon that events perceived as bad or undesirable are more rememberable and overshadow events that are perceived as desirable or good (Forster et al., 2022).
	Demographics	Statistical characteristics of people or a group of people that influence TWB.	Socio-economic status	A person’s status in the society, including their economic situation.
	Behavior and lifestyle (in)	Objectively and introspectively observable activities and ways of life (American Psychological Association, 2018), which, as conditions, influence TWB.	Behavior at work (in)	All objectively and introspectively observable activities a teacher undertakes at work.
			Lifestyle behavior (in)	All objectively and introspectively observable activities that shape teachers’ everyday life and define their way of living.

¹ The term “no further distinction” means that there is no differentiation into finer levels, and all coding units assigned to this level can be found at the construct level ² The suffix (in) refers to the influencing character and the affiliation with the perspective of conditions. This has been added to all overlaps with other perspectives for better differentiation.

provides an overview of the first three coding levels of the perspective of “Conditions” and the respective definitions.

Contextual factors refer to all the circumstances that constitute the environment in which teachers work; they are also defined this way by Berger et al. (2022) and Hartcher et al. (2023). These factors can be found at different levels that build the subcategories: system level, school level, and job level. The system level includes all structures and systemic issues that have a direct or indirect influence on TWB. As stated by Brandt and Lopes Cardozo (2023, p. 168), “complex socio-cultural, economic, and political aspects have a bearing on teacher well-being”. Furthermore, this subcategory includes the country in which teachers work. These system-level conditions are objectively the same for all teachers in a country or school district and are beyond their individual control. The school level includes all non-economic factors that affect teachers’ employment and well-being occurring in the school. These factors may thus vary from school to school but are mostly the same for the entire staff within the respective organization. Examples of school-level conditions include the dimensions of school climate and culture, the digital and well-being support provided at the school, school quality, and school leadership. For example, school leadership includes leadership style and support, as implied in a statement by Kouhsari et al. (2023, pp. 399–400): “Although the previous studies have directly explored the effect of two kinds of school-level factors (school climate and workload) on teachers’ professional well-being, we know less about the impact of school leadership styles on teachers’ professional well-being.” During the coding process, the differentiation between system level and school level appeared to be not exhaustive because there are some contextual factors teachers have some control over, which therefore vary from teacher to teacher. Thus, the framework was inductively expanded by the subcategory of job-level conditions, which includes all non-social factors that directly affect teachers’ individual job profiles and well-being. It encompasses the subcategory of training and professional development, which can be further subdivided into the dimension of psychological interventions. This dimension encompasses the sub-dimensions socio-emotional training, mental health, and positive psychology interventions. The interventions had been attended by some but not necessarily all staff members: “One possible way of fostering teacher well-being is through effective interventions that can be applied by individuals or in the context of advanced training in groups or within whole-school approaches” (Dreer & Gouasé, 2022, p. 588). The classroom environment as a subcategory encompasses the constructs of climate, composition, and the physical learning environment. In addition, job-level conditions include job resources and demands, which are often represented by the JD-R Model, as shown, for example, in the following statement: “As per the motivational process in JD-R theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007), the job resources were expected to be strongly and positively associated with the well-being factors” (Collie, 2023, p. 715). Job control describes another job-level condition, besidesthe workload and the multiple roles teachers must fulfill. These multiple roles are characterized by their ambiguity, complexity, and responsibility. Further constructs that shape TWB on this level are the occurrence of professional evaluations and the work arrangement, meaning whether teachers can work from home or have their own office, and so on. A special subcategory of contextual factors, which came up during the coding process, was the situation of a Pandemic/COVID-19, as can be seen in Mendoza et al.’s (2023, p. 432) statement: “These findings underscore the urgent need to address the well-being of students and teachers in the Philippines, recognizing the unique challenges they faced during the pandemic.” This category refers to the exceptional situation of school closures and distance or online learning during pandemics due to security measures.

The category of relational factors encompasses all circumstances influencing TWB that arise in the interaction and relationship with other individuals or groups of individuals, referring to the micro- and mesosystems of Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological framework (Berger et al., 2022; Hartcher et al., 2023). This category appeared undifferentiated in the coding units. Consequently, this category allows no further distinction into subcategories, dimensions, or sub-dimensions although this distinction would be theoretically plausible. The relational circumstances found in the coding units are directly reflected in relationships with students; relationships with other teachers, including teacher collaboration; the relationship with the school; and in the social support that teachers receive from colleagues, families, and peers.

Individual factors include all influencing elements of TWB that are inherent in the individual educator, and, by nature, are mostly under their influence (Berger et al., 2022; Hartcher et al., 2023). The relevance of these factors as conditions appears, for example, in the following statement: “However, while systemic forces play a significant role in shaping the experience of any individual teacher, we shouldn’t ignore the impact an individual can have on shaping her or his own sense of well-being” (Hester, 2020, pp. 15–16). Individual factors that appeared in the coded studies as (pre-)conditions of TWB could be further divided into the subcategories of domain-specific beliefs and evaluations, emotional/affective experiences, knowledge and competencies, dispositional characteristics, behavior and lifestyle, health status, and demographics.

Within this broad range of individual factors, domain-specific beliefs and evaluations refer to relatively enduring examinations and overall appraisals of or associations with various aspects of teachers’ lives, often derived from past experiences (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015) with the potential of influencing teachers’ well-being. Beliefs and evaluations can relate to the domains of work, self, and life. Work-specific beliefs and evaluations are factors such as teachers’ mindset, practices, job engagement, or job satisfaction. Self-efficacy, self-care, or self-reliance are examples of self-specific beliefs and evaluations. Some authors also refer to them as teachers’ self-concept or self-perception that influence TWB. Life-specific beliefs and evaluations are represented by general life satisfaction.

The subcategory of emotional/affective experiences pertains to teachers’ inner experiences of events, situations, or other people. It also contains any emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a teacher can express within a specific context (Reisenzein & Döring, 2009). To gain even more differentiation in the framework, they are subdivided into the categories of positive emotions and affect as well as negative emotions and affect. Positive emotions and affect refer to those that are pleasant and desirable, such as hope, commitment, and enthusiasm. Negative emotions and affect address those that are unpleasant and undesirable, such as anxiety, isolation, worries and concerns, or uncertainty. It should be stressed once more that such emotional/affective experiences (just like all other coded individual factors within the conditions perspective) are proposed in the coded studies as influencing factors of TWB, as stated by Hartcher et al. (2023, p. 346): “These results indicate that an explicit focus on positive emotions and social contact with colleagues can increase teachers’ wellbeing.” In a similar vein, Willis and Grainger (2020, p. 21) propose that perceived “isolation has the potential to impact teacher wellbeing”.

In addition, individual factors identified in the literature corpus can be classified into teachers’ knowledge and competencies that influence TWB. This subcategory refers to the scope of teachers’ understanding or information, as well as their skill set, especially when applied to different problems and situations (American Psychological Association, 2018). It encompasses teachers’ social–emotional competence, stress management skills, or pedagogical–psychological knowledge. An example of the application of this subcategory is as follows: “There is initial empirical evidence showing that aspects of social-emotional competence or theoretically overlapping constructs, such as general pedagogical-psychological knowledge, are associated with teacher well-being and the quality of teacher-student interactions” (Aldrup et al., 2020, p. 4, with reference to further sources). Another exemplary statement is “Teachers’ social and emotional competency underpins effective engagement in schools and enhances wellbeing” (Hartcher et al., 2023, p. 345, with reference to further sources).

A further individual condition of TWB is assumed to lie in the behavior and lifestyle of teachers, i.e., their objectively and introspectively observable activities (American Psychological Association, 2018). The dimension of lifestyle behaviors includes physical health behaviors, such as regular exercises or sleeping routines, work–life balance, and mental health activities. “Positive lifestyle behaviours are important to manage stress, reduce absenteeism, improve productivity and maintain a sense of well-being” (Corbett et al., 2022, p. 197). The dimension of behaviors at work that may be related to TWB encompass the use of positive psychology strategies and job crafting, which aims to increase job motivation by actively shaping and redefining demands and resources (Ciuhan et al., 2022). Consequently, some authors emphasize “the relationship between increasing job demands behaviour and teachers’ subjective well-being” (Amirian et al., 2023, p. 243).

Another subcategory of individual factors is teachers’ health status, namely teachers’ stress, burnout, and mental health, which can be seen, for example, in Lee et al. (2023, p. 54): “The burnout resulting from the challenges that teachers face can have a detrimental effect on teacher well-being”. Teachers’ dispositional characteristics as relatively consistent behavioral, cognitive, or affective patterns that are unique to each person (Lopez et al., 2009; Roberts & Robins, 2000; Watson & Naragon, 2009) are proposed as another subcategory of individual factors influencing TWB or being closely associated with it. Psychological constructs such as resilience, growth mindset, personality, and personal resources fall into this subcategory. Finally, demographics appear as yet another investigated subcategory. Typical examples from studies are age, gender, marital status, children, socio-economic status, teachers’ work experience, their own educational status, and the educational level at which they teach. The following quote attests to this subcategory: “Generally, the factors influencing TWB can be divided into […] demographic characteristics, salaries and benefits, and organisational environment” (Liang et al., 2022, p. 358, with reference to further sources).

6.1.2. The Perspective on Components

As mentioned in step 3, the perspective of components concerns all constructs that are understood or referred to as well-being as a salient experiential quality or that are declared to be part of well-being. Regarding the deductive framework, it comprises the three main categories of domain-specific beliefs and evaluations, emotional/affective experiences, and (psycho-)physical components, which will now be further elaborated on regarding their inductively expanded subcategories, constructs, and examples (see

Table 3. The systematization of the use of the term TWB regarding the perspective of components.

Category	Subcategory	Definition of Subcategory
Emotional/affective experiences (com) 1	Absence of negative affect (com)	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that are unpleasant and undesired and not specific to a certain environment or situation.
	Presence of positive affect (com)	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that are pleasant and desired and not specific to a certain environment or situation.
	Emotional/affective experiences in job	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a person can express with reference to their job.
	Emotional/affective experiences in relationships	All emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a person can express to describe their connection to or interaction with other people.
Domain-specific beliefs and evaluations (com)	Life-specific beliefs and evaluations (com)	Relatively enduring examinations and overall appraisals of or associations with teachers’ lives, often derived from past experiences, thereby including affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).
	Work-specific beliefs and evaluations (com)	Relatively enduringl examinations and overall appraisals of or associations with teachers’ work, often derived from past experiences, thereby including affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).
	Relation-specific beliefs and evaluations	Relatively enduring examinations and overall appraisals of or associations with teachers’ relationships, their quality, and depth, thereby including affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).
	Self-specific beliefs and evaluations (com)	Relatively enduring and examinations and overall appraisals of or associations of oneself, describing teachers’ self-concept and self-perception, thereby including affective as well as cognitive components (Levin, 2015; Skott, 2015).
Absence of ill-being	Low(er) levels of distress (com)	TWB is described through the absence of or fewer experiences of imbalances between demands and resources and better coping with stressors (Viac & Fraser, 2020).
	Low(er) levels of burnout (com)	TWB is described through the absence of or fewer experiences of exhaustion due to less overexertion.
(Psycho-)physical component	(No further distinction)
Dispositional characteristics (com)
Behavioral component (com)	Lifestyle behavior (com)	All objectively and introspectively observable activities that shape teachers’ everyday lives, define their ways of living, and express TWB.
Under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories	Cognitive component	The statement that TWB has a cognitive component or dimension.
	Positive psychology	A specific field of psychology that examines the positive development of people (Hascher & Waber, 2021) but is used as a synonym for TWB.
	Work-related/occupational well-being	Well-being that is related to work life (Green, 2021) but not specified further.
Multidimensionality		(no further distinction)

¹ The suffix (com) refers to the affiliation with the perspective of components. This has been added to all overlaps with other perspectives for better differentiation.

for an overview of the subcategories).

Domain-specific beliefs and evaluations refer to teachers’ assessments of certain aspects (domains) of their lives. Consequently, the appraisal of their lives per se makes up the broadest subcategory, meaning that psychological constructs such as their life satisfaction, perceived quality of life, or subjective or psychological well-being are represented in the subcategory of life-specific beliefs and evaluations. This focus is addressed, for instance, when well-being is defined “as an individual’s multi-layered and subjective evaluation of their life that results in a positive judgment” (Hascher et al., 2021, p. 418). Teachers’ general evaluations of their work lives also fall into this subcategory. These are found, for instance, in the study by Dilekçi and Limon (2020, p. 760, with reference to further sources) with respect to the studied variable “teachers’ subjective well-being”, which they describe as “teachers’ own evaluation of their lives in educational organizations”. Work-specific beliefs and evaluations encompass, for example, job satisfaction, job enthusiasm, job engagement, environmental mastery, teaching efficacy, and teacher grit. Self-specific beliefs and evaluations refer to teachers’ self-concept and how they view themselves, or in other words, “psychological well-being is defined as an individual’s positive self-perception, self-satisfaction, the ability to act autonomously and freely, and the ability to make this life worthwhile” (Gündüz, 2022, p. 1311, with reference to further sources). Apparently, this subcategory includes psychological constructs such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-actualization, and self-awareness. Yet another domain of teachers’ beliefs and evaluations is brought up in the second half of the following quote: “Even though well-being has been understood to be a personal trait that is partly biologically determined, there is now a consensus in the literature that the construct is also relational and collective” (Barrenechea, 2022, p. 368, with reference to further sources). The referenced aspect of life that contributes to TWB is teachers’ overall appraisal and examinations of their relationships, which encompasses social problems in the sense of negative relations but also the perceived interpersonal support within the school and positive connections with others, such as students, teachers, parents, or family. Nalipay et al. (2022, p. 27, with reference to further sources) put it this way: “The positive relationships dimension of well-being can likewise be understood from the perspective of implicit beliefs, through individuals’ assumptions regarding the extent to which their relationships are fixed or malleable, and the degree to which the people they interact with are amenable to change.”

The category of emotional/affective experiences encompasses any emotions, feelings, sentiments, or moods that a person may perceive in their life or towards a certain aspect of their life and that are portrayed as an experiential core of “being” or “feeling” well in the reviewed studies. This category could again be deductively derived from the found heuristics in step 2 but is also clearly represented in the literature corpus: “well-being is composed of a cognitive component (job satisfaction) and an affective component (positive and negative affect)” (Dreer, 2022, p. 2). Following on from this and similar definitions, this category now spans at least two subcategories, namely the absence of negative affect and the presence of positive affect. In the case of TWB, other authors draw distinctions between feelings towards the job and towards relationships. The subcategory of presence of positive affect encompasses all desirable emotions, sentiments, and moods such as happiness, feeling good, or enjoying life. In contrast to this, the absence of negative affect, or in other words, all unpleasant sentiments, moods, or emotions, includes feelings of anxiety or isolation. Examples of emotional/affective experiences in the job include positive aspects, such as the feeling of school connectedness, the perceived work climate, including the feeling of safety and security at school, and enjoyment in the job, and negative aspects such as worries and concerns regarding the job. Emotional/affective experiences in relationships encompass, for example, the feeling of relatedness, connection, mattering, or forgiveness. However, the category of emotional/affective experiences as a component also includes more general emotional or affective concepts such as eudemonic well-being. Grounded in philosophical Aristotelian theories, this concept describes a feature of happiness that results from the fulfillment of ones’ values and meaningful actions (Kaynak, 2020). Hedonic well-being covers yet another aspect of happiness that is achieved by minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure (Kaynak, 2020). In addition, the category of emotional/affective experiences contains psychological constructs that are part of Ryff and Keyes’ (1995) six-factor model of psychological well-being, among them a sense of meaning and purpose, functioning at an optimal level and fulfillment.

The categories mentioned so far refer mainly to psychological components of TWB, but some studies in the literature corpus stress that the “individual educators’ psychosocial, physical, and mental wellbeing” (Berger et al., 2022, p. 2920) count among its many components. Therefore, the (psycho)-physical component includes symptomatic aspects in bodily systems that may or may not be caused by a psychological factor (American Psychological Association, 2018). Examples of this category that emerged during coding were mostly broad symptom areas such as physical health, physical fatigue, and physical complaints and less often specific indicators such as cortisol level.

During the coding process, the perspective of components was even further inductively expanded by the categories of dispositional characteristics, behavioral component, absence of ill-being, and under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories.

The first category, dispositional characteristics, refers to all the enduring tendencies, features, and qualities that are specific to an individual and help to distinguish one person from another (Roberts & Robins, 2000; Watson & Naragon, 2009). The TWB literature addresses this category in terms of resilience, emotional intelligence, personal and psychological resources, awareness, mindfulness, or optimism, which are often proposed as a constitutive part (i.e., component) of TWB. For example, this category is represented in the following statement: “The Healthy Minds Program (HMP) smartphone-based meditation intervention was constructed around the awareness, connection, insight, and purpose (ACIP) model of well-being” (Hirshberg et al., 2022, p. 1899, with reference to further sources). While the proposed dispositional features of teachers who “are well” predominantly focus on their inner bearings and constitution, the behavioral component includes all observable activities of teachers that express high well-being outwardly. This category is again subdivided into the areas of life in which such behaviors occur. Behavior on the job includes actions such as job performance or job crafting, which are all actions taken to adapt work demands and resources to one’s individual needs (Lee et al., 2023). Lifestyle behavior refers to actions such as regular physical exercise, engaging in hobbies or having a specific health routine. For example, Diaz Lema et al. (2023) consider these factors to measure teachers’ individual well-being in their study using the REDS (Responses to Educational Disruption Survey) questionnaire. In addition, the behavioral component encompasses altruistic actions and active self-regulation. The inductive inclusion of the category of absence of ill-being became necessary given widespread empirical measures of well-being. The following quote sums up this observation: “Moreover, even though well-being, according to current theoretical approaches, goes beyond the absence of “ill-being” (e.g., stress and burnout, depressive symptoms such as loss of interests, low mood, and anxiety), studies on well-being still often focus on negative aspects, and especially on stress and burnout as (negative) well-being indicators” (Bardach & Klassen, 2021, p. 262). By referring mainly to the absence of psychological illness, this category includes low levels of distress, depressive symptoms, and burnout. The latter is commonly assessed by the three constructs of the Maslach Burnout Inventory: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Aldrup et al., 2020). Another category that was added during the coding process was labeled under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories. It covers all terms that are used to roughly delineate TWB or its constitutive elements but are not explored in depth. It also covers definitions of well-being through other constructs with sometimes established meanings but without drawing a conceptual distinction. Examples of these generic terms are positive psychology and education. Examples of underdefined components or subcategories of TWB can be found in studies that briefly mention (but not elucidate) terms such as “mental health” or “mental component”, “positive and negative dimensions” per se, or “the cognitive component” of TWB. Some studies tend to use an eclectic approach by proposing, for instance, that “teacher well-being refers to the physical, emotional, social, psychological, spiritual, and cognitive health in instructional roles” (Eloff & Dittrich, 2021, p. 464, with reference to further sources). Thus, they include a larger variety of types of “health” or “flourishing”, which may include social, spiritual, or even financial types. In addition, the category of multidimensionality was added to code any definitions or descriptions that simply refer to TWB as being “multidimensional” in nature without specifying the characteristic dimensions. A typical coding unit under this category is the following statement: “Teachers’ well-being is a multidimensional concept that can be addressed through several constructs that constitute different resource gains or resource losses” (Jõgi et al., 2023, p. 371, with reference to further sources).

6.1.3. The Perspective on Outcomes

The last perspective in the systematics of term use is the one concerned with the outcomes of TWB, namely all effects of TWB on other constructs. As seen in the deductive framework, this perspective consists of the categories of inward and outward outcomes.

Table 4. The systematization of the use of the term TWB regarding the perspective of outcomes.

Category	Subcategory	Definition of Subcategory
Inward outcomes	Self-related inward outcomes	All implications of TWB on the factors that lie within the individual teachers themselves.
	Job-related inward outcomes	All implications of TWB on the factors that relate to teachers’ beliefs and evaluations regarding their work lives.
	Level of stress and burnout (out)	The experience of imbalances between demands and resources as a consequence of the level of TWB (Viac & Fraser, 2020).
Outward outcomes	School/classroom-related outcomes	The effects of TWB that influence the learning environment, classroom processes, and its quality (Viac & Fraser, 2020).
	Relational outcomes	All effects of TWB that pertain to teachers’ interactions with other people or groups.
	Student-related outcomes	All effects of TWB that influence students.

Note: The suffix (out) refers to the affiliation with the perspective of outcomes. This has been added to all overlaps with other perspectives for better differentiation.

provides an overview of its inductively expanded subcategories.

Inward outcomes refer to TWB’s hypothesized impact on any factors that lie within the individual educator and mostly relate to a specific aspect of their lives. For more differentiation, the identified constructs were classified into self-related inward outcomes, referring to implications for factors that lie within the individual teacher themself, and job-related inward outcomes, which describe implications for a teacher’s feelings, beliefs, and actions towards their work environment. Self-related inward outcomes thus contain constructs such as teachers’ health, life satisfaction, or self-worth, which are hypothesized and examined to be affected by their well-being. For example, Gregersen et al. (2023, p. 877) found “a relationship with overall wellbeing levels and health factors”. Job-related inward outcomes include (affected) turnover intentions, specifically the intention to leave the teaching profession or to work in another school, teachers’ job performance, job engagement, absent days, and presenteeism in the sense of attended workdays although being sick. As Froehlich et al. (2022, p. 2, with reference to further sources) put it, “turnover intention has been found to decrease when teachers experience a higher degree of well-being. Hence, teachers’ well-being can serve as an important catalyst for commitment to the teaching profession and intentions to remain in their current job”. Further inward outcomes are the impact of TWB on individual levels of stress and burnout. These outcomes can be subdivided into coping strategies, work- or student-related burnout, and emotional exhaustion in particular, which is shown in the following example: “It seems that high teachers’ subjective well-being reduces their stress, sickness and absence, so, improves their job performance” (Amirian et al., 2023, p. 241, with reference to further sources).

Outward outcomes consider all effects of TWB on factors related to people and systems that are located around/outside individual teachers. This category spans the subcategories school/classroom-related outward outcomes, relational outward outcomes, and student-related outward outcomes. Corresponding with the assumption that “teachers’ well-being is a prerequisite for creating a positive and supportive school environment” (Bilz et al., 2022, p. 265, with reference to further sources), school/classroom-related outward outcomes refer to factors that occur within the school or classroom environment as a consequence of TWB. This might be the quality of teaching or of the school, the classroom’s social climate, and the school climate. Relational outward outcomes encompass all factors that are assumed to be influenced by TWB and occur in relation to and in the interaction with other individuals or groups of individuals. Thus, examples of this subcategory are the teacher–student relationship or social effort, as stated in the following quote: “teachers with sufficient psychological well-being are expected to have more positive communication and interaction with their students and their environment” (Gündüz, 2022, p. 1321). The third subcategory, student-related outward outcomes, encompasses all student characteristics that are affected by TWB, such as student achievement, students’ (subjective) well-being, student health, and students’ motivation and attitude toward learning. It can be illustrated with the following statement: “Consequently, teacher well-being impacts important student outcomes, such as student well-being, academic motivation, achievement and performance” (Dreer, 2022, p. 2, with reference to further sources).

6.2. Quantitative Results: Frequency of Term Use (TWB)

This section focuses on the second objective of this CSR, which is to provide an overview of the exact number in which the different perspectives, categories, and subcategories of the term TWB occur.

In the 168 documents reviewed, there was a total of 7509 coded segments, namely sentences or paragraphs referring to TWB in some way, which were sorted into the coding framework. Most of the documents refer to the perspectives of conditions (98.21%) and components (95.24%), while just over half of the documents refer to outcomes (54.76%). Considering the coded segments instead of documents, the following distribution emerges (see Figure 4): almost half of the coded segments address the perspective of conditions (48.58%), slightly less speak of components (45.75%), and only 5.67% are concerned with the outcomes of TWB. The subsequent examination will proceed in a sequential manner, commencing with a thorough analysis of the frequency of term usage of the perspective of conditions. This is followed by an examination of the components and concludes with an analysis of the outcomes.

6.2.1. Prevalence of Terms Pertaining to Conditions

Taking into perspective the conditions, there are a total of 3633 coded segments in 165 documents. The coded segments are distributed as follows: 1882 (52%) to contextual factors, 1300 (36%) to individual factors, and 451 (12%) to relational factors (see Figure 5). Regarding the frequency of the use of these categories in the documents, most of them address contextual factors (89.7%; 148) and individual factors (87.27%; 144). In contrast, only slightly more than half of the documents address relational factors (53.94%; 89).

Regarding the category of contextual factors, almost half of the coded segments address job-level conditions (46.46%; 874), of which 42.11% (368) are statements that say that training and professional development is related to or influences TWB. Most of them refer to psychological interventions (55.98%; 206), of which mental health interventions make up 61.65%. Other frequently mentioned aspects are job resources (124) and job demands (114), mostly referring to the JD-R Model. Furthermore, workload is mentioned as a job-level condition on TWB in 11.33% (99) of the cases. The classroom environment seems to play a less important role, with 39 mentions, and the fact that the teacher’s job is characterized by multiple roles and job ambiguity is only referred to in 31 coded segments. The least amount of coded segments address job control (11), job quality (11), performance evaluation (10), and work arrangements (9).

Following job-level conditions are school-level conditions, with 28.55% (537) of the contextual factors, of which 43.58% (234) mention the aspect of school leadership. Leadership support (78; 33.33%) is the most prominent aspect of this regarding the coded segments in this dimension. Just under a quarter of the coded segments related to school-level conditions mention school climate and culture as another important factor (123; 22.91%), followed by well-being support from the school (60; 11.91%), digital support at school (18; 3.35%), school quality (12; 2.33%), and instructional program coherence (10; 1.86%).

System-level conditions make up 14.3% (269) of the coded segments related to contextual factors, with the educational system being addressed the most (50.19%; 135). Autonomy (39), person–organization fit (29), and teacher contract (26) seem to play the most important roles as influential or relational educational system factors on TWB in the reviewed literature. On the contrary, socio-cultural conditions (42; 15.61%) with the perception of teaching professions (11), policy system (38; 14.13%), and (socio-)economic conditions (24; 8.92%) are addressed considerably less. As a special subcategory with respect to the chosen eligibility criterion of the years, the pandemic/COVID-19 is addressed in 154 (8.19%) coded segments.

Taking the individual factors influencing or related to TWB into account, there are only small differences in the frequency of use of the subcategories. Domain-specific beliefs and evaluations (254; 19.52%) are the most frequently addressed factors, with work-specific beliefs and evaluations accounting for more than half of the coded segments (145; 57.09%). Of these, Job Engagement (34; 23.45%) is the most frequently mentioned, followed by teachers’ mindset (24; 16.55%), teaching values (19; 13.1%), teaching practices (15; 10.34%), and job satisfaction (13; 8.97%). Self-specific beliefs and evaluations are referred to in 41.73% (106) of the coded segments dealing with domain-specific beliefs and evaluations. Most of them refer to (teachers’) self-efficacy (65.09%; 69), while self-care (10; 9.43%), self-reliance (10; 9.43%), personal reflection (7; 6.6%), aspiration (4; 3.77%), self-awareness (3; 2.83%), self-worth (2; 1.89%), and self-acceptance (1; 0.94%) are scarcely addressed. The dimension of life-specific beliefs and evaluations is addressed as an influential or relational factor on TWB in only three coded segments (1.18%) referring to teachers’ life satisfaction.

The next subcategory, with respect to the frequency of use, is knowledge and competencies (222; 17.06%). Slightly more than half of the coded segments in this subcategory address social–emotional competence (115; 51.8%), of which 60% (69) specify emotional competences. Stress management skills are mentioned in 37.39% (83) of the statements, of which 81.93% (68) refer to coping strategies. Another type of knowledge referred to is pedagogical-psychological knowledge, which is seen as an influential or relational factor to TWB in 24 cases (10.81%), most of them related to knowledge with respect to classroom management (17; 70.83%). Digital literacy level is considered in only nine coded segments (4.05%).

Demographics as a subcategory of individual factors account for 13.91% (181) of the coded segments in this category. Of these, slightly more than one third mention work experience (64; 35.36%) and gender (57; 31.49%) as demographic factors. Furthermore, age (25; 13.81%) and marital status (15; 8.29%) are considered in a few coded segments, while children (4; 2.21%), socio-economic status (4; 2.21%), teachers’ educational status (2; 1.1%), and the educational level taught (1; 0.55%) are scarcely considered.

Following the subcategory of demographics, in terms of the frequency of use are dispositional characteristics (12.61%; 164). Almost one third of the coded segments in this category address resilience (47; 28.66%). The psychological principle of bad is stronger than good, meaning that people tend to remember good experiences better than bad ones, is mentioned in 30 cases (18.29%). Further factors in this category are growth mindset (21; 12.8%), teachers’ personality (9; 7.32%), creativity (10; 6.1%), and personal resources. The remaining dispositional characteristics, like tolerance (3; 1.83%), cognitive appraisal (2; 1.22%), mindfulness (2; 1.22%), signature character strengths (2; 1.22%), and vigor (1; 0.61%), are scarcely referred to.

The next most frequently mentioned subcategory is teachers’ behavior and lifestyle (154; 11.84%), of which slightly more than half of the coded segments point out to the influential or relational factor of teachers’ lifestyle behavior (82; 53.25%), followed by teachers’ behavior at work (52; 33.77%), their self-determination (8; 5.19%), self-regulation (6; 3.9%), and proactive behavior (1; 0.65%). Lifestyle behavior is most often addressed as physical health behavior including, for example, regular exercise (38; 46.34%). Furthermore, this includes teachers’ work–life balance (26; 31.71%), which is addressed in almost one third of the coded segments related to lifestyle behavior, and mental health activities (10; 12.1%). Lifestyle behaviors such as meditation practice (2; 2.44%), recovery (2; 2.44%), and sleep (2; 2.44%) are rarely mentioned. Job crafting is the most frequently addressed aspect of teachers’ behavior at work, followed by using positive psychology strategies (14; 29.92%), teachers’ job performance (5; 9.62%), and, with only two cases, engagement in professional learning (3.85%).

Only slightly fewer coded segments than behavior and lifestyle refer to teachers’ health status (142; 10.91%), with stress (98; 69.01%) being the most frequently addressed aspect. Burnout (29; 20.42%) accounts for one fifth of the as health status-coded segments, while mental health (5; 3.52%) is scarcely referenced.

The least mentioned subcategory is emotional/affective experiences (128; 9.84%), of which 60.16% address positive emotions/affect (77) and 23.44% address negative emotions/affect (30). Approximately one fifth of the coded segments address positive emotions/affect relate to hope (16; 20.78%), teacher/school connectedness (15; 19.48%), and commitment to the job (14; 18.18%). These are followed by the feeling of relatedness (8; 10.39%), a feeling of safety at school (7; 9.09%), job enthusiasm (2; 2.6%), and gratitude (2; 2.6%). Contentment, acceptance of the situation, serenity, and forgiveness (1.3% each) are mentioned only once. The experience of negative emotions and affect covers the feeling of anxiety in 30% (9) of the cases. In addition, the feeling of isolation is mentioned eight times (26.67%), followed by struggling (4; 13.33%), uncertainty (3; 6.67%), worries and concerns (2; 6.67%), and frustration (1; 3.33%).

The distribution of the subcategories of relational factors is as follows: Social support (149; 33.04%) is the most frequently addressed subcategory, of which collegial (28; 18.79%) and family support (22; 14.77%) seem to be the most utterly respected. Other important relational factors in terms of their coded segments are teacher–student relationships (117; 25.94%) and teacher–teacher-relationships (113; 25.06%), of which teacher collaboration is an often-mentioned aspect (70; 61.95%). Further less frequently addressed relational factors are the teacher–school relationship (16; 3.55%), social interactions per se (10; 2.22%), interpersonal conflict (4; 0.89%), social capital (3; 0.67%), and social role (2; 0.44%).

6.2.2. Prevalence of Terms Pertaining to Components

When further examining the perspective of components, it can be seen that of the 160 documents that address the components of TWB, most of them refer to TWB as domain-specific beliefs and evaluations (88.13%; 141), followed by TWB as emotional/affective experience (71.88%; 115). A total of 57.5% (92) of the documents use under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories to describe the components of TWB. Slightly less than half of the documents define TWB through the absence of ill-being (41.25%; 66), whereas 45 documents (28.13%) merely state that TWB is multidimensional. The (psycho-)physical component is addressed in 19.38% (31) of the documents, and the behavioral component is addressed in 17.5% (28) of the documents. As Figure 6 shows, the distribution slightly differs when analyzing the coded segments. TWB is mostly coded as domain-specific beliefs and evaluations with 40.64% (1396), followed by emotional/affective experiences with 21.72% (746) coded segments. Slightly fewer segments use under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories (18.69%; 642) to describe TWB, while only 7.69% (264) of segments define TWB through the absence of ill-being. So far, the distribution is the same as that for the documents. Furthermore, the dispositional characteristics as components are addressed by just 4.54% (156) of the coded segments, followed by 2.88% (99) of segments referring to the multidimensionality of TWB. Slightly fewer segments address the behavioral component (2.62% 90), while only 1.22% (42) of segments refer to (psycho-)physical components. Below, the respective subcategories are elaborated on in terms of their frequency of term usage from the most frequently referenced to the least referenced subcategories.

Almost half of the coded segments assigned to the category of domain-specific beliefs and evaluations refer to teachers’ lives in general (653; 47.01%), most of which relate to TWB as subjective well-being (SWB) (295; 45.18%) and psychological well-being (PWB) (287; 43.95%). Only 8.12% of the coded segments in this subcategory refer to life satisfaction (53). Life evaluation (11; 1.68%) and quality of life (7; 1.07%) are scarcely mentioned.

Work-specific beliefs and evaluations (501; 36.07%) are the second most referenced subcategory, which is in turn reflected in relatively many different facets. Most of the coded segments in this subcategory refer to job satisfaction (117; 23.35%) as TWB. With about 10% of the coded segments, teaching efficacy (56; 11.18%), teacher grit (54; 10.78%), professional ambition (52; 10.38%), and job engagement (50; 9.98%) are the next most frequently used facets of TWB. Other work-specific beliefs and evaluations that are addressed in around 4% of the cases are competence (21; 4.19%), workplace coping (20; 3.99%), and job motivation (18; 3.59%). In ten cases (2%), the coded segments define TWB through work-specific aspects such as environmental mastery, turnover intentions, and teacher agency, followed by work role meaning (9; 1.8%), job attitude (8; 1.6%), workplace discrimination (6; 1.2%), and balance between resources and challenges (5; 1%). Responsible decision-making, work–life balance, and perceived workload were referenced as TWB by three coded segments each (0.6%). Career choice, authenticity at work, work assimilation, the capacity to concentrate at work, self-readiness, and physical and psychosocial distance work were addressed by only one statement each (0.2%).

Self-specific beliefs and evaluations make up 9.72% (135), of the domain-specific beliefs and evaluations. Almost half of the coded segments in this subcategory refer to self-efficacy (64; 47.41%), followed by self-esteem (25; 18.52%) and, with a large gap, motivation (12; 8.89%). Less than ten statements mention self-acceptance (8; 5.93%), self-actualization (4; 2.96%), self-awareness (2; 1.48%), self-compassion (2; 1.48%), and self-satisfaction (1; 0.74%) as factors of TWB.

The least frequently used domain is relation-specific beliefs and evaluations (100; 7.2%). Positive relations with others make up 68% (68) of the coded segments in this subcategory, of which the most refer to teacher–teacher relationships (12; 17.65%), followed by the teacher–parent relationship (6; 8.82%). Family relationships were stated four times (5.88%) as part of TWB, while the teacher–student relationship and community were mentioned only once (1.47%). Further less frequently mentioned aspects of TWB in this subcategory are relational abilities (5; 5%), socializing (3; 3%), social problems (3; 3%), support within school (3; 3%), and social awareness (2; 2%).

The next frequently addressed category, with about 20% of the coded segments as components, is emotional/affective experiences, most of which refer to general emotional/affective experiences (279, 37.4%). This subcategory also includes facets of TWB such as eudemonic well-being (91; 37.4%), which is mentioned most often, followed by a sense of meaning and purpose (88; 31.54%) and hedonic well-being (67; 24.01%). In much fewer statements, TWB is referred to as functioning at an optimal level (20; 7.17%), fulfillment of one’s potential (6; 2.15%), the experience of daily hassles and uplifts (5; 1.79%), and relaxation (2; 0.72%).

The presence of positive affect and emotions makes up 21.18% (158) of emotional/affective experiences, of which 90 statements (56.96%) refer to the dimension itself and 50 statements (31.65%) refer to positive emotions in general. There are only a few positive affective and emotional experiences mentioned that are not specific to a particular situation or environment. These are happiness (11; 6.96%), followed by feeling good (4; 2.53%) and, with only one coded segment each (0.63%), enjoying life, confidence, and respect.

The absence of negative affect is stated as a dimension of TWB 77 times (10.32%), of which 51 statements (66.23%) refer to the subcategory itself, and 5 coded segments (6.49%) state negative emotions. The rest of the coded segments mostly mention anxiety (19; 24.68%) and isolation (2; 2.6%).

TWB is addressed as emotional well-being or health by 8.04% (60) of the coded segments in this subcategory without further explication. The rest of the coded segments are more specific to emotional/affective experiences in certain environments and situations such as the job, which is referenced by different affective states and emotions in 59 statements (7.91%). Most of them refer to school connectedness (36; 61.02%). Only a few statements acknowledge work climate (9; 15.25%), organizational commitment (6; 10.17%), worries in school (3; 5.08%), enjoyment in school (3; 5.08%), and flow experience (1; 1.69%). The least considered affective/emotional experiences are those that occur in relationships (42; 5.63%). Relatedness (22; 52. 38%) is mentioned by slightly more than half of the coded segments in this subcategory, followed by connection (10; 23.81%), mattering (4; 9.52%), care (3; 7.14%), forgiveness (1; 2.38%), love (1; 2.38%), and loneliness (1; 2.38%).

As mentioned above, the category that inhabits only slightly fewer coded segments are the under-/non-defined generic terms and subcategories. A total of 39.57% (182) mention work-related or occupational well-being, of which 29.12% (53) specify teacher well-being, expressed in measurements such as the Teacher Subjective Wellbeing Questionnaire (TSWQ), Teachers’ Pedagogical Wellbeing (TPWB), or the Teacher Well-Being Scale (TWBS). Approximately one quarter refers to positive psychology (164; 25.55%), including positive education (27; 16.46%). Slightly less mentioned is TWB as mental health or mental components (132; 28.7%) of TWB, whereas all other subcategories are barely present, starting with TWB having positive dimensions (27; 16.46%), a cognitive component (26; 5.65%), or a negative dimension (24; 5.22%). Social well-being (24; 5.22%) and spiritual well-being (23; 5%) are specific versions of TWB. Furthermore, TWB is described as an individual phenomenon in just 10 statements (2.17%), followed by objective factors (9; 1.6%) of TWB and health (9; 1.96%). TWB is also referred to as subjective psychological well-being (4; 0.87%) and as a psychosocial–cultural construct (3; 0.65%). Other scarcely mentioned associations are TWB as flourishing (3; 0.65%), freedom (1; 0.22%), and financial well-being (1; 0.22%).

TWB as an absence of ill-being is composed almost equally of statements about lower levels of burnout (114; 43.18%) and stress (104; 39.39%). A total of 60 coded segments (52.63%) refer to burnout, and 44.74% concern low emotional exhaustion (51; 44.74%), while depersonalization (2; 1.75%) and reduced personal accomplishment (1; 0.88%) are barely addressed. Regarding TWB as lower levels of stress, almost half the coded segments refer to the subcategory itself (50; 48.08%) and to occupational stress (49; 47.12%), while psychological stress (5; 4.81%) is mentioned in only a few coded segments. Further aspects in this category are depressive symptoms (33; 47.12%) and exhaustion (2; 0.76%).

Dispositional characteristics as aspects of TWB consist mainly of resilience (49; 29.49%) and emotional intelligence (35; 22.44%). Approximately the same number of coded segments are attributed to teachers’ psychological need satisfaction (21; 13.46%) and personal and psychological resources (20; 12.82%). TWB is less frequently addressed as mindfulness (12; 7.69%), vitality or vigor (9; 5.77%), growth mindset (8; 5.13%), optimism (2; 1.28%), and authority (1; 0.64%).

Finally, the category behavioral component mostly refers to self-determination (58; 64.44%), of which 81.03% (47) of the coded segments specifically address autonomy. Behavioral components such as altruism (8; 8.89%), job performance (7.78%), and self-regulation (7; 7.78%) are barely mentioned. The subcategory lifestyle behavior is addressed in only six coded segments (6.67%), half of which relate to participation in sports and exercises (3; 50%), while engaging in hobbies or leisure activities, having a health routine, and sleeping pattern appear only once. Job crafting is also reported only once as part of behavioral components of TWB.

The least mentioned category of the (psycho-)physical component is directly addressed in 40.48% (42), followed by relatively general concepts of physical well-being (11; 26.19%) and physical health (8; 19.05%). However, more specific concepts such as physical fatigue (3; 7.14%), physical complaints (2; 4.76%), and cortisol levels (1; 2.38%) are scarcely mentioned.

6.2.3. Prevalence of Terms Pertaining to Outcomes

Regarding the perspective of outcomes of TWB, there is only a small difference between documents referring to inward outcomes (79.35%; 73) and outward outcomes (75%; 69). As Figure 7 shows, slightly more than half of the coded segments related to outcomes address inward outcomes (54.46%; 232), and slightly less than half relate to outward outcomes (45.54%; 194).

Further examining inward outcomes, three quarters of the coded segments refer to job-related inward outcomes (175; 75.34%), of which turnover intensions make up 51.43% (90) and are directly addressed in fifty-six (62.22%) coded segments. The rest consists of the motivation or intention to leave teaching (25; 27.78%) and the motivation or intention to move schools (9; 10%). Almost one fifth of the coded segments in this subcategory report Job Performance (34; 19.43%) as an outcome of TWB, while all other job-related inward outcomes are mentioned in less than 9% of the coded segments. These include job engagement (15; 9.57%), retention and commitment (14; 8%), job satisfaction (9; 5.14%), teacher self-efficacy (5; 2.86%), presenteeism (3; 1.72%), and absent days (2; 1.14%). Only once (0.57%) are workload, teacher confidence, and emotion regulation in teaching acknowledged. This subcategory is followed by the level of stress and burnout (31; 13.36%), which is directly addressed in slightly more than half of the cases (16; 51.61%). Moreover, the frequency of term usage is distributed relatively evenly across the outcomes of coping with stress (5; 16.13%), work-related burnout (4; 12.9%), student-related burnout (3; 9.68%), and emotional exhaustion (3, 9.68%). Self-related inward outcomes inherit slightly fewer coded segments (26; 11.21%), half of which refer to health (13; 50%) as an outcome and are directly addressed in seven coded segments (53.85%). Health is further subdivided into physical and mental health, which are mentioned equally (3; 23.08%). In addition, four coded segments (15.38%) address life satisfaction and self-worth, followed by teachers’ resilience (2; 7.96%). Quality of life, self-esteem, and personal accomplishment are considered self-related inward outcomes with only one statement (3.85%).

In terms of outward outcomes, student-related outcomes make up almost half of the coded segments (96; 49.48%), of which student achievement (35; 36.46%) is the most frequently mentioned, followed by students’ (subjective) well-being (25; 26.04%) and students’ motivation and attitude towards learning (13; 13.54%). Students’ health (4; 4.17%), students’ satisfaction with school (4; 4.17%), students’ general life satisfaction (2; 2.08%), and students’ psychological difficulties (1; 1.04%) are scarcely reported. With almost a third of the coded segments related to outward outcomes, school-/classroom-related outcomes are the next most frequently recognized (64; 32.99%). Teaching quality is considered as an outcome of TWB in 25 statements (39.06%), teaching effectiveness in 11 (17.19%), and classroom social climate in 9 (14.06%). School climate, teaching sustainability, and effectiveness of the school are mentioned in only four coded segments (6.25%) each, followed by job attraction and school quality with only two considerations (3.13%). The least mentioned subcategory is relational outcomes (34; 17.53%), of which teacher–student relationships account for almost three quarters (25; 73.53%). The remainder of the coded segments in this subcategory are almost equally distributed among the outcomes of social effort (3; 8.82%), relationships in general (3; 8.82%), sense of isolation (2; 5.88%), and teacher co-operation (1; 2.94%).

7. General Synopsis

7.1. Central Insights into the Systematic Use of Terms

The inductively expanded systematization of term use reveals a great heterogeneity of specific constructs and a broad range of categories and subcategories that often appear in more than one perspective on TWB. This is particularly striking for, but not limited to, the individual factors that occur in the perspectives on conditions and components of TWB. For example, some relational factors in the perspective on (favorable or deteriorating) conditions, such as the teacher–teacher relationship, teacher–student relationship, or social support, are also found in the subcategory of relation-specific beliefs and evaluations in the perspective of (constitutive) components. In general, many (sub)categories of domain-specific beliefs and evaluations, emotional/affective experiences, behaviors and lifestyle, and dispositional characteristics occur in the perspectives of conditions and components. Furthermore, the constructs of stress, burnout, and health are mentioned in all three perspectives. These examples contribute to the diversity and ambiguity of the term TWB. Final clarification of which categories and corresponding constructs are inherent features or influential/concurrent factors or even an immediate consequence of TWB is still pending.

7.2. Central Insights into the Frequency of Term Use

The quantitative frequencies of term use reveal that nearly half of the statements related to TWB refer to influential or correlational factors (conditions). It has already been mentioned that the level of stress and burnout is a pervasive theme across all three perspectives on TWB. A thorough examination of the concept of burnout reveals that emotional exhaustion is the most frequently considered construct, while depersonalization and a sense of low accomplishment are mentioned infrequently, if at all. Regardless of whether conditions or components are examined, TWB appears to be a concept that consists mainly of beliefs and evaluations, specifically of life in general and of teachers’ jobs, while the self and relationships are considered less as the objects of such beliefs/evaluations. Furthermore, emotional and affective experiences are also proposed as constitutive or influential aspects of TWB. In light of current publications, relational aspects seem to be less important for TWB, i.e., these aspects count among the least coded (sub)categories of the CSR. Within the perspective of conditions, contextual and individual factors are most prominent.

Very often, generic terms are used to describe what is meant by the term TWB rather than clearly naming its characteristic components. For example, the most common concepts used to define TWB are SWB (subjective well-being) and PWB (psychological well-being), which are two well-established concepts of general well-being. This indicates a lack of concepts specific to the teacher population despite the studies focusing explicitly on this professional group. The “generalist” approach is particularly evident among the emotional/affective experiences as components. Most of the coded segments in this category refer to relatively general concepts such as eudemonic, hedonic, emotional well-being, and the presence of positive and negative affect or positive and negative emotions, rather than to specific emotional/affective experiences that are constitutive elements of TWB. Given that (psycho-)physical components play a subordinate role regarding the frequency of term use, it can be concluded that TWB is mostly considered as a psychological concept. Another notable point is that TWB is conceptualized almost as often as a subjective dimension as an objective one. Regarding the fields of research related to TWB, positive psychology is the most frequently mentioned, followed by mental health and occupational well-being. These concluding aspects call for further discussion, which will be presented in the following section.

8. Discussion

The presentation of both the qualitative and the quantitative outcomes serves the immediate goal of a CSR to sufficiently differentiate the various uses of a tangled term (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). For the term TWB, the analysis of the literature corpus delivered adequate proof of the deductive framework and its inductive enhancement since each of the three proposed perspectives and their respective main categories are represented in the analyzed literature.

8.1. Fundamental Issues with “Framing” Differing Conceptualizations of Teacher Well-Being

Although the deductive framework draws on existing heuristics of TWB and its main categories, and their inductive extensions serve the quality criteria of being definite, selective, and independent, it is not derived from one coherent theory. Rather, it is a representation of the conceptualizations used in TWB research, revealing in detail why TWB is indeed a tangled term. Consequently, a plethora of inconsistencies have been identified in the extant literature regarding the positions of particular categories and subcategories of TWB. For that reason, a consensus regarding the constitutive elements and predictors of TWB (and partly also its consequences) still remains elusive. This is primarily due to the heterogeneity of theoretical underpinnings inherent in both perspectives, a phenomenon that has been consistently observed in extant literature reviews (Hascher & Waber, 2021; McCallum et al., 2017). However, our extensive disclosure of the different uses of terms may provide a starting point for scholarly discussion on which features should be considered essential and therefore part of a more consented definition. Until this consensus is reached, the comparability of research findings across studies remains constrained (Hascher & Waber, 2021; Schreiber & Cramer, 2022), but the present CSR locates some of the causes of incommensurable findings.

8.2. Specific Challenges of Construct Allocation, Factors, and Definitions

Regarding the contextual factors of TWB, the extant literature allocates similar constructs to different levels, which complicates decisions for distinct allocation within the CSR framework. To illustrate the inconsistencies that are present in the literature with an example, Blumhardt (2020) assigns principal leadership styles to the system level, whereas Kouhsari et al. (2023) allocate school leadership styles to the school level. Corresponding with the latter alternative, the present framework proposes to place school leadership styles in the subcategory of school-level conditions since this level contains factors that vary primarily between school organizations and not between their regulatory contexts.

As outlined in the synopsis and previously stated in a critical review of empirical research (Hascher & Waber, 2021), teacher-specific constructs of well-being receive limited attention compared to dimensions of general well-being that are assumed to characterize well-being among the members of the teaching profession. Interestingly, teacher-specific aspects are largely missing in the perspective on TWB components but notably present in the perspective on TWB conditions. Such conditional aspects encompass the distinctive characteristics of teachers’ roles, among them being the ambiguity and diversity of these roles, substantial workload, and the pervasive influence of politics on the education system. Regarding TWB components, the approach of several studies to (operationally) define the presence of well-being solely by the absence of negative health-related indicators, i.e., symptoms of ill-being, should be viewed with caution. Although this approach seems intuitively convincing and pragmatic, on a conceptual level, it raises the foundational question of whether well-being and, for example, burnout are the two extreme points on a one-dimensional continuum representing a higher-order construct or whether well-being can be delineated as an independent concept with unique constitutive dimensions. These considerations align with the Dual-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction by Herzberg, which extends beyond a single continuum. To prevent dissatisfaction, hygiene factors (e.g., payments) must meet a certain standard; their complete absence is difficult to overcome. However, their presence does not guarantee full satisfaction either. Genuine engagement and fulfillment are fueled by the presence of motivational factors, such as recognition and opportunities for professional growth (Herzberg, 1987). Conversely, even if an individual has low mental health levels, their overall well-being can still be high, providing a protective barrier against certain symptoms (Fox et al., 2023; Keyes, 2002). Concepts of TWB should therefore not be grounded solely in the absence of ill-being but always include (at least) counterbalancing or prevailing positive aspects.

The reviewed literature further reveals a limited attention to conceptual aspects concerning the relationships of teachers to individuals or groups within their sphere of professional activity, whether as a condition, a component, or an outcome of TWB. This is not only a contra-intuitive result of the conducted CSR but also surprising in light of Hascher and Waber’s (2021) review, which suggested that empirically, relational factors are among the most important predictors of TWB. According to our conceptual review, the screened publications consider contextual factors in teachers’ workplaces to a greater extent and in a greater diversity than relational factors. In the literature review by Hascher and Waber (2021), contextual factors play a subordinate role. This might be indicative of a tendency to broaden the view and responsibility for TWB from the individual person and their individual networks to organizational structures of schools and their management. Both aspects—relational and contextual factors—are of high relevance for TWB, even if they are represented in different quantities in both reviews. Another reason for the different approaches could lie in different epistemological and methodological choices in the analyzed studies. For example, the focus on relational factors may emerge from a sociological approach, whereas the focus on individual factors may arise from a psychological perspective.

8.3. Reflections on Quantifiable Focus Areas of TWB Concepts

Regarding the quantitative results of the present CSR, it could have been expected that the most frequently addressed perspective would be the one on components given that research on a specific psychological construct is usually theoretically based and elaborates on this construct. However, in the reviewed literature, the conditions of TWB are addressed more frequently and in a more nuanced way. One possible reason for this imbalance could be that the persistent lack of a consented conceptualization of TWB’s core features prevents research to engage critically with extant competing definitions and to propose an alternative definition. Another explanation could be the lack of differentiation between the predictors, indicators, and outcomes of TWB (Hascher & Waber, 2021). The publications that do elaborate on the components of TWB focus predominantly on affective-evaluative aspects and hardly on (potentially constitutive) behavioral aspects. Stated differently, remarkably more attention is devoted to characterizing the experiential core of TWB than to its behavioral expressions. This leads to the question of whether behavior can serve as an indicator of TWB at all (such as in research on basic emotions) in the sense that specific expressions or actions may signal a particular level of well-being.

Although the present CSR has focused on conceptions of TWB’s conditions, components, and outcomes, irrespective of whether and how these conceptions were put to empirical investigation, a note on prevalent research designs might provide additional insights. As Dreer (2023) found in his systematic literature review on TWB outcomes, most of the evidence is correlational, with only few studies offering causal evidence.

8.4. Limitations

There are some methodological and linguistic limitations to the results of this CSR. First of all, the development of the deductive framework in stage 3 is theoretically unlimited, especially with regard to the selection of specific perspectives (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). Other methodological limitations lie in the process of the corpus development in stage 4. The first one pertains to the restricted publication date period, spanning just three years. However, considering the large amount of literature identified (N = 1716) and reviewed (n = 168), it can be assumed that the category system meets the methodological requirement of comprehensively reflecting the diversity of term use in recent years. Considering other literature reviews that have been conducted on the research topic of TWB, this study covers a comparatively large number of publications. For example, a research review by Hascher and Waber (2021) identified 1212 articles, of which they reviewed 98. Other reviews on specific aspects of research found about 400 relevant articles each and reviewed between 20 and 45 of them (Berger et al., 2022; Dreer, 2023; Dreer & Gouasé, 2022; Fox et al., 2023). Secondly, the consideration of all types of literature could be the reason for the high diversity of concepts considered in any perspective of TWB and thus the ambiguity of which dimensions are actually significant for TWB (Schreiber & Cramer, 2022). For example, studies with rather narrow research questions that were published in peer-reviewed journals could indeed convey a more homogeneous understanding and operationalization of TWB than doctoral theses with a broader spectrum of objectives and theoretical grounding.

In terms of linguistic limitations, the range of possible synonyms of the many conceptual elements of well-being in the coded literature hampered the systematization of term usage. During the coding process as well as in the coding guidelines, all possible synonyms were thoroughly discussed and considered to circumvent this problem. Linguistic inaccuracies in the screened literature corpus sometimes complicated the unambiguous sorting of terms into the CSR framework’s perspectives and categories. This applies in particular to instances in which specific concepts were characterized as influential or relational factors as well as constitutive elements within one publication. This inaccuracy is already criticized by Hascher and Waber (2021) in their literature review. Furthermore, the linguistic style of documents influences the frequency of term usage, i.e., some texts repeat the same statement many times in different words throughout the paper, leading to more coded segments regarding this specific view of TWB. Consequently, this may lead to an imbalance in the reported frequencies for different conceptual elements when examining coded segments.

8.5. Research Outlook and Practical Implications

The conclusion and discussion of the analyzed literature calls for further analysis to deepen the scientific understanding of how TWB should be conceptualized. The pursuit of this goal involves both theoretical and empirical routes. The former would enrich the presented systematization of the term’s use with general and teacher-specific theories on the development of well-being. This step could contribute to disentangling predictors, indicators, and outcomes on a conceptual level. In light of the CSR’s quantitative results on the frequencies of term use, current research on TWB is heavily focused on predictors (conditions) and slightly less on indicators (components), with considerably less attention being paid to outcomes. It seems imperative that future research addresses this gap by striving for a stringent distinction of these three perspectives and their respective dimensions when establishing assumptions that are later put to the test.

Moreover, the main focus should shift towards TWB’s constitutive elements as a psychological or psychophysiological construct, in particular towards the experiential (and possibly expressive or even physiological) core of TBW. Stated differently, conceptual clarification could be targeted specifically at the components of TWB, thus delineating and defining the core dimensions that constitute or reflect TWB as a complex latent construct.

Empirically, intervention studies aiming to promote TWB should receive more attention. It would be valuable to examine whether the measurements used to assess gains in TWB can be assigned to corresponding categories within the presented TWB framework on term use. For instance, intervention studies focusing on socio-emotional training may predominantly utilize concepts related to affective and emotional experiences to measure TWB. Furthermore, the systematization and frequency of the term use of TWB could be examined against the background of various fields of research. It seems very plausible that within a certain field, such as positive psychology, conceptual consistency and, thus, conceptual clarity are much higher than across the various fields that were covered in the present CSR.

The distinctiveness and substantiated descriptions of the perspectives, categories, and dimensions that were developed to conduct the CSR also have the potential to inform the design of practical interventions, teacher training programs, or institutional policies aimed at enhancing TWB. The framework’s rigorous delineation of potential conditions and components at the categorical level may guide decisions regarding the selection of target variables for TWB and the choice of appropriate instruments for evaluating the intended TWB outcomes. Concurrently, the framework can function as a reflective instrument when determining which conditional factors might contribute most to achieving the desired TWB gains and how they can be shaped to present the intervention measure. Contextual (especially job-level) factors such as professional development, job demands/resources, and leadership support, as well as individual factors such as self-efficacy and social-emotional competence, seem to play an important role in enhancing TWB and should be addressed in such interventions. Relational factors, although less studied in recent years, should regain attention.

9. Concluding Remarks

Even though conceptions of TWB are still diverse, they mostly center around subjective beliefs, emotions, and psychological aspects of well-being. Therefore, subsequent endeavors aimed at enhancing conceptual clarity should prioritize the refinement of definitions and measurements for these dimensions, with particular attention paid to the professional group of teachers. Additionally, these efforts should encompass the behavioral and physical dimensions. A more balanced research approach is also needed—one that not only maps the conditions and components of TWB but also rigorously determines its short- and long-term outcomes. This is crucial for developing effective policies and practices in educational settings.

We encourage researchers to be more specific about the theoretical basis of their proposed definitions of TWB. Empirical studies should clearly state which dimensions of TWB they address. The results obtained for specific dimensions should not be generalized to the whole concept of TWB but rather be interpretated only with respect to the focal parts. While this would not necessarily engender a consensus on TWB’s core dimensions, it would certainly enable a more nuanced understanding of its multidimensionality.

In line with this inquiry, practical and policy interventions should also address multiple dimensions or at least a set of clearly delineated target dimensions. Efforts to support TWB should themselves be founded in conceptual clarity, multidimensionality, and evidence-based action, thus moving beyond generic approaches.