The theoretical background of the current study stems from Sonnentag and Fritz’s (2015) stressor-detachment model, which takes into account both the detrimental effect of stressors on person’s psychological detachment and the influence of poor psychological detachment on person’s well-being. The aim of the current study is first to investigate how teachers’ stress, stressors and positive and negative affect vary during a day, between days and between individuals, and how teachers’ psychological detachment after work varies between days and between individuals. Secondly, the aim is to find out how the variation in teachers’ stress, stressors, positive and negative affect and psychological detachment correlate with one another on between day level and on between teacher level. Concerning teacher stress, stressors and positive and negative affect, we also look at these correlations on within day level. Following the idea of theoretical model, we expect that teachers’ negative affect during a work day is associated with their stress which in turn is associated with teachers’ lower psychological detachment from work after workday. We further expect that low psychological detachment is associated with teachers’ negative affect the next workday, which again is related to teacher stress, which in turn is associated with lower psychological detachment from work after workday.

It is important to study the associations between teacher affect, stress and psychological detachment, because these factors have shown important connections to other variables. Teachers’ emotions, for example, have been shown to affect also students’ emotions (Becker, Goetz, Morger, & Ranellucci, 2014). Furthermore, teacher stress affects their experience of negative emotions (Hamama, Ronen, Shachar, & Rosenbaum, 2013) and their responses to students’ emotions (Buettner, Jeon, Hur, & Garcia, 2016). Psychological detachment could be a possible mediator between teacher affect and stress, but a mediating model where teachers’ affect influences teacher stress, which in turn influences psychological detachment after work, which again influences their affect, stress and detachment the next workday has not been studied previously (for a review, see Türktorun, Weiher, & Horz, 2020). According to earlier studies, teachers’ stressors influence their psychological detachment (Sonnentag & Kruel, 2006). In addition, previous research indicates that teachers’ psychological detachment has been related to their positive affective states (Fritz et al., 2010). However, extant research investigating the mediating effect of psychological detachment is very rare among teachers and thus much needed (Türktorun, Weiher, & Horz, 2020).

Diary data was collected on 2-5 days from 57 teachers in Central Finland in Spring 2019 and Spring 2020. The teachers answered a short mobile questionnaire on four measurement occasions each day. The questionnaire consisted of a shortened Finnish and to day level modified version of Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Hietalahti, Rantanen, & Kokko, 2016; Thompson, 2007; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), one question on stress from the Occupational Stress Questionnaire (Elo, Leppänen, & Jahkola, 2003), and one question whether the experienced stress is related to work. In addition to above mentioned scales, on the last measurement occasion of each day, the teachers also answered to four questions depicting Detachment subscale from Sonnentag and Fritz’s Recovery Experience Questionnaire (Sonnentag & Fritz, 2007; Kinnunen et al., 2011). The Mplus statistical program (Version 8.2) was used to estimate parameters in three-level and two-level models. We used the full information maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors (MLR). Missing values were expected to be missing at random.

According to preliminary results, teachers’ positive and negative affect and their stress varies during a day. Further, teachers’ negative affect, stress and psychological detachment vary between days. Finally, all the well-being indicators investigated (positive and negative affect, stress and psychological detachment) vary between the individuals. When looking at the relations between the variables on different levels, several statistically significant relations were found. On within level, positive and negative affect correlate positively with each other and with stress. On day level, negative affect correlates positively with stress and negatively with psychological detachment; stress and psychological detachment are also in negative connection with one another. On between level, positive affect correlates negatively with negative affect and with stress. Finally, the results confirmed our expectations. Teachers’ negative affect on a particular day affects their higher stress that day, which again affects their lower psychological detachment from work after workday. Further, teachers’ low psychological detachment the previous day influences their negative affect the next day, which in turn affects their higher stress, which again affects their lower detachment on that day.

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