The transition from teacher education to teaching profession is a significant phase of exploration, adaptation, and learning (Masoumi & Noroozi, 2025) in a teacher’s career. In this transition, early career teachers often face a range of challenges (Fantilli & McDougall, 2009; Stewart & Jansky, 2022). At the same time, many early career teachers are motivated and highly engaged in their work (Høigaard, Giske, & Sundsli, 2012; Schaufeli, Bakker, Van Rhene, 2009; TALIS, 2024). An engaged teacher often has high levels of energy about and commitment to teaching, is persistent in the face with obstacles, feels significance, inspiration, and pride, and concentrates and happily engrosses in their work (Bakker, 2022). Such early career teachers are believed to have greater potential to achieve successful transition, better job satisfaction and job performance, and positive learning outcomes for students (Burić & Macuka, 2018; Hultell & Gustavsson, 2011). Moreover, engaged teachers are less prone to burnout and health problems, and less likely to quit teaching profession (Klassen, Aldhafri, Mansfield, Purwanto, Siu, Wong, & Woods-McConney, 2012; Russell, Attoh, Chase, Gong, Kim, & Liggans, 2020). Thus, fostering early career teachers’ work engagement is important for early career teachers, teacher community, and students.

      Many studies have explored the antecedents of teacher work engagement. It has been shown that job resources and personal resources play important role in the development of work engagement (Alonzo, Sheridan, Zhou, Nguyen, Gao, & Durksen, 2025; Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Early career teachers’ professional agency in the classroom, which refers to their capacity to prepare the way to manage new learning intentionally and responsibly. It comprises motivation to learn, self-efficacy for learning, and skills of learning (Soini et al., 2016; Vermunt & Endedijk, 2011). In the context of classroom, the three elements are ingrained in two modes, including collaborative environment and transformative practice (CLE), and reflection in classroom (REF). Professional agency in the classroom is considered to be one of the variables to support their work engagement. For example, previous studies found that teacher self-efficacy, motivation, and competence as the elements of teachers’ professional agency was positively related to their work engagement (Burić & Macuka, 2018; Chen et al., 2025; Pourtousi & Ghanizadeh, 2020). Although the association between teacher agency and work engagement is evident (Vähäsantanen et al., 2022), few studies have focused on the influence of professional agency as an integrative concept, especially in the classroom, on work engagement of teachers. Even less attention has been directed toward the relationship between teacher work engagement and class teacher experience. Thus, this study aims to bridge this gap by exploring how early career teachers’ professional agency and class teacher experience are related to their work engagement. Moreover, the current study examined how class teacher (banzhuren) experience is related to work engagement of early career teachers. Based on previous studies, the following two hypotheses were tested.

      H1. Early career teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom, including collaborative environment and transform practice (CLE) and reflection in the classroom (REF), contributes to their work engagement (Pietarinen et al, 2016; Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006; Soini et al., 2016).

      H2. Class teacher experience is positively related to early career teachers’ work engagement (Guglielmi, Bruni, Simbula, Fraccaroli, & Depolo, 2016).

A total of 779 Chinese early career primary and junior secondary school teachers participated in the study. The samples worked in primary schools (N = 431; 55.3%) and junior secondary schools (N = 348, 44.7 %). Most of the respondents were female (86.5%). The mean age of the participants was 27.6 years. The proportion of teachers with class teacher experience was 47.2%. Two sub-scales measuring (a) Professional Agency in the Classroom (10 items) and (b) Work Engagement (9 items) were used. The Professional Agency in the Classroom scale (Pietarinen et al., 2016; Soini et al., 2016) measures two factors of teachers’ professional agency in the classroom: Collaborative environment and transform practice (CLE) (6 items) and Reflection in the classroom (REF) (4 items). The Work Engagement scale (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006) consists of nine items that measure early career teachers’ perception of their work engagement, including vigor, dedication, and absorption. All the items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree). The percentage of missing values per item was 0. The class teacher experience was used as categorical variable (whether the respondent had class teacher experience). The descriptive statistics was estimated with SPSS 28.0. The Cronbach’s alphas of the scales in the study were examined for reliability analyses. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) allowed for analyzing the construct validity of the scales, and thus statistically decide the extent to which the hypothesized model was consistent with the data (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the hypothesized model. The Mplus statistical package 8.4 was used to perform the analyses (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2015). The goodness-of-fit of the estimated standardized model was assessed by using the χ2 test, Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis Index (TLI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and Standardized Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (SRMR).

Chinese early career teacher perceived their professional agency in the classroom as rather high [Mean(min-max) = 5.60-6.02]. Furthermore, the early career teachers reported a positive and fulfilling work-related statement of mind [Mean = 5.55]. The tested model partially confirmed the hypothesis (H1) that early career teachers’ professional agency in the classroom was associated with work engagement. More specifically, only early career teachers’ reported capacity to build collaborative learning and adapt teaching practices contributed to their positive work-related state of fulfillment (.55). However, teachers’ reflection on classroom interactions did not show a statistically significant relationship with work engagement. The tested model supported the hypothesis (H2) that early career teachers’ class teacher experience was related to work engagement. The results showed a relatively small, but statistically significant association between early career teachers’ class teacher experience and work engagement (.08). The results indicated that early career teachers’ professional agency in the classroom is positively associated with work engagement, which is consistent with earlier studies (e.g., Vähäsantanen et al., 2022). This implies that teachers’ active efforts in learning can make a difference in their work engagement. The results also revealed that early career teachers without class teacher experience were more likely to report a higher level of work engagement. A reason for this might be that being a class teacher requires more responsibilities and working demands (i.e., workload) (Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010). In the future, more studies are needed to investigate the relation of work engagement with professional agency and class teacher experience. In practice, it helps to develop practices for promoting teachers’ work engagement.

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