The Influencing Mechanism of the Expected-Perceived Teacher Support Fit on Perceived Career Calling

Zhou Jie

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250310

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (3) : 609-619. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250310

Developmental & Educational Psychology

The Influencing Mechanism of the Expected-Perceived Teacher Support Fit on Perceived Career Calling

Zhou Jie

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Abstract

The role of police officers in safeguarding national security, maintaining social stability, and ensuring the well-being and peace of the populace is central to their career calling. Police cadets, who act as the reserve force of law enforcement, are tasked with maintaining an unwavering commitment to their career calling. Perceived career calling, which refers to an individual’s subjective experience of a calling in a particular domain, has been identified as an important construct in educational and occupational psychology. Recent empirical research has consistently demonstrated the positive impact of perceived career calling on students’ various domains, including the enhancement of quality of life, academic achievement, and career development. This has led to an increased focus on understanding the factors that contribute to the formation of perceived career calling.
Colleges serve as pivotal environments for fostering students’ career development and socialization. Teachers, as agents of academic institutions and influential figures in students’ lives, are integral to the social support system that significantly influences students’ career cognition, attitudes, and behaviors. While existing research has extensively explored the positive effects of actual perception of organizational support on employees’ and teachers’ perceived career calling within enterprise and educational settings, there is a notable gap in understanding the impact of expected organizational support. Particularly, the influence of the congruence between expected and perceived teacher support on cadets’ perceived career calling within the context of police higher education has been largely unexplored. This study, grounded in the self determination theory, the conservation of resources theory, and the career construction theory, aims to elucidate the mechanism of the “expected-perceived” teacher support fit on perceived career calling among cadets in police higher education institutions.
A three-year longitudinal questionnaire survey was conducted involving 364 cadets from a police college. Utilizing polynomial regression and response surface analysis, we examined the relationship between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and cadets’ searching for and perceived career calling. Our results indicated that congruence in “expected-perceived” teacher support was associated with higher levels of searching for and perceived career calling compared to incongruence. Specifically, a “high-high” fit and a “low-high” fit in “expected-perceived” teacher support were more beneficial for cadets’ searching for and perceived career calling than the “low-low” fit and “high-low” fit, respectively. Additionally, searching for career calling was found to mediate the relationship between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and perceived career calling. Career adaptability was identified as a moderator, strengthening the link between “expected-perceived” teacher support fit and searching for career calling under the condition of high career adaptability.
This study responds to the academic community’s call by employing a longitudinal research design to examine the impact of expected and perceived teacher support fit on individuals’ perceived career calling. Our findings enhance theoretical understanding of the relationship between teacher support and perceived career calling, thereby enriching the extant literature on this topic. The research delineates the internal pathway through which the congruence of “expected-perceived” teacher support is translated into perceived career calling, specifically within the context of police higher education. This contributes to the antecedent-cause and after-effect research on the search for career calling, broadens the theoretical framework of work as a calling, and offers novel avenues for future exploration of the formation and transformation mechanisms of the searching for and perceived career calling. Additionally, this study explores the moderating role of career adaptability and clarifies the boundary conditions under which the alignment of “expected-perceived” teacher support influences the search for career calling. It provides a valuable framework for examining the interplay between “expected-perceived” teacher support and various resources, such as emotional and motivational factors. Lastly, the study offers practical implications for educational institutions, educators, and police cadets and suggests strategies to facilitate the searching for and perceived career calling during college life, including providing of diverse teacher supports, motivating for cadets to engage in the search for career calling, and enhancing of career adaptability among cadets.

Key words

expected teacher support / perceived teacher support / perceived career calling / searching for career calling / career adaptability

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Zhou Jie. The Influencing Mechanism of the Expected-Perceived Teacher Support Fit on Perceived Career Calling[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(3): 609-619 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250310

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