Does teachers' cognitive self-regulation increase their occupational well-being? The structure and role of self-regulation in the teaching context

•Cognitive self-regulation competence of teachers is a hierarchical construct.•This competence can enhance job satisfaction by reducing emotional exhaustion.•Our findings can be generalized across gender and school track.1

Cognitive self-regulation is assumed to foster teachers' occupational well-being (their level of emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction), which directly impacts the quality of their work. We investigated (1) the factor structure of teachers' cognitive self-regulation, (2) whether self-regulation fosters teachers' job satisfaction by reducing emotional exhaustion, and (3) whether this relationship is moderated by gender and school track. Structural equation modeling (N = 664 German secondary mathematics teachers) confirmed the hypothesized second-order factor structure of teacher self-regulation. The positive effect of cognitive self-regulation on job satisfaction is mediated by emotional exhaustion and can be generalized across gender and school track.