Objective To investigate the influence mechanism of mindfulness-based teaching and psychological capital on job burnout among teachers in private primary and secondary schools and to provide a scientific pathway for alleviating their job burnout.

Methods A total of 332 teachers in private primary and secondary schools in Shanghai and Shandong Province were surveyed using the Chinese version of the Mindfulness in Teaching Scale, the Psychological Capital Questionnaire-24 (PCQ-24), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (MBI-ES). SPSS 27.0 software was used to compare the scores of the three scales among different groups of teachers and to verify the mediating effect of psychological capital between mindfulness-based teaching and job burnout.

Results A total of 309 valid questionnaires were collected, with a valid response rate of 93.1%. The mean scores of each item for these teachers were as follows: job burnout (3.19 ± 0.64) points, mindfulness-based teaching (3.92 ± 0.56) points, and psychological capital (4.39 ± 0.68) points. Job burnout scores were higher for teachers with 6-10 years of experience or teachers working in primary school. Mindfulness-based teaching scores were higher for teachers with 4-5 years of experience or teachers from Shanghai. Psychological capital scores were higher for teachers with 4-5 years of experience or teachers working in high school. All these differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). A negative correlation was found between mindfulness-based teaching scores and job burnout scores (r = -0.485, P < 0.01), while a negative correlation was also found between psychological capital scores and job burnout scores (r = -0.405, P < 0.01). A positive correlation was observed between psychological capital scores and mindfulness-based teaching scores (r = 0.526, P < 0.01). Psychological capital was found to play a partial mediating role between mindfulness-based teaching and job burnout, with the indirect effect accounting for 26.37% of the total effect.

Conclusions Mindfulness-based teaching can positively predict the level of job burnout. It can also help teachers better cope with work pressure by enhancing their psychological capital. It is recommended to incorporate mindfulness-based teaching skills and psychological capital development into teacher professional development systems in order to collaboratively block the formation mechanism of job burnout.