The effect of technostress on educator’s teaching performance: a case study of the Sunway education group

The rapid integration of technology in education has introduced challenges collectively called technostress, which may undermine educators’ professional effectiveness and well-being. This study examines the relationship between technostress creators (i.e., techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and techno-uncertainty) and educators’ teaching performance. Additionally, it investigates the mediating role of technology change in this relationship. Data were collected from 224 educators at the Sunway Education Group (SEG) in Malaysia and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) via SmartPLS. The results reveal that techno-invasion has a significant and negative relationship with educators’ teaching performance. The blurring of work–life boundaries caused by constant technological availability depletes educators’ mental and emotional resources, leading to a decline in their self-reported effectiveness and instructional quality. In contrast, the effects of techno-insecurity and techno-uncertainty on teaching performance were not statistically significant. Educators’ anxieties regarding technical competence and ambiguity about future technologies do not directly impair their performance; instead, their potential adverse effects are likely channelled through other adaptive processes. Furthermore, technological change was found to partially mediate the relationships between all three technostress creators and teaching performance. Ongoing technological adaptation, continuous skill development, and institutional initiatives to strengthen educators’ digital competence collectively contribute to improved teaching performance. Educational institutions should implement targeted strategies to mitigate technostress and foster a more supportive and sustainable environment for educators. These findings also advance the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Theory by demonstrating that technological change functions as a critical job resource that partially mediates the negative effects of technostress creators, namely techno-invasion, techno-insecurity, and techno-uncertainty, on educator performance.