Satisfied teachers are good teachers: The association between teacher job satisfaction and instructional quality

Instructional quality is associated with better academic outcomes for students. This study aimed to investigate how teachers' job satisfaction was associated with clarity of instruction and cognitive activation as measures of instructional quality. In addition, we investigated whether this association between teachers' job satisfaction and instructional quality was mediated by teacher–student relationships. Drawing on the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), we compared participants from both Eastern (N = 27,106; Japan, Taipei, Korea, Shanghai) and Western sociocultural contexts (N = 20,209; Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom). Multilevel structural equation modelling results indicated that teachers' job satisfaction was positively associated with instructional quality across Eastern and Western settings. The relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and instructional quality was partially mediated by better student–teacher relationships. There were some differences between the cultural settings in how job satisfaction correlated with clarity of instruction and cognitive activation. We suggest that these differences may be accounted for by cultural characteristics leading to different approaches to teaching. Our results suggest that teachers' job satisfaction and the quality of classroom-level relationships may be important indicators of positive instructional outcomes. While schools focus on student outcomes, they should also address teachers' job satisfaction and prioritise the importance of relationships between teachers and students in classrooms.     

Sources of teacher job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in Cyprus

This paper aims to contribute to the limited literature on teacher job satisfaction in developing countries, especially in Cyprus. Drawing on interviews with 52 teachers and administrators in 17 schools, the paper describes the sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of Cypriot teachers and the impact on how teachers feel. Teachers emphasised their satisfaction with interactions with students, relationships held with colleagues and opportunities to contribute to the growth of individuals and the development of society. Sources of dissatisfaction were social problems and their impact on teachers' work, students' lack of interest and bad behaviour, the centralised educational system and the lack of professional autonomy in schools, and teacher evaluation and promotion prospects. Some of the factors are predictable but others are less so, having to do with the particular historical and social context in Cyprus. The context of a developing country is especially considered in an effort to explore how education officials may address issues of teacher satisfaction and dissatisfaction.     

Developing a shared cluster construct of instructional leadership in TALIS

In the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), instructional leadership is measured by the self-reports of principals on three items only. When this measure is investigated together with teacher satisfaction with current work environment, no significant associations were found in the Nordic countries participating in the TALIS 2013 round. This paper argues that a potential reason for this might be the severely underrepresented construct of instructional leadership. As an alternative approach, teacher data from the same study are used to establish two important dimensions of instructional leadership at the school level: 1) managing the instructional program and 2) developing the school learning climate. Applying multilevel structural equation modelling (MSEM), we establish two shared cluster constructs at the school level and observe significant modest relationships between these constructs and teacher job satisfaction with current work environment. The paper brings to our attention the different approaches for interpreting, exploring, and making sense of instructional leadership in international large-scale studies, such as TALIS, from the joint perspective of teachers.     

The effects of principals’ humor on teachers’ job satisfaction

Traditionally, education has been perceived as a most serious and disciplined undertaking. Schools have become so obsessed with discipline, standardized test scores, proper objectives, competence, and proficiency that they have turned into rather grim places. All too often teachers and students will say that school and learning are not enjoyable. This study was designed to investigate school principals’ overall frequency of humor use as perceived by teachers, and the relationship of principals’ humor use to teachers’ job satisfaction. This study also analyzed how teacher job satisfaction was influenced by principals’ frequency of humor use in different groups. Results of this study support the idea that principals who share humor in the workplace have teachers with higher job satisfaction than those principals who share very little or no humor in the workplace.     

An emotion focused approach in predicting teacher burnout and job satisfaction

This study aimed to find out the correlations between in-service teachers’ emotional, burnout and job satisfaction in Turkey. To this end, the Teacher Emotion Inventory (TEI), Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and Maslach Burnout Inventory were administered to 564 in-service teachers in a wide range of disciplines. According to confirmatory factor analysis, the five-factor model of TEI was successfully confirmed within the current study. In addition, joy and love dimensions exhibited positive correlations with job satisfaction. The love and fear dimensions significantly predicted job satisfaction with a medium effect. Love, sadness, and fear dimensions significantly predicted teachers’ burnout with a medium effect.     

Preparing teacher leaders: Perceptions of the impact of a cohort-based, job embedded, blended teacher leadership program

This qualitative study was designed to examine teachers’ and principals’ perceptions of the impact of a graduate program designed to prepare teacher leaders. Impact was investigated through interviews with 20 graduates and 6 principals. Using Mezirow’s concept of transformational learning, the study documents perceived transformation of teachers’ frames of reference: two related to teaching (adopt an inquiry stance; learn to view oneself as an autonomous professional), and two related to leadership (adopt a leadership stance; view student learning as a communal responsibility). The study includes implications for the design of graduate level teacher education programs to enhance their impact and effectiveness.     

The antecedents of teacher satisfaction with professional development programs

Literature has shown that on-the-job professional development programs are most beneficial when they are long-term, focused on students’ learning, and linked to the curricula. We hypothesized that the higher the control teachers have over job professional development processes, and the greater the resemblance of these processes to the typical teaching culture in classrooms, the greater the teachers’ satisfaction with job professional development processes. The findings of this study demonstrate that the main factors affecting teachers’ satisfaction with the instructional programs are related to their desire to maintain instructional processes “close to home”, and to shape these processes in accordance with their needs and expectations. The implications of the study are discussed with relation to decision-makers in the school setting and at the local authorities’ level.     

Modelling the relationships between teacher working conditions,job satisfaction and workplace mobility

Teacher shortages are a recurring problem in publicly funded schools, in part because of poor retention. Working conditions in schools are an important predictor of teacher job satisfaction and retention, yet research has so far made limited headway in identifying the specific aspects of the working environment which matter. This research uses representative data on state secondary school teachers in England in 2013 to derive an unusually rich set of working conditions variables. Regression analysis is used to model the relationships between working conditions, teacher job satisfaction and turnover intentions. The results show strong associations with the nature of school leadership, whether teachers have received training in the specific subjects they are assigned to teach and scope for career progression within the school. These results are robust to checks for common source bias. The study identifies ways in which schools can improve retention.     

Teacher self-efficacy and teacher burnout: A study of relations

The purpose of this study was partly to test the factor structure of a recently developed Norwegian scale for measuring teacher self-efficacy and partly to explore relations between teachers' perception of the school context, teacher self-efficacy, collective teacher efficacy, teacher burnout, teacher job satisfaction, and teachers' beliefs that factors external to teaching puts limitations to what they can accomplish. Participants were 2249 Norwegian teachers in elementary school and middle school. The data were analyzed by means of structural equation modelling using the AMOS 7 program. Teacher self-efficacy, collective efficacy and two dimensions of burnout were differently related both to school context variables and to teacher job satisfaction.     

教师工作满意度研究综述

工作满意度与每一个有能力从事工作的人以及每一个组织都息息相关。基于国内外文献,从教师工作满意度结构、影响因素、变量关系、工作满意度状况等角度进行综述,并探讨教师工作满意度进一步的研究方向。     

Concentric collaboration: a model of leadership development for healthcare organizations

Drawing on their experience in a Midwest healthcare system, the authors propose a model of leadership development through action learning that embraces ‘concentric collaboration’ at its core. The present study suggests that the process of concentric collaboration can serve to strengthen the skills of the individual leader as well as foster collective leadership. Central to the model is the growth and development of the individual leader which extends outward to create connections with others, ultimately increasing the social capital necessary to effect organizational change. This work contributes to the leadership development literature by offering a comprehensive model that includes the process of individual growth as well as collective capacity, organizational factors that support or inhibit this process as well as implications for practice.     

Effects of school organizational conditions on teacher professional learning in China: The mediating role of teacher self-efficacy

Current education reforms have increasingly advocated schools to create facilitative organizational conditions to promote teacher learning. However, limited research has examined the effects of different aspects of school organizational conditions on teacher professional learning in China. Using a sample of 339 primary and secondary school teachers in Shanghai, this study examined the effects of three aspects of school organizational conditions (i.e., learning-centered leadership, learning opportunities, and cultural barriers) on teacher professional learning in China, with a particular focus on the mediating role of teacher self-efficacy as an important psychological condition. The results showed that two aspects of school organizational conditions (i.e., learning-centered leadership and learning opportunities) had significant and positive effects on teacher learning. Teacher self-efficacy significantly mediated the effects of both learning-centered leadership and cultural barriers on teacher professional learning. Practical implications are also discussed.     

Exploring the contributions of job resources,job demands,and job self-efficacy to STEM teachers' job satisfaction: A commonality analysis

This study aims to examine how job resources, demands, and self-efficacy affect American STEM teachers' job satisfaction by analyzing the US TALIS 2018 data. Multiple regression and commonality analysis were used to analyze factors' significant contributions and their detailed real unique and common contributions to STEM teachers' job satisfaction. The results show that the final model explains 29.6% of the variances of STEM teachers' job satisfaction. The commonality analysis further showed that job resources, job demands, and job self-efficacy explained 23.5%, 8.6%, and 8.0% of variances of job satisfaction, respectively. However, these factor sets uniquely contributed 15.9%, 2.9%, and 2.1% of the variance, separately. This study confirms the validity of the revised job demands−resources model for STEM teachers' job satisfaction. Furthermore, the commonality analysis reveals the unique and independent contributions of job demands, resources, and self-efficacy to job satisfaction. Results from the research identified the significance of job resources contributing to the improvement of STEM teachers' job satisfaction.     

Linking the private and public: teacher leadership and teacher education in the reflexive modernity

This study attempts to reveal the process of teacher leadership (TL) and its implications for teacher education. Two rounds of interviews, including focus group interviews with six chosen schools in Taiwan, were conducted to reveal the process. It was found that the development of TL is a stretching process from the key leader to core members, then to general followers, and the pattern of development is a process of assemblage from the private side to the public side. It is also argued that the private resource of TL (e.g. recognising the complexity of inner experiences, the ontic vulnerability and the needs of others) is contributive to educational creativity and reform. Finally, the private–public-integrated model and three strategies of articulation (internal, theoretical–practical-situated and external) are proposed conceptually and practically for further development of teacher education and educational change.     

How teacher emotional support motivates students: The mediating roles of perceived peer relatedness,autonomy support,and competence

Multilevel mediation analyses test whether students' mid-year reports of classroom experiences of autonomy, relatedness with peers, and competence mediate associations between early in the school year emotionally-supportive teacher-student interactions (independently observed) and student-reported academic year changes in mastery motivation and behavioral engagement. When teachers were observed to be more emotionally-supportive in the beginning of the school year, adolescents reported academic year increases in their behavioral engagement and mastery motivation. Mid-year student reports indicated that in emotionally-supportive classrooms, adolescents experienced more developmentally-appropriate opportunities to exercise autonomy in their day-to-day activities and had more positive relationships with their peers. Analyses of the indirect effects of teacher emotional support on students' engagement and motivation indicated significant mediating effects of autonomy and peer relatedness experiences, but not competence beliefs, in this sample of 960 students (ages 11–17) in the classrooms of 68 middle and high school teachers in 12 U.S. schools.     

School autonomy,accountability and collaboration: a critical review

English education has recently experienced radical policy reform in the areas of school autonomy and accountability. The key focus of this paper is on how schools might best navigate through these policy moves. It highlights how these moves have constructed schools, teachers and students in problematic ways but also how they are offering possibilities for improving the quality of schools and schooling. The focus here is on the promise and scope of school collaboration. The difficulties of creating socially responsive and responsible collaboratives in the current ‘heterarchical’ and market-oriented policy environment are acknowledged. Guided by quality democratic governance, they are, nonetheless, presented as crucial in supporting schools to productively deal with the demands of this environment.     

Teacher job satisfaction and motivation to leave the teaching profession: Relations with school context, feeling of belonging, and emotional exhaustion

This study examines the relations between school context variables and teachers’ feeling of belonging, emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and motivation to leave the teaching profession. Six aspects of the school context were measured: value consonance, supervisory support, relations with colleagues, relations with parents, time pressure, and discipline problems. The participants were 2569 Norwegian teachers in elementary school and middle school. The data were analyzed by means of SEM analyses. All six school context variables were related to job satisfaction and motivation to leave the teaching profession. These relations were primarily indirect, mediated through feelings of belonging and emotional exhaustion.     

The impact of congruence between perceived and preferred leadership on satisfaction among college student-athletes in Singapore

Chelladurai developed the Multidimensional Model of Leadership, which was designed to be situation-specific to examine leadership behaviour and effectiveness in sporting contexts. Applying Chelladurai's concept to the Singapore sporting context, this study aimed to assess the impact of congruence between perceived and preferred leadership behaviours on satisfaction with leadership among college student-athletes in Singapore. Data were collected from 185 college student-athletes enrolled in the five local tertiary institutes. The questionnaire utilized in this study consisted of the perception and preference versions of the Revised Leadership Scale for Sports and seven items measuring satisfaction with coaching leadership. Confirmatory factor analysis and a series of hierarchical multiple regression procedures were carried out to test the psychometric properties of the leadership scale and the hypothesized relationship between congruence levels and satisfaction. Results revealed congruence of perceived and preferred behaviour in social support was a significant indicator of athletes' satisfaction. Possible implications from the findings were discussed in an effort to better understand coaching effectiveness in Singapore.     

The interrelationship of job satisfaction and similarity in philosophic view within academic departments

This study used a questionnaire to determine the effect on job satisfaction of the similarity in philosophic view between faculty members (N=198) and their department chairperson (N=30) in four-year colleges and universities in the Midwest. On the basis of the data collected in this study no relationship was found between level of job satisfaction and similarity in philosophic view between the faculty members and the department chairperson of an academic department.     

上海市高校专职辅导员工作满意度调查与分析

通过问卷调查,查阅相关资料,了解上海市高校专职辅导员目前的工作满意度状况,从自我认同、社会认同、工作环境、工作效果四个维度,对不同性别、不同年龄、不同工作年限、带班学生人数不同进行调查分析。结果显示:辅导员总体满意度较高,但在各维度上的表现却有较大不同。不同性别的辅导员在工作环境、总体满足感上呈显著差异;不同年龄的辅导员社会认同呈显著性差异;带班学生人数差异,工作满意度在社会认同、工作环境、工作效果及总体满足感上均存在非常显著的差异。