Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-84). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84). Also available in print.

In this dissertation the findings of a survey on 100 inner-city independent school educators, concerning the factors that affect the level of job satisfaction are presented. It was found that educators derive most of their job satisfaction from interpersonal relationships. Dissatisfaction was mainly the result of low salaries, low status in the community, poor facilities and lack of security. Most of the educators were looking for alternative employment and regarded employment in public schools as a much better option. Recommendations were made to principals on how to improve the factors that affect the level of job satisfaction for educators. / Educational Studies / MED (EDUC MANAGEMENT)

This thesis presents an empirical investigation to address the psychosocial work environment as an established social determinant of health. The focus was narrowed to a single occupation, teachers, due to high reported stress levels in national surveys and other consequential policy challenges. The focus of intervention was narrowed to tackling the causes of stress after a scoping literature review found that most effort in this area has been directed towards individual-level interventions and programmes. A systematic review was conducted to assess the evidence-base, which demonstrated availability of limited and low-quality evidence for the evaluation of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing. It was found that organisational interventions lead to improvements in teacher wellbeing and retention rates, although most of the trials in this review were affected by methodological shortcomings. Because of the paucity of such intervention studies, and the heterogeneous nature of the interventions in the four included studies in this review, implications for practice were found to be very limited. Further well-designed research in the development and testing of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing was recommended as a result, while outlining the requirements for a rigorous study in this area. An intervention development endeavour was subsequently undertaken, which pointed to participatory approaches. An intervention entitled Change Laboratory was identified due to its relatively robust theoretical and methodological basis. An exploratory pilot trial of the participatory organisational change intervention was conducted in four secondary schools in the UK, with 2 schools as intervention and 2 schools as control. Qualitative findings, process evaluation, and quantitative findings of the study are subsequently presented. The analysis focuses on the actions that teachers and managers collaboratively designed in the intervention schools, in order to address organisational and systemic factors generating stress. The common theme in the output of both Change Laboratory cases was their focus on the object of decision-making, and leading to an expansive learning in terms of a reconceptualization of decision-making within their respective organisations. The central contradiction was found to be between the macro perspective and priorities and agendas of the senior leadership that shape policies and processes, and the micro perspective of those having to enact and comply with the decisions made by senior leaders. The intervention outputs can be seen as mediators synthesized from this contradiction. Following the intervention impact longitudinally demonstrated a developing and evolving reconceptualization of pedagogy, which is more central to teachers' object of activity and their professional identity. The analysis demonstrates that professional identity may be a crucial dimension of wellbeing at work in tandem with work-related stress theories. The findings suggest that the Change Laboratory group initially embarked on a re-conceptualisation of decision-making, and utilised the new systems and way of working as a means to address teaching and learning which is more central to their professional identity and their object of activity. The quantitative findings suggests an indication of beneficial effects of the intervention at end-of-intervention point, also considering the limitations. The process evaluation focuses on delineating the different facets of the intervention and assuring intervention integrity, assessing feasibility and acceptability, and generating insights for scaling-up of the intervention. An implementation framework developed in this study was found to be of value in the endeavour to adopt, adapt, and develop process-oriented structural interventions.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T15:13:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Vania Maria de Araujo Passos.pdf: 1093792 bytes, checksum: 6fa24ca6c61090cc6772cfaf69e8d94c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-07-25 / Taking part of the research line Formation and Professionalization of teachers and Educational Practices, this study presents the discussion about the job of teacher in courses of Pedagogy as one of the elements which involve the complexity of professionalization. It is, however, a discussion that send us to the relationship of meanings of professionals in situation of formation (subject) and the job (object), leading us to reflect about thinking and acting, both in an individual and collective form in order to understand the educational and forming process of teachers job in the university. So, we presented as our general goal: understand how and under which aspects has been developed the knowledge of teachers job in the courses of Pedagogy of the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT). We adopted the way of building the dialogue between knowledges, data and analyses of teachers job, under materialistic historic and dialectic view, as a method of investigation and analysis. In order to do it, however, we used the study of case as the form of pursuing the object of study. The collection of data was based in a bibliographic revision, in a documental analysis and in an application of questionnaires to professors and students of the courses of Pedagogy. According to the analyzed data, despite the coexistence of different projects in development in UFT, the postures of professors and students, referring to a conception of the job did not result from the adherence to an specific Pedagogic Project of Course, but they have been expressed in dependence of personal and individual constructions and of the experience of professors in higher education about teachers job. So, the relation between subject and object and the comprehension of teachers job were not established in rigid relationships, but they are present in the ambiguity, in the contradiction and in the constant remaking of knowledge, although they don t reach whatever has been proposed by the Pedagogic Project of the course. The dynamics of the educational reality is not compatible to conformism or naturalization of facts and theories an lead us to think about the movement and of the reflection about interests and needs of facing the educational phenomena lived in an educational institution, as general and professional culture professors. Beyond contents identified in speeches and practices carried out in the courses of Pedagogy, the contribution of this work is to confirm the coexistence of ambiguities and uncertainties in teachers job, inside their early formation. / Integrante da Linha de pesquisa: Formação, Profissionalização Docente e Práticas Educativas, o presente trabalho apresenta a discussão da profissão docente, em Cursos de Pedagogia, como um dos elementos que envolvem a complexidade da profissionalização. Entretanto, é uma discussão que nos remete à relação de significados entre o profissional em formação (sujeito) e a profissão docente (objeto), levando-nos a refletir sobre o pensar e o agir, tanto de forma individual como coletiva, para compreender o processo educativo e formativo da docência na universidade. Neste sentido, apresentamos por objetivo geral: compreender como e sob quais aspectos o conhecimento da profissão docente nos Cursos de Pedagogia da Universidade Federal do Tocantins (UFT), tem sido desenvolvido. Adotamos o caminho para construir o diálogo entre conhecimentos, dados e análise da profissão docente a partir da perspectiva materialista histórica dialética, como método de investigação e de análise e valemo-nos do Estudo de Caso, para aproximação do objeto de estudo. A coleta de dados foi fundamentada em revisão bibliográfica, análise documental e aplicação de questionário aos docentes formadores e discentes dos cursos de Pedagogia. Conforme os dados analisados, apesar da coexistência de projetos distintos em desenvolvimento na UFT, os posicionamentos dos discentes e docentes, referentes à uma concepção da profissão, não resultaram da adesão a um Projeto Pedagógico de Curso específico, mas foram expressos em função das construções pessoais e individuais e da experiência dos docentes, na educação superior, acerca da profissão docente. Neste sentido, a relação entre o sujeito e o objeto e a compreensão da profissão docente não são estabelecidas em relações rígidas, mas estão presentes na ambiguidade, na contradição e na constante reelaboração do conhecimento, ainda que não se alcance o que foi proposto pelo Projeto Pedagógico do Curso. A dinâmica da realidade educativa não é compatível com o conformismo ou naturalização de fatos e de teorias, e nos incita a pensar o movimento do pensamento e da reflexão acerca das necessidades e interesses de enfrentar o fenômeno educativo vivenciado na instituição educativa, como cultura geral e profissional para o docente. Para além do conteúdo identificado nos discursos e práticas realizadas nos Cursos de Pedagogia da UFT, a contribuição deste trabalho se dá no sentido de confirmar a coexistência das ambigüidades e incertezas frente à profissão docente, no interior da formação inicial.

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions held by junior high school principals, their spouses, and school counselors regarding occupational stressors of the junior high school principals in the State of Texas. The occupational stressors center around five areas of concern: (1) administrative constraints, (2) administrative responsibilities, (3) interpersonal relations, (4) intrapersonal conflicts, and (5) role expectations. A randomly selected sample of 300 junior high school principals were sent questionnaires for themselves, their spouses, and their school counselors. Descriptive statistical methods were employed to calculate means and standard deviations of the principals', spouses', and counselors' perceptions of the occupational stressors of the principals. T-test and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the inhibitors affecting classroom teaching by surveying the perceptions of secondary teachers. This purpose was based on the growing crisis of "teacher burnout" which was thoroughly documented. Since it appears that burnout most often affects those teachers who work in conventional classrooms, characteristics of teaching effectiveness within these classrooms were the basis for inhibitor comparison. Seven characteristics were produced by a crosstabulation of studies on effective teaching spanning the last fifty years. The inhibitor choices presented with these seven characteristics were extracted from an extensive list produced by the literature and classified under six areas of origin. The characteristics and inhibitors ultimately selected were surveyed among teachers in a large Southwest metropolitan area.

This study focuses on the lack of support services necessary to implement Environmental Education, in the Nsami Circuit, Limpopo Province. The aims of the study were, firstly, to investigate how teacher’s needs are neglected and how retraining of teachers is being relegated. Secondly, if Environmental Education were introduced in schools, to investigate the possibilities that it would create with regards to an awareness of local environmental issues. Thirdly, when projects are initiated at schools, to investigate the benefits to both teachers and learners. Lastly, to investigate the assumption that for any implementation of Environmental Education to be effective, teachers’ needs should taken care of, in terms of training through workshops as a way of helping them to adapt accordingly. An extensive literature review was undertaken to examine core areas of Environmental Education and the current curricula to establish where the emphasis of Environmental Education lay. The theoretical framework constructed from the review concluded with the premise that the issue of Environmental Education is of immense importance as reported in the NEEP-GET Project. The study, to investigate the essence and intensity of frustrations teachers’ experience in offering Environmental Education in South African schools, recommends that the Department of Education should treat the issue of training teachers through in-service training, seminars, workshops and other means a priority if effective and successful teaching and learning of Environmental Education is to be experienced. / Prof. H. G. van Rooyen

‘n Algemene inleiding en motivering vir die studie, asook die faktore wat onder¬wysermoraal belemmer word in Hoofstuk Een aangestip. ‘n Algemene agtergrond tot onderwysermoraal word gegee. ‘n Verslag oor die transformasie van die Suid-Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel en die afname in onderwysermoraal in Suid-Afrika en oorsee word in hierdie hoofstuk gereflekteer. Die navorsingspro¬bleem en doel¬stellings word geformuleer en die navorsingsmetodologie bespreek. Die fokus van die navorsing is duidelik afgebaken. Hierdie hoofstuk word afgesluit deur konsep¬te wat met die navorsingsonderwerp verband hou, te verhelder en die hoofstuk indeling te bespreek. Hoofstuk Twee is ‘n literatuuroorsig waarin gepoog word om die essensie van onderwysermoraal vas te stel. Faktore wat ‘n bydrae tot onderwysermoraal maak, naamlik die samelewing, politiek, media en onderwysveranderings, en die rol wat deur onderwysbestuurders gespeel word in die aanspreek van onderwysermoraal word bespreek, asook die implikasie hiervan vir die praktyk. Hoofstuk Drie gee ‘n oorsig oor die navorsingsmetodologie waardeur data inge¬samel is. Daar is ‘n beskrywing van die aard en doel van kwantitatiewe navorsing, gevolg deur ‘n bespreking van die verhouding tussen die navorser en die onderwerp. Die gestruktureerde vraelys wat gebruik is om data in te samel, word bespreek. Die data is onderwerp aan die Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin-meting om te bepaal of die steekproef voldoende was. Verder is 37 items deur middel van twee opeen¬volgende faktor-analitiese prosedures gereduseer tot twee faktore. Hierdie twee fakatore is genoem “sosio-politieke aspekte wat onderwysermoraal belem¬mer” en “skoolgebaseerde aspekte wat onderwysermoraal belemmer”. Items wat met elkeen van die faktore verband hou, word getabelleer, in rangorde gerangskik en bespreek. Die empiriese ondersoek word ook bespreek. Dit sluit ‘n bespreking van die steekproef, biografiese besonderhede en die terugstuur van die vraelys in. Hoofstuk Vier voorsien ‘n ontleding en interpretasie van die empiriese data. Die geldigheid en betroubaarheid van die gestruktureerde vraelys as navorsings¬instrument word kortliks bespreek. Hipoteses word geformuleer. ‘n Vergelyking van twee onafhanklike groepe en drie of meer onafhanklike groepe word gedoen. Die statistiese beduidenheid van verskille tussen alle onafhanklike groepe word in tabelvorm weergegee en daarna bespreek ten opsigte van die twee faktore by onderwysermoraal betrokke. Levene se toets vir die gelykheid van afwykings word gebruik om die gemiddelde tellings van die twee faktore ten opsigte van onderwysermoraal te vergelyk. Die faktor-gemiddelde tellings van die verskeie onaf¬hanklike groepe word in tabelle gegee en die ANOVA vir die ontleding van afwykings bereken en kortliks bespreek. Hoofstuk Vyf gee ‘n oorsig oor die navorsing. Belangrike bevindings uit die literatuuroorsig en die empiriese navorsing word bespreek. Aanbevelings word op grond van die literatuur- en empiriese bevindings gemaak vir die verbetering van onderwysermoraal. / Prof. B.R. Grobler

Since the first National Curriculum Statement matriculation results for 2008, there has been an outcry that rural secondary schools in KwaZulu Natal are lagging behind in terms of pass rate compared to urban and former Model C secondary schools. There are various contributory factors that are impacting on poor learners’ performance in rural schools. This study was specifically conducted in rural secondary schools of KwaZulu Natal. The reason was that there is few research conducted in rural schools, particularly with regard to teacher job satisfaction and professional development. There is therefore a belief that satisfied teachers produce good performance in their schools. Furthermore, it is also believed that satisfied and adequately developed teachers are the key to successful implementation of the grades 10-12 National Curriculum Statement. The study was therefore conducted to investigate rural secondary school teachers’ experiences of job satisfaction and their expectations of support to develop their competencies as curriculum workers. The research problem was investigated through the mixed methods research. The use of mixed methods research was to ensure that reliability and validity are addressed. The concurrent strategy of mixed methods research was employed. In concurrent mixed research methods, data is collected during the same phase. Data was collected from rural secondary schools of Umzinyathi, Ilembe and Empangeni districts in KwaZulu Natal. There were fifty rural secondary schools which participated in the study. Four hundred rural secondary school teachers completed survey questionnaires. Eighteen rural secondary school teachers participated in individual interviews. Only nine rural secondary schools were involved in observation and interviews. Research findings show that poverty was one of the major contributory factors that led to poor performance of rural secondary schools. Poverty and lack of adequate professional development programmes in rural secondary schools have negative impact in terms of teachers’ job satisfaction. Learners’ poor command of English in rural secondary schools contributed to their poor academic performance. Lack of support services, bad condition of roads and, long distances travelled by both learners and teachers contributed to teachers’ job dissatisfaction and learners’ poor performance. Rural secondary school learners were demotivated about learning, since they lacked role models in their communities. Rural secondary school learners were also undisciplined. They bunked classes. They carried weapons to schools. Rural secondary school learners also helped criminals to steal and vandalize school property. They smoked dagga inside the school premises. Moreover, research findings indicate that rural secondary school teachers were not involved in school decision-making processes. School management teams were the only structure making school decisions. Growth opportunities for teachers were not fairly provided to them by their principals. Schools governing body chairpersons and principals were abusing the teacher promotion process since they were biased. They only promoted their friends and relatives and sometimes they were bribed by candidates. The latter findings contributed to teachers’ job dissatisfaction. Further findings indicate that there were teachers who were teaching subjects for which they were not qualified. Some heads of department were supervising subject streams that were outside of their specialization since the school post-provisioning norms (PPN) was small. Rural secondary school principals possessed inadequate grades 10-12 National Curriculum Statement expertise. Integrated Quality Management Systems was unable to develop teachers for effective grades 10-12 National Curriculum Statement implementation since it was not implemented accordingly in rural secondary schools. Clusters were effective strategies to develop teachers in rural schools although geographical isolation of school was their main challenge. The recommendations of this study are that RSSs must be fully supported by the KwaZulu Natal Department of Education. All roads to schools must be repaired in time. Decent teacher accommodation must be built inside schools with security guards to look after teachers’ safety and their property when they are away. Recreation venues/centres must be established in rural areas to relieve and address teachers’ stress and boredom. The KwaZulu Natal Department of Education must ensure that all schools have libraries, laboratories and computer classes. The Department of Education must also fully recognize postgraduate qualifications such as honours, master’s and doctoral degrees to retain highly qualified teachers in rural secondary schools. Teachers must be promoted on merit rather than on friendship or relationship.