Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2007 / Refer to document

In this dissertation, I used survey response data from 385 science teachers situated in 50 randomly selected Texas high schools to describe the prevalence of high school science teacher participation in professional activities and levels of job satisfaction. Using relative risk statistics, I determined the direction and significance of multiple associative relationships involving teachers’ participation in professional activities, satisfaction with working conditions, and retention state. Finally, I used these results to make specific policy recommendations. Teachers participate in diverse professional activities. Descriptive analyses of responses from teachers revealed higher rates of participation in development activities than in maintenance or management activities. Relative risk statistics exposed several positive and significant associative relationships between participation in specific professional activities (i.e., observation of other science teachers, involvement in a science education study group) and teacher retention. Additionally, results of risk analyses suggest teacher participation in maintenance activities, more than development or management, is associated with teacher retention. Researchers consider job satisfaction an important factor in teacher retention. Descriptive analyses revealed high rates of satisfaction with occupational choice and the interpersonal relationships shared with professional colleagues and administrators. Conversely, teachers expressed low rates of satisfaction with their school’s science laboratory facilities and equipment or support for student involvement in informal science activities. Results of risk analyses exposed no positive associations between job satisfaction and retention for teachers. The interaction between teacher participation in professional activities and satisfaction with occupational choice was also examined. Descriptive analyses of responses from retained teachers (n=291) revealed high rates of participation in development activities in comparison to maintenance or management activities. Results of risk analyses exposed both positive and negative associations between teacher participation in professional activities and satisfaction with occupational choice, suggesting an interactive effect exists between participation in activities and satisfaction with occupational choice on retention. I used results from analyses to make state and school level policy recommendations, which included: (a) development of state standards for classroom equipment and facilities; (b) greater state involvement in defining teacher professional activities; and, (c) increasing school support for teacher participation in maintenance activities.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of the landmark educational reform legislation, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) on four specific areas within the local educational setting: (1) local curriculum decisions (2) teaching decisions as they relate to daily instruction (3) potential narrowing of the curriculum and (4) teacher job satisfaction. All public schools in the United States are now subject to the mandates of NCLB. This legislation marked a profound change in the relationship between the federal government and state and local educational agencies. NCLB represents an expansion of the federal role in education where federal control of education has reached deeper than ever before into the heart of state and local educational operations. As a result, NCLB has direct implications for what takes place educationally in the individual classroom. The local educational setting and the individual classroom is where this study focused its efforts. This study suggests that NCLB has had, and will continue to have, a major impact on curriculum decisions at the local level as well as classroom instructional decisions made either by the teacher or enforced upon the classroom teacher by local administrative or local school district mandates. The study also suggests that this impact will be driven by the requirement that schools achieve a specified rate of progress in the areas of mathematics and reading as measured through the use of standardized tests. Under NCLB a school's performance on state reading and mathematics tests will determine if the school and its district make adequate yearly progress, commonly referred to as AYP. Schools that fail to meet the annual achievement goals are subjected to an escalating series of sanctions. This study sought to determine if curriculum decisions at the district and administrative level have been driven by NCLB and the AYP component. The study sought to determine if curriculum decisions and classroom practices on the part of teachers were influenced by NCLB. Additionally the study sought to determine if NCLB and the AYP component have caused a narrowing of the curriculum and if so, to what extent. Finally, this study sought to determine if NCLB and the AYP component had any impact on teacher job satisfaction as it pertains to classroom instructional decisions and teacher autonomy.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is to determine the effect of a recent substantial salary increase upon job satisfaction and job performance of Texas teachers. A comparison was made between the results of an evaluation of performance and measure of job satisfaction found in the 1973 study by McPherson with the same population in 1975.

This study examined the impact that school leaders have on teacher job satisfaction and student achievement. The threefold purpose of this study was to (1) compare transformational and instructional leadership theories, (2) examine the unique impact that school leaders have on student achievement and teacher job satisfaction after controlling for school context and principal demographics, and (3) find which specific leadership practices are associated with increased student achievement and teacher job satisfaction. Participants were 558 teachers from 37 elementary schools in the Intermountain West. Teachers completed the Teachers' Job Satisfaction Scale (TJSS), and were randomly assigned to complete the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) or the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (PIMRS). Student achievement was measured by the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Criterion Referenced Test (CRT). Multiple regression and hierarchical linear modeling were used to find the relationships between these measurements. Results indicated that instructional leadership explained more of the variance in student achievement and teacher job satisfaction than transformational leadership. Leadership predicted a meaningful but nonsignificant amount of variance in student achievement, and a large significant amount of the variance in teacher job satisfaction. The control variables of school context and principal demographics tended to explain more of the variance in achievement scores, while leadership explained a majority of the variance in teacher job satisfaction. The leadership functions that were associated with increased student achievement were monitor student progress, protect instructional time, provide incentives for teachers, provide incentives for learning, and contingent reward. The leadership functions that were associated with increased teacher job satisfaction were supervise and evaluate instruction, maintain high visibility, provide incentives for teachers, promote professional development, provide incentives for learning, and individualized consideration. The implications of these findings, as well as the limitations of this research, will be discussed.

本研究旨在瞭解當前國民中、小學教師領導以及教師工作滿意度之現況，並探討教師領導與教師工作滿意度間之相關情形。根據文獻探討及相關實證研究所得之結果設計問卷，進行問卷調查，再將所得之數據以描述性統計、獨立樣本t檢定、單因子變異數分析、積差相關以及逐步多元回歸等統計方法進行分析與討論。 本研究以新北市國民中、小學教師為研究對象，編製「教師領導與教師工作滿意度調查問卷」進行調查，有效樣本共計424份。所得結果如下： 一、 新北市國民中、小學教師對教師領導的覺知情形屬中上程度。 二、 新北市國民中、小學教師之工作滿意度屬中上程度。 三、 新北市國民中、小學教師對「教師領導」的覺知情形因背景變項之不同，在部分向度上有顯著差異。 四、 新北市國民中、小學教師之工作滿意度情形因背景變項之不同，在部分向度上有顯著差異。 五、 新北市國民中、小學教師之教師領導情形對教師工作滿意度具預測力，其中又以「行政支持」、「平行領導」、「學習社群」及「決策參與」較具預測力。 最後，根據本研究所得之結果提出建議，作為教育主管機關、學校行政人員以及未來相關研究之參考。 / The purpose of the study is to understand the general situation and correlation of teacher leadership and teacher job satisfaction perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in Taiwan. Descriptive statistics, T-test, ANOVA, product-moment correlation, and stepwise multiple regression analysis were employed to analyze the data gathered by means of Teacher Leadership and Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire generated from related literature review. Teacher Leadership and Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire was utilized to investigate elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City, and 424 effective questionnaires were completed. Major findings are as following: 1. The entire performance of teacher leadership perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City is at middle-high degree. 2. The entire performance of teacher job satisfaction perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City is at middle-high degree. 3. Teacher leadership perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City shows significant difference in some dimensions in certain demographic levels. 4. Teacher job satisfaction perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City shows significant difference in some dimensions in certain demographic levels. 5. Teacher leadership perceived by elementary school and junior high school teachers in New Taipei City is predictive of perceived teacher job satisfaction. Support from administration, parallel leadership, professional learning community, and participative decision making are the most powerful predictors of teacher job satisfaction. Finally, suggestions were madefor education administration, school leaders like principals and researcher interested in further studies to follow.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the direct effects of distributed leadership on teacher professionalism and the mediating effects of collective teacher efficacy, professional learning community, and teacher job satisfaction by using teacher data from the Korea Educational Longitudinal Study (KELS) of 2007, conducted by the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI). After scrutinizing theoretical foundations and reported evidence on the relationships between research factors, the research constructed a structural equation model. The research questions that guided this analysis are as follows: 1) Does the model of this research fit the observed data?; 2) Does distributed leadership practice directly influence teacher professionalism?; and 3) Does distributed leadership practice indirectly influence teacher professionalism mediated by collective teacher efficacy, professional learning community, and teacher job satisfaction? As a result, the initial hypothesized research model shows an inadequate fit to the data. The researcher revised the initial research model by using the results of modification indices provided by the output result of the AMOS program. The results of the study revealed that 1) the research model successfully accounted for the KELS data, 2) distributed leadership negatively influenced teacher professionalism, and 3) distributed leadership indirectly and significantly influenced teacher professionalism, mediated by collective teacher efficacy, professional learning community, and teacher job satisfaction. Additionally, the effects of these mediators also indicated significant relationships between study variables. Public schools cannot achieve their goals and sustain fundamental reform without considering the day-to-day lives of educators, leadership practice, and educators’ workload, and sometimes even re-culturing of schools. School organization should be a place where school members all collaborate with each other to achieve organizational goals and where teachers and students are learning through reciprocal cooperation. When we consider that teacher professionalism can be directly associated with student and parent satisfaction and student achievement, this study contributes to the creation of a model that improves teacher professionalism, and by implication student achievement and satisfaction. / text

This mixed methods study examines how teachers and administrators react when the school is under the stress of an accountability system. In this study, teacher job satisfaction and school climate are measured as these often overlooked variables have a great impact on student academic achievement (Goddard, Sweetland, & Hoy, 2000). Accountability systems such as No Child Left Behind need to be explored for negative unintended consequences such as the lowering of teacher job satisfaction and school climate. Questionnaires, interviews, and observations are used to measure teachers’ job satisfaction and school climate of two high schools that have been on Tennessee’s High Priority List but have not yet experienced restructuring with alternative governance. This study uses sequential intermethod mixing with the qualitative component being the dominant portion. The quantitative data came from Lester’s (1987) TJSQ assessment of teacher job satisfaction and Hoy et al.’s (1991) OCDQ-RS assessment of school climate. In the two high schools, 148 teachers responded to both questionnaires. Qualitative data, in the form of interviews and observations, were obtained to further explore the results of the quantitative portion of the study. The researcher performed interviews with a purposive sampling of 30 teachers who had worked at the schools since placement onto the HPL. Although the two schools were demographically and academically very similar, they had very different levels of job satisfaction and school climate. The teachers at both schools had high confidence in their coworkers and took great pride in the cohesiveness of the faculty. Teachers in School A explained the levels of job satisfaction and school climate have lowered in result of the new principal’s controlling management style and the high pressure environment created through frequent teacher reprimands. The job satisfaction and school climate levels were significantly higher at School B, but teachers complained about non-instructional duties and blamed the school district’s supervisors for extra workload that distracted from their instructional duties.

The study proposed to determine the relationship of the teachers' perception of the organizational climate of the school as measured by the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (Halpin) and leader behavior as measures by the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (Halpin) with teacher job satisfaction as measured by the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of interdisciplinary teams (IDT) upon teacher job satisfaction. Procedure. Two hundred teachers participating on interdisciplinary teams were surveyed for the study, 107 teachers responded. The teachers were from the 115 Foundation and Partnership Middle Schools in the State of California. The instrument used was a portion of the Education in the Middle Grades: A National Survey of Trends and Practices, developed by Epstein and Mac Iver, and additional questions specifically related to teacher job satisfaction. The 11 hypotheses addressed in the study were analyzed by the statistical procedures of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, the t-test, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Findings. There was no significant relationship between teacher job satisfaction and the use of IDT, with six exceptions in the area of teacher collegiality. A positive relationship existed between amount of common planning time and teacher collegiality (p less than $.01). A significant relationship existed between the activity of revising students' schedules and teacher collegiality (p less than $.05). The problems of "not enough planning time," "teachers not sufficiently trained in IDT," and "teachers find it difficult to relate to both subject matter and IDT," were related to teacher collegiality (p less than $.05). The benefit of "use of other team members as a source of social support and understanding" was significantly related to teacher collegiality (p less than $.01). Implications for further study. Replications of this study might be made nationally and a study in which the amount of common planning time will be a minimum of two hours per week. Teacher personality types related to teacher implementation of IDT and perception of job satisfaction might be studied. To determine teachers' perceptions of the factors affecting the successful implementation of IDT, a case study of the implementation of IDT is recommended. A study of middle school students might include information on student learning and student discipline with the use of IDT.