Exploring the influence of professional interactions within school environments on levels of teacher job satisfaction : a comparative study across different school types.
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2018
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Abstract
Since the end of apartheid school education in South Africa has been constantly reviewed, undergone transformation and critiqued with a view to influencing school reforms that would produce a quality driven school education system. Given the changes of the education system since the advent of democracy, teachers have been subject to numerous demands in terms of curricula, assessments, policies, work contexts, the types of management and peer relationships, and the way they need to view such changes. All of these impinge upon the level of job satisfaction teachers feel, which influence motivation to teach and ultimately filter to the quality of teaching and learning that occurs in the classroom.
This study, located within the Kranskloof ward of the Pinetown district, Durban, South Africa, focused on teacher job satisfaction across public, private and Ex-Model C schools, sought to answer the following research questions: 1) What are the current levels of teacher job satisfaction within each of the different school types and how do these levels differ across school types? 2) What is the nature and frequency of professionnal interactions occurring within each of the different school types? 3) How do these professional interactions in the different school types influence levels of teacher job satisfaction? and 4) Why do these professional interactions in the different school types influence teacher job satisfaction in the way they do? In answering these research questions, this study explored how teachers feel about their role as professionals and how this contribute to their levels of job satisfaction. In the context of this study, professional interactions encompassed the principal’s leadership style, teacher involvement in matters concerning their work and the level of teacher collegiality and collaboration. These three themes focusing on the level of professional interactions between the principal and teachers and between the teachers themselves, contributed to the body of literature on teacher job satisfaction by identifying the school context as a professional field, a concept that will be elaborated on later in the study, and its influence on levels of teacher job satisfaction.
This study was mainly underpinned by the needs-based approach, arising from the seminal theories of Fredrick Herzberg (1966) and Abraham Maslow (1959). According to these theories, the level of job satisfaction is influenced by the extent to which teachers’ needs within the school environment are met.These theories categorize factors influencing teachers’ levels of job satisfaction as being extrinsic and intrinsic and the extent to which these needs are satisfied is measured through the nature and frequency of professional interaction
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activities occurring within the school environment. Whilst acknowledging that these two theories are the dominant theories in this study, other theories were mentioned as a means of supplementing the discussion. These additional theories highlighted the influence of teacher’s needs being satisfied as a factor influencing job satisfaction. These theories included The Discrepancy Theory of Porter and Lawler (1968), the Affect/Expectancy Theory of Locke (1976) which explained job satisfaction as the difference between expectation and outcome and The Three Factor Theory of David Sirota (2005) which highlighted the significance of inter-personal relationships as a factor within school environments influencing job satisfaction. A mixed method sequential explanatory design was used and involved a first phase quantitative survey of a total of fifty level one teacher participants from the three different school types, and a second phase of semi-structured interviews with nine teachers, three from each school type.
The survey research aimed to provide information on the current status of teachers’ job satisfaction levels and to identify the nature and frequency of professional interaction activities occurring within the different school environments and to identify possible relationships between aspects of professional interactions and levels of teacher job satisfaction, whilst the qualitative data sought to explain the relationships between these variables.
The overall finding of this study showed that both extrinsic factors which shape the school context and identity through professional interactions (principal’s leadership style, teacher involvement and teacher collegiality and collaboration), and intrinsic factors (achievement and recognition, teacher involvement and engagement in matters concerning their work, and professional advancement and growth) influenced levels of teacher job satisfaction. The main concepts dealing with professional interactions as identified in the literature correlate with the constructs of the theoretical framework underpinning this study.
A significant finding of this study was that job satisfaction amongst teachers ranked according to the school type in which they taught. Significant relationships between professional interactions and levels of teacher job satisfaction existed across all school types, but individual schools presented varying results, showing that the school context does influence levels of teacher job satisfaction.
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Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that school management and education policymakers pay attention to the importance of school contexts, through its professional interactions, in influencing levels of job satisfaction of teachers.
Description
The degree of doctor of education ,university of KwaZulu, Natal Edgewood campus,2018