Purpose: This study sought to determine the influential factors that might increase teachers’ job satisfaction levels.
Design/methodology/data/approach: This study used the 2013 Seoul Educational Longitudinal Study (SELS) data to analyze the longitu...
Purpose: This study sought to determine the influential factors that might increase teachers’ job satisfaction levels.
Design/methodology/data/approach: This study used the 2013 Seoul Educational Longitudinal Study (SELS) data to analyze the longitudinal effects of factors at the teacher-individual level and the school-organizational level using a Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM). Factors at the teacher-individual level include demographic and social-psychological factors. Factors at the school-organizational level include ecological-environmental and structural-cultural factors.
Findings/Results: The major findings are as follows: teachers’ job satisfaction levels are different among schools. Among demographic factors, whether or not teachers are in-charge of their classes, as well as whether or not they play a director’s role has an impact on their job satisfaction levels. Among social-psychological factors, factors that increased teachers’ job satisfaction included: organizational culture, their principal’s transformational leadership, and teachers’ awareness of the Seoul municipal government’s educational strategy. On the contrary, factors that decreased teachers’ job satisfaction levels were teaching creativity, a closed school environment, and a principal’s transactional leadership. Among ecological- environmental factors, the number of classes and students helps to explain teachers’ job satisfaction level; teachers with more classes, but less students show higher job satisfaction levels. And finally, there are no factors that have an impact on teachers’ job satisfaction level among the structural-cultural factors at the school-organizational level.
Value: These findings provide suggestions for the development of education policies to improve teacher’s job satisfaction levels.