This thesis is based on the research that explores the workload of elementary school teachers and its effects on the teaching professionalism.
To attain this goal the following main research questions were selected for further analysis.
1) What is t...
This thesis is based on the research that explores the workload of elementary school teachers and its effects on the teaching professionalism.
To attain this goal the following main research questions were selected for further analysis.
1) What is the difference in the perception of workload between elementary school teachers in terms of their background variable(gender, years of experience, academic ability, position, class teacher, number of students)?
2) What is the difference in the perception of teaching professionalism between elementary school teachers in terms of their background variable(gender, years of experience, academic ability, position, class teacher, number of students)?
3) What effects does the recognized workload of elementary school teachers have on their teaching professionalism?
To answer these questions, quantitative research has been conducted by referring to documents and carrying out a survey.
To better understand the background variables like gender, career, level of education, position, age, class teacher, number of students and etc, of elementary school teachers' personal characteristics, an elementary analysis has been conducted using frequency analysis.
Next, to check the difference between recognition of workload and teaching professionalism, resulting from the background variable a mean average and t/F test was used.
And to find out the interrelation between workload and teaching professionalism, the interrelation of both sub-elements were taken into consideration, by estimating its correlation coefficients.
Next, regression analysis was conducted by considering the sub-elements of teaching professionalism as the dependent variable, while the sub-elements for work burden were considered as the independent variable. For statistical analysis at these details SPSS 18.0 was used.
The analyzed results of this research is summarized under each main research question.
First, the recognition of workload according to background variable is listed below.
The recognized workload was higher in the range of more than 30 number of students per class than the range of 26~29 number of students per class.
Also, in terms of school life guidance, it turned out that female teachers felt more burden than male teachers. The degree of burden experienced by female teachers was dependant on the number of students in the class. More students often resulted in experiences of greater burden.
In terms of training, there was the results indicated that difference between education level of these teachers. College graduates felt more work burden than teachers who had master degrees.
In cases of workload related to position, normal teachers seemed to feel higher levels of burden than chief teachers.
Second, the recognition of teaching professionalism according to the elementary school teacher's background variable is like below.
Results showed that female teachers had higher degree of teaching professionalism in the area of self-improvement than male teachers. The longer of a career they had, the higher teaching professionalism turned out to be in terms of class techniques, class enthusiasm and self-improvement.
In the field of major knowledge and class techniques, teachers who had degrees higher than a bachelor degree were recognized as more significant in their work. In terms of self-improvement, bigger school size and student per class rate gave elementary school teachers more recognition of teaching professionalism.
Third, the interrelation of the sub-elements between workload and teaching professionalism turned out to be relatively low, resulting in correlation coefficients from .119 to .151.
All factors of workload examined that affect teaching professionalism actually seemed to have relatively small effect.
The deducted results from this research is noted below.
The relation between workload and teaching professionalism of elementary school teachers seem to have low relation.
Regardless of the heavy workload, elementary teachers recognized teaching professionalism highly and this points out a remarkable fact.
Although the elementary school teachers feel a heavy burden, they try to overcome it by performing at higher levels of teaching professionalism.
In the long term, however, heavy work burden can affect teachers in areas of teacher satisfaction ; It can result in dissatisfaction with their work and can even impact their overall teaching professionalism.
To overcome this problem, action is required on the parts of both government and teachers. In the initial stages, to reduce the heavy burden teachers experience, the government should listen carefully and address the actual needs of teachers rather than giving out general policies.
It is recommended to take action in reducing the emotional burden of teachers so that they can have confidence and passion in their classes rather than merely reduce the administrative duties to advance class professionalism.
Simultaneously, teachers should do their tasks sincerely and also retain the attitude of trying to advance their teaching professionalism.