Science teachers: Factors that affect job satisfaction

Abstract

The objective of the study was to investigate which factors affect the job satisfaction of middle- and high-school science teachers. The variables were job satisfaction and demographics. A correlation between each of the variables was investigated to determine if a relationship existed with science teachers and their overall job satisfaction. The job satisfaction variables were pay, promotion, supervision, contingent rewards, operating conditions, coworkers, nature of work, communication, and fringe benefits. While the demographic variables were age, gender, level of education, years of teaching science, and total years of teaching experience. A survey was sent to 436 middle- and high-school science teachers. The survey included Paul Spector’s Job Satisfaction Survey (1994) and demographic data questions. A total of 137 surveys were completed and analyzed by a series of statistical analysis tests on the variables. These tests included descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, standard deviations, Pearson’s correlation, Spearman’s Rho, and Chi-Square tests. The research questions along with their corresponding hypotheses were then compared and analyzed with the test results. The study’s analysis results concluded that a moderate positive relationship exists between a science teacher’s job satisfaction and the job satisfaction variables of pay, supervision, contingent rewards, operating conditions, coworkers, and communication, while a low positive relationship exists with the job satisfaction variable of fringe benefits. Additionally, a relationship was found to exist between a science teacher’s job satisfaction and the demographic variables of age, years of teaching science, and total years of teaching experience. No relationship was found to exist between a science teacher’s job satisfaction and the job satisfaction variables of promotion and nature of work as well as the demographic variables of gender and level of education. The study’s findings would be beneficial to schools and school systems to help in the hiring and retention of qualified science teachers as it identifies which factors need to be explored in order to help improve science teachers’ job satisfaction.