Effects on teachers' self-efficacy and job satisfaction: Teacher gender, years of experience, and job stress.

TLDR

The authors sought to examine how teachers’ years of experience, gender, teaching level, self‑efficacy domains, job stress types, and job satisfaction interrelate. They analyzed data from 1,430 teachers using factor analysis, item response modeling, systems of equations, and a structural equation model. The analysis revealed that experience had a nonlinear effect on self‑efficacy, female teachers reported higher workload and classroom stress and lower classroom‑management self‑efficacy, higher workload stress correlated with greater classroom‑management self‑efficacy while higher classroom stress reduced self‑efficacy and job satisfaction, teachers of young children exhibited higher classroom‑management and student‑engagement self‑efficacy, and greater self‑efficacy in classroom management or instructional strategies was linked to higher job satisfaction.

Abstract

The authors of this study sought to examine the relationships among teachers' years of experience, teacher characteristics (gender and teaching level), three domains of self-efficacy (instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement), two types of job stress (workload and classroom stress), and job satisfaction with a sample of 1,430 practicing teachers using factor analysis, item response modeling, systems of equations, and a structural equation model. Teachers' years of experience showed nonlinear relationships with all three self-efficacy factors, increasing from early career to mid-career and then falling afterwards. Female teachers had greater workload stress, greater classroom stress from student behaviors, and lower classroom management self-efficacy. Teachers with greater workload stress had greater classroom management self-efficacy, whereas teachers with greater classroom stress had lower self-efficacy and lower job satisfaction. Those teaching young children (in elementary grades and kindergarten) had higher levels of self-efficacy for classroom management and student engagement. Lastly, teachers with greater classroom management self-efficacy or greater instructional strategies self-efficacy had greater job satisfaction.