Motivation and Job Satisfaction of Elementary School Teachers of Chaiyi County in Taiwan

• Main Authors: LENGI JAMES, 詹姆士
• Other Authors: WANG, WEI-NI
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ct9cm2

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 教育領導與管理發展國際碩士學位學程 === 105 === Job satisfaction, motivation and dissatisfaction influence work performance among professionals. This is because the production of any formal organization, such as educational institutions depends mainly on how well the teachers perform their tasks, which in turn is dependent upon the level of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction among the teachers. Teachers are important in the education sector as they facilitate the learning process by conveying relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes to the learners. For this important role that they play, factors that influence their level of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in their teaching career should be established. This is essentially important for teachers of rural schools where marginal attention were often given and where quality of education as marked by student performance were only average compared to urban schools. This study investigates factors that motivates and lead to job satisfaction of elementary school teachers of Chiayi County in Taiwan. The research data was gathered using qualitative methods. Specifically, interviews with eight teachers were conducted using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. The research fieldwork was carried out in Chiayi County, Taiwan in April 2017. The study revealed that such situation exists in the schools regardless of either rural or urban because both motivating and maintenance factors were both present at one time. Both motivating factors and maintenance complement each other thus necessitate motivation to flourish. Secondly, it was found that the teacher’s psychological drive such as their passion for the profession grew over the very long years they have been teaching. In other words salary as an example of hygiene factor plays a vital role for teachers to gain positive psychological affection for the job. The third finding generally asserts that the level of motivation and job satisfaction is pretty high among the participants in the study because school plans and policy relating to fostering teachers profession was evident as reflected in the data. And fourthly, dissatisfaction factors affecting teachers in their job noted in this study namely (1) school situational factors relating to issues of student discipline, student-teacher ratio and teacher contact hours (2) teacher contextual issues implying what teachers as professional ought to do in order to gain comfort from the job and (3) issues relating to students, parents and school administration including higher authority such as county education department of the ministry of education or in short important education stakeholders. The study concludes by providing measures that authorities need to take into consideration in order to foster rural elementary teacher motivation and job satisfaction.