Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.31192/np.21.2.3
Work Orientations, Job Meaningfulness, Professional Identity and Preschool Teachers’ Satisfaction
Anka Jurčević Lozančić
orcid.org/0000-0002-7090-6110
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Teacher Education, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The contemporary social context in which the job of an early childhood and care (ECEC) teacher has become increasingly demanding, and at the same time their profession and social status have been marginalized in our society, their job satisfaction and performance emerge as an important area of research. Given that in the Republic of Croatia (as well as worldwide) research on ECEC teachers’ job satisfaction is scarce, and is guided by the assumption that it is significantly related to the quality of their educational work, and thus to the improvement of the development of early childhood and preschool-aged children and their achievements, this paper aims to promote the profession of ECEC teachers. A total of 536 ECEC teachers were included in the research. In order to examine the teachers’ job performance and satisfaction, the following scales were used in the research: Job Orientation Questionnaire, Life Satisfaction Scale, Job Satisfaction Scale, Job Meaningfulness Scale and Professional Identification Scale. For the purposes of this research, simple descriptive statistics were calculated on the scales, the correlation matrix was performed, including relevant sociodemographic variables, and an analysis of variance was performed. The research results showed that ECEC teachers primarily consider their job a vocation and they believe that they contribute to society through their work and professional activities. The same results also indicate that ECEC teachers who work mainly for money perceive work as a necessity, achieve lower results on average on the job and life satisfaction scale, consider their work less meaningful and do not identify with it to a significant extent.
Keywords
early childhood and preschool education; job satisfaction; professional development; social status; teaching profession
Hrčak ID:
306161
URI
Publication date:
17.7.2023.
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