Journal of Education and Psychology

Abstract

This study is to understand junior high school and elementary school teachers’ job satisfaction and to compare it with high level professions’ and other jobs’ job satisfaction. In addition to discussing the differences among them in job characteristics, locus of control, and job satisfaction to display clearly junior high school and elementary school teachers’ specialty, we also try to build a causal model to probe into how independent variables, like jobs, education, and so forth, can affect job satisfaction through intervening variables, such as job characteristics and locus of control.

The main findings are as follows:

Job characteristics and locus of control both notably affect job satisfaction. In job characteristics, the higher the levels of professional knowledge and technique, comfort, moral evaluation, stability, authority, and the less routine there is, the better job satisfaction is. In locus of control, the stronger the belief in effort, and in ability, and the weaker the belief in external control are, the better job satisfaction is, too. In background variables, levels of education and service years have important influence on job satisfaction. The higher the level of education is, the better job satisfaction is. The relation between work years and job satisfaction may exist in an upside-down U that is not linear.

Junior high school and elementary school teachers’ job satisfaction is the best in all jobs. That results not only from the higher level of education of junior high school and elementary school teachers, but also from the teachers’ having advantages in levels of professional knowledge and technique, moral evaluation, stability, and routines, so their job satisfaction is better. However, junior high school and elementary school teachers have no advantages in comfort, authority, belief in effort, belief in ability, and belief in external control.

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