Low Job Satisfaction as A Lived Experience for Experienced Middle School Teachers in Rural Tennessee: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of rural experienced middle school teachers in Tennessee with low job satisfaction. Urie Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory (EST) was the theoretical framework guiding this study. EST is composed of five environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. This study included participation from 10 experienced teachers with 5 or more years of teaching experience who demonstrated low job satisfaction in Tennessee according to the results of a questionnaire given prior to conducting the study. The central research question guiding this study was, what are experienced middle school teachers' perceptions of job satisfaction as a lived experience in rural Tennessee? The four sub questions were designed to investigate how teacher workload, collegial experience, administrative leadership and support, and student behavior impact job satisfaction. Data for this study were collected through individual interviews, an online focus group interview, and a reflective journal, and produced four major themes: (a) unrealistic expectations, (b) middle school environment, (c) students, and (d) middle school teacher challenges. The findings revealed participants' perceived administrators and policy makers had unrealistic expectations on their teachers due to being disconnected from their teachers. The findings also indicated participants' environment at the middle school level was challenging as they dealt with the basic needs of students before educating them. Participants expressed that collegial support was vital to the profession and that they loved teaching but had negative perceptions about the challenges they often encounter on the job.

Satisfacción Laboral del Profesorado de Educación Infantil, Primaria, Secundaria y Formación Profesional con las Instalaciones y Recursos del Centro, en Función de Variables Sociodemográficas y de Cargos de Responsabilidad

“…Por otro lado, la investigación se centra en otros importantes aspectos relacionados con la satisfacción laboral del profesorado que convendría analizar en el caso del sistemas educativo de España como son su relación con el liderazgo (Geraldine, 2020;Hinson, 2018;Liu y Whatson, 2020), el apoyo organizacional y del director (Abt, 2019;Brezicha et al, 2020; S. K. Edinger y M. J. Edinger, 2018;Hinson, 2018), la percepción de amistad en el trabajo (Yavuzkurt y Kiral, 2020), los procesos de evaluación del profesorado (Falcón, 2020), la autonomía y autoeficacia (Fradkin-Hayslip, 2021;Katsantonis, 2020), la zona rural o no en la que está ubicado el centro educativo (Hawes y Nelson (2021). El escaso reconocimiento y respeto profesional que recibe el profesorado es otra cuestión de importancia en relación con su satisfacción docente (Pittman, 2020;Raymond, 2018).…”

“…Por otro lado, convendría analizar en futuros trabajos, en relación con la satisfacción laboral del profesorado del sistema educativo español, aspectos de gran interés como son el abandono profesional, estrés, compromiso con los objetivos educativos y rendimiento académico de los estudiantes (Ainley y Carstens, 2018); el liderazgo (Geraldine, 2020;Hinson, 2018;Liu y Whatson, 2020); apoyo organizacional y del director (Abt, 2019;Brezicha et al, 2020; S. K. Edinger y M. J. Edinger, 2018;Hinson, 2018); percepción de amistad en el trabajo (Yavuzkurt y Kiral, 2020); procesos de evaluación del profesorado (Falcón, 2020); autonomía y autoeficacia (Fradkin-Hayslip, 2021;Katsantonis, 2020); zona rural o no en la que está ubicado el centro educativo (Hawes y Nelson (2021); y la satisfacción según la autonomía en la que el profesorado desarrolla su función docente (González-Álvarez, 2022).…”

The Roles of Organizational Commitment, Emotional Intelligence, and Job Satisfaction for Improving Employee Performance at a Construction Company

“…In this regard, it is necessary for the company to provide employees with professional support to achieve the expected performance. Employees with low job satisfaction will possibly find it difficult to meet the performance target set by the organization as it may hampers their working process (Hawes & Nelson, 2021). The company needs to consider financial and nonfinancial factors as a predictor of job satisfaction.…”