Effects of a school change project on teachers' satisfaction with their work and their perceptions of teaching difficulties

This study assessed teachers' satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their work, as well as their perceptions of the source of difficulties in teaching, as a function of their participation in an in-service instructional change project. A two-part questionnaire was administered to the teachers in the nine participating junior high schools both prior to the start of the project (n = 393) and 2 1/2 years later (n = 313). The first part obtained teachers' statements regarding their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their work, while the second part asked about the sources of their difficulties in teaching heterogeneous classrooms. Analysis of the statements from part 1 revealed that teachers' satisfaction remained stable over the period of the study while their statements of dissatisfaction, referring primarily from their inability to reach their students and motivate them, declined significantly from the pretest to the post-test. The second part of the questionnaire found that teachers consider their pupils to constitute the main source of their difficulties in teaching rather than their training as teachers or the availability of the proper conditions. This factor declined considerably in salience over the period of the study, but nevertheless remained the most note-worthy source of difficulty, in the perception of these teachers. Results also reveal distinct differences between schools in teachers expression of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with their work. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.