Relationship between Turkish Elementary Science Teachers’ Occupational Well-Being and Some Contextual and Demographic Characteristics: A Multivariate Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to determine the Turkish elementary science teachers’ occupational well-being profile and second, to investigate the relation of science teachers’ occupational well-being to some contextual and demographic characteristics. The contextual variables included class size, years of teaching experience and weekly course hours, while demographic characteristics included gender, graduated faculty, marital status, and having children. Moreover, occupational well-being was examined in terms of job satisfaction and burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment). 376 elementary science teachers that were randomly selected across the Turkey participated in the study. Descriptive statistics and canonical correlation analysis were utilized to analyze the data. Results showed that Turkish elementary science teachers experience low level of Emotional exhaustion and high level of personal accomplishment and job satisfaction. Additionally, it was found that as class size and weekly course hour increase, elementary science teachers tend to experience more emotional exhaustion but less job satisfaction. Teachers having children appeared to experience more emotional exhaustion but less job satisfaction. Moreover, a positive relationship was found between teaching experience and occupational well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and personal accomplishment). Female teachers appeared to experience more personal accomplishment and job satisfaction than male teachers. Similarly, teachers graduated from faculties of arts and sciences were found to have higher level of personal accomplishment and job satisfaction than teachers graduated from educational faculties.