Abstract:
The main purpose of this paper is to describe the level of job
satisfaction and to identify the factors that affect the job satisfaction of
secondary school teachers in Kandy district. The theoretical frame work used
in this study was the “Three Domain Model” which was created by Dinham
and Scott, (2000) by revising the Herzberg’s two-factor theory. The study
used a ‘mixed’ method design that included a questionnaire survey and a
multiple case study. A questionnaire created for the “Teacher 2000 project”
by Dinham and Scott, (1998) was adapted in this study to determine the level
of job satisfaction and to identify the factors affecting it the sample for the
study consisted of 507 secondary school teachers in Kandy district. Present
paper discussed only the results of the quantitative phase. It was revealed
that the overall job satisfaction of secondary school teachers were low
(34.2%). Moreover, the respondent’s initial satisfaction with teaching had
changed towards dissatisfaction over time. The application of factor analysis
resulted in the extraction of eight factors which fell into all three domains
(Dinham and Scott, 2000). The corebusiness of teaching factors included:
student achievement, professional self growth, collegial support. The school
level factors included: school leadership, climate, decision making and the
system level/societal factors included, merit promotion, school reputation,
status and image of teachers, workload and the impact of educational
reforms. Respondents were most satisfied with corebusiness of teaching
factors except with the professional self development factor. They were least
satisfied as a whole with System level/Societal factors, School level factor and
the opportunities for the professional self development. School level factors
showed the most variation, reflecting the influence of the leadership style of
the principal. The findings suggest that the actions to improve teacher
satisfaction are most likely to be effective at the school level. The
confirmatory factor analysis showed that the instrument could explain 61%
of the total variance. Therefore, we have decided to conduct case studies
(second phase) on selected teachers, to identify further factors which have
not included in the Three Domain Model, that affect teacher job satisfaction.
