Term of Award

Fall 2007

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Education Administration (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Leadership, Technology, and Human Development

Committee Chair

Barbara Mallory

Committee Member 1

Linda M. Arthur

Committee Member 2

Carlton Sapp

Abstract

Research has been conducted to study teacher workplace satisfaction. The following factors were identified as integral to teacher workplace satisfaction: administrative support; student behaviors; workplace atmosphere; autonomy and efficacy. Findings within the extant literature indicated that student achievement is a factor in teachers' satisfaction with their work. Specifically, educators have repeatedly expressed a need to impact student achievement and have noted satisfaction or dissatisfaction in relation to their perception of their influence or lack therefore. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher workplace satisfaction and student achievement with the intent of making recommendations regarding maximization of satisfaction in order to positively impact student achievement. A non-experimental design was used to examine teacher workplace satisfaction and student achievement. The researcher designed a teacher workplace satisfaction survey and distributed it to 1,532 teachers within a large metropolitan school district in Georgia to measure five factors of workplace satisfaction (administrative support, student behaviors, workplace atmosphere, autonomy, and efficacy). Further, student achievement data for each teacher participant was gathered. A mean scale score of student achievement scores for the students assigned to each teacher was calculated and matched with the corresponding teacher's satisfaction rating. An independent t-test was conducted to determine whether or not teacher workplace satisfaction and student achievement had statistically significant different mean values. In order to discern the relationship between teacher workplace satisfaction and student achievement, the five factors (administrative support, student behaviors, workplace atmosphere, autonomy, and efficacy) that contribute to the dependent variable, student achievement, were held constant to estimate the independent contribution of each to the variation in student achievement. Through a multiple regression analysis, the findings of this study reaffirmed the correlation between satisfaction and student achievement, but they did not however, provide any additional insight for development of a predictive model because teacher satisfaction is a complex phenomenon made up of several factors that individually cannot account for improved student achievement. Thus, how best to maximize workplace satisfaction as a vehicle to improving student achievement remains unknown.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

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