Aftershocks: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Investigating State Policy's Role in Shaping Teacher Satisfaction and Sense-Making

• In Event: Roundtable Session 41
  In Roundtable Session: Using Mixed Methods Research to Examine Educational Reform and Practices

Abstract

North Carolina’s recent set of policies governing teacher employment and accountability may be powerful enough to alter school-level working conditions and reduce teacher satisfaction. This presentation illustrates an application of mixed methods that causally investigates whether and how these external policy pressures affect teacher satisfaction and explains how teachers make sense of, and respond to, the impacts of this statewide policy shock. The research design identifies the qualitative, interview sample from a state-wide survey allowing for local and statewide levels of analysis. Preliminary findings describe a dip in state-wide satisfaction among teachers between 2012 and 2014 and suggest that teachers across districts are sensitive to state-level changes even as they choose not to dwell on them.

Author

• Rachel Feldman, University of Wisconsin - Madison