Poster #32 - Exploring Teacher Job Satisfaction in Head Start: Associations with Workplace Climate and Well-Being Resources

• In Event: Poster Session 10

Abstract

Understanding the relationships between teachers’ job attitudes and the nature of the work environment may facilitate effective recruitment and retention of teachers. However, only a few studies examined how Head Start (HS) workplace climate relates to teachers’ job satisfaction (Jeon & Wells, 2018). Additionally, more evidence is needed to understand the current availability of well-being resources for teachers and how it is associated with ECE teacher job satisfaction. This study examines to what extent the HS work environment (i.e., availability of well-being resources, organizational climate, and diversity climate) is associated with teachers’ job satisfaction. Further, what kinds of well-being resources teachers have and what they most need are investigated.

We collected data via survey from 166 HS teachers before the pandemic in 2020. The majority of our participants were female and Black/African-American. Seven items were used to measure teachers’ job satisfaction, where five items were adopted from Work Attitudes Questionnaire developed by Bloom (1988), and two items were developed by Buettner et al. (2016). The Early Childhood Work Environment Survey (20 items) was used to measure teachers’ perception of organizational climate (Bloom, 1988). A four-item scale developed by McKay and Avery (2015) was used to measure teachers’ perceptions of the diversity climate. In terms of well-being resources, participants responded to the question, “Does your center provide any resources to promote teachers’ well-being?” Additionally, participants responded to the top three well-being resources they need among 18 resources.

We examined the descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among key variables in Stata 16.1. A two-level multilevel analysis (teachers within programs) was developed to analyze the association between the work environment and teachers’ job satisfaction. We controlled for teachers’ work experience, current position, salary, races/ethnicity, and educational attainment. Full information maximum likelihood estimation was used to handle the missing data (Arbuckle, 1996).

Teachers’ demographic characteristics are presented in Table 1. The Pearson correlation analysis demonstrates the positive correlations between the key variables. As shown in Table 1, participants most frequently mentioned the “soul day” and “Parents As Teacher meetings” as existing well-being resources. Regarding the additional support teachers need, the most frequent responses included higher wages, less paperwork, and more support for managing child behavioral challenges or special needs. Table 2 shows that organizational climate and diversity climate were positively associated with teachers’ job satisfaction. However, whether the center provided well-being resources was not significantly associated with teachers’ job satisfaction.

The findings indicate that teachers were more satisfied when they perceived a diversity-friendly work environment. HS has more children and teachers from diverse backgrounds than other ECE settings (ACF, 2020). Teachers may better support children from diverse backgrounds when they are convinced that the program leaders are committed to supporting diversity. Additionally, more efforts are needed to build an emotional and professional supportive organizational climate, such as supportive supervisors and a fair reward system. Furthermore, the most-needed well-being resources were not matched with the existing resources. It is necessary to pay attention to what teachers actually need to improve.

Authors

• Xiangyu Zhao, Johns Hopkins University
  Presenting Author

• Lieny Jeon, University of Virginia - Charlottesville