Occupational Fit Across the Teaching Career: The Impact of Work Overload, Job, and Personal Resources

• In Event: Educator Stress, Well-Being, and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

In order to retain teachers in their occupation it is paramount to learn more about what “keeps teachers going” and to understand the forces that keep them in their occupation. Person-job fit (PJ-fit) as the relationship between a person’s characteristics and those of the job have strong correlations with intent to quit. The submitted paper examines the antecedents of PJ-fit, specifically work overload, task variety, feedback and self-efficacy for early-, mid- and late-career teachers. Based on a sample of K-12 teachers in Switzerland (N=540), we found significant differences among the groups in PJ-fit with work overload and self-efficacy as main predictors. Conditional effects were identified, suggesting that job resources have differential effects over the career as a function of self-efficacy.

Author

• Anita Sandmeier, Schwyz University of Teacher Education