Title

The relationship of novice Turkish early childhood education teachers' professional needs, experiences, efficacy beliefs, school climate for promoting early childhood learning, and job satisfaction

Date of Award

2005

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Child and Family Studies

Advisor(s)

Alice Sterling Honig

Keywords

Turkish, Early childhood, Professional needs, Efficacy beliefs, School climate, Job satisfaction

Subject Categories

Education | Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that may be linked to novice early childhood education (ECE) teachers' job satisfaction in 15 randomly selected provinces, 44 counties and 80 early childhood education settings in Turkey. To gain a more in depth understanding of novice teachers' job satisfaction, this study focused on novice teachers' needs, experiences, support mechanisms, efficacy and work related factors such as collegial relationships, student behaviors and administrative support.

Participant teachers complained about not having enough time, doing other bureaucratic work not pertinent to core business of teaching, and not being given opportunities to grow professionally. Teachers also expressed disappointment over not getting adequate mentoring and professional support in the process of adjusting to their profession. Although many novice teachers felt that they were isolated professionally, this was not the case for their social interactions within the school. A majority of novice ECE teachers reported that their schools and colleagues welcomed and extended the needed informal social support to them.

In spite of the inadequacy of effective mentoring and professional support, the majority of Turkish ECE teachers were committed to the field of early childhood education and reported high levels of job satisfaction. In this study, the relationships (relationships with the principal/administration, colleagues, and students) proved to be the most important aspects of and most relevant variables to the concept of teacher job satisfaction. Teacher job satisfaction was more influenced by teachers' relationships with people than it was by their needs, experiences, or efficacy beliefs.

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