Teacher Morale and Job Satisfaction in the Special Education Environment
Loading...
Links to Files
Permanent Link
Collections
Author/Creator
Author/Creator ORCID
Date
2020-07-20
Type of Work
Department
Secondary Special Education
Program
Masters of Education
Citation of Original Publication
Rights
This work may be protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. To obtain information or permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Goucher Special Collections & Archives at 410-337-6347 or email archives@goucher.edu.
Abstract
“Morale and attitude are the fundamentals to success” (Bud Wilkinson, 1916-1994). When you consider morale, some concepts that come to mind are positive culture, collaboration, teamwork, efficiency, balance, progress, respect, training concerns, mentorship, compensation, and improvement. These are all of key importance to increase morale in the workplace. This research was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of morale and the benefits for teachers, students, and the educational workplace when high positive morale and job satisfaction are reached and maintained. The null hypothesis of this action proposed that there is no single contributor to low morale and job dissatisfaction that seems to be more prevalent than others. In addition, this research also examines whether the key contributors to low morale and job dissatisfaction vary depending on demographics, such as number of years of teaching or age of the individual. A statistical analysis was conducted which resulted in identifying Dissatisfaction with Teacher Salary and Lack of Community Support of Education as the two factors that seem to have the greatest negative effect on morale. An analysis of the demographic differences showed there were statistical differences in morale scores, as well. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were limited number of subjects studied which made it challenging to obtain more definitive results.