An Investigation of the Relationships of Teacher Professional Development, Teacher Job Satisfaction, and Teacher Working Conditions

Abstract

Demands to changes of instruction for mathematics classrooms are presented in standards promoted by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Illinois State Board of Education and other government reports creates a demand for teacher professional development to support teachers to adapt to these changes of instruction. The overall purpose of this study investigated characteristics of effective professional development and how those characteristics are associated with teacher job satisfaction and teacher working conditions. With the completion of this dissertation, this study adds to the literature relevant to teacher professional development by demonstrating an association between teacher professional development and teacher working conditions. This non-experimental quantitative study examined 23 lists of characteristics of professional development to provide designers of professional development programs the frequency that specific characteristics were mentioned on the 23 lists. Also, this study administered a Likert scale questionnaire to secondary mathematics teachers to measure the teachers' perception of the three variables: teacher professional development, teacher job satisfaction, and teacher working conditions. The completed questionnaires were used to calculate measures of the three variables and these measures were used to calculate Pearson correlation coefficients. Ultimately, tests of correlations were conducted with the Pearson correlation coefficients to measure the associations between the three variables. Four research questions relating to these associations were created that guided the details of this quantitative study. The results of the data analysis revealed a statistically significant association between teacher professional development and teacher working conditions. Also, the results of a second test of correlation revealed that the association between teacher professional development and teacher job satisfaction was not significant.