Professional satisfaction of teachers in secondary vocational education and training

Abstract

The teaching career is less attractive in terms of social esteem, financial situation and professional career than other professions requiring a degree. However, the vast majority of teachers love their job. Research shows that in the various types of institutions there is a difference in teachers’ and instructors’ assessment of the financial situation, the extent to which their professional goals are achieved and their satisfaction with student achievements. In our research, we seek to answer the question of whether teachers in a higher-prestige type of institution judge their work to be more successful professionally than teachers in a lower-prestige type of institution. According to our hypothesis, instructors’ professional satisfaction depends on the type of institution in which they teach. The online study took place in November-December 2020. The questionnaire was filled in by 168 teachers, who were mainly from vocational training centres in the Northern Great Plain region. The sample cannot be considered representative. Using a 5-point Likert scale, we discovered instructors’ professional success of the and to what extent they perceive it in the fields of knowledge transfer, value system formation, socialization, professional innovation, cooperation with parents and colleagues, creativity, problem solving and self-education. We assessed the responses with a simple cross-table analysis. The examination by type of institution is complicated by the fact that the majority of instructors teach in several programmes at the same time. Data analysis showed that teachers who work only in technical schools feel the most successful, followed by instructors in vocational schools and those working in vocational secondary schools feel the least successful. Nonetheless, if we consider the responses of teachers working only in technical schools and teachers working in other types of programmes and a technical school as one group, they recognise themselves the least successful. We can analyse the responses either narrowed down or expanded in the aforementioned way, instructors who teach in technical schools feel the most successful in the field of innovation and knowledge transfer in secondary vocational education and training. The generalization of the results of our research is limited. Based on results, our hypothesis that teachers in a higher-prestige technical training are the most satisfied with their professional success has not been confirmed.