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Teacher Development
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Beginning teachers job satisfaction: the impact of school-based factors

Bick-har Lam & Hoi-fai Yan
a a a

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China Available online: 05 Oct 2011

To cite this article: Bick-har Lam & Hoi-fai Yan (2011): Beginning teachers job satisfaction: the impact of school-based factors, Teacher Development, 15:3, 333-348 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2011.608516

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Teacher DevelopmentAquatic Insects Vol. 15, No. 3, August 2011, 333348

Beginning teachers job satisfaction: the impact of school-based factors

Bick-har Lam* and Hoi-fai Yan
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China

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(Received 19 March 2010; nal version received 7 April 2011) Using a longitudinal design, the job satisfaction and career development of beginning teachers are explored in the present study. Beginning teachers were initially interviewed after graduation from the teacher training programme and then after gaining a two-year teaching experience. The results are presented in a fourfold typology in which the initial teaching orientation of teachers interacts with the school environment to produce different teaching outlooks. School factors, such as volume of non-teaching workload, equitability in the distribution of work, and professional autonomy, are found to inuence the job satisfaction and teaching motivation of teachers signicantly. Keywords: beginning teachers; school administration; teaching motivation; teacher development; school-based factors

Introduction Teacher occupation prole changes The recruitment and retention of quality teachers is a challenging problem in many parts of the world (Scott, Stone, and Dinham 2001). In the United States, the salary of teachers is signicantly lower than that of other professions, with teachers earning the lowest annual salary among college graduates of similar age. The low pay presents a major disincentive for qualied graduates to enter the profession and for serving teachers to remain in it (Liu et al. 2000). Similarly, in Australia, teaching is perceived as a highly demanding career that comes with heavy workloads, heavy emotional demands, low social status, and low salary, and there is a shortage of qualied and experienced teachers in some subjects (Richardson and Watt 2006). The situation in Hong Kong differs in important ways from these countries, but there has also been serious concern about teacher quality and retention. Research has shown that teaching seems to be losing its appeal as a profession. Unlike in other places, teaching is not a poorly paid profession in Hong Kong. The majority of teachers in Hong Kong are employed in government or government-aided schools. Their salaries are based on the governments Master Pay Scale (Civil Service Bureau 2008). The average starting monthly salary of a qualied

*Corresponding author. Email: bhlam@ied.edu.hk

ISSN 1366-4530 print/ISSN 1747-5120 online 2011 Teacher Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2011.608516 http://www.tandfonline.com

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teacher is close to HK$20,000, a gure signicantly higher than the median income of HK$12,000 earned by the population aged 2029 years with post-secondary degree education (Education Bureau 2008a, 2008b; Hong Kong Institute of Education 2009). A qualied teacher with around 10 years of teaching experience (without receiving a promotion) earns around HK$25,000, still signicantly higher than the median income earned by other degree owners aged 3039 years. Despite being relatively well paid, teachers are increasingly becoming dissatised with their jobs, and highly qualied senior secondary school students are no longer choosing teaching as their career (Cheng 2009; Choi and Tang 2009; Jin et al. 2008; Lai and Lo 2007; Workgroup for a Comprehensive Investigation on Teachers Continuing Professional Development 2006). Many factors contribute to the declining appeal of teaching as a career. Education reform initiatives have been frequently cited as contributors to the increasing stress and workload of teachers. In the past decade, Hong Kong implemented major reform initiatives that made fundamental changes to nearly every key aspect of the school system, from the administrative structure to the curriculum organisation; from school governance and management to classroom teaching and learning; from the application of information technology to the examination system; and from the school external and internal evaluation to the accountability to the stakeholders (Cheng 2009, 66). The initiatives were implemented both in response to rapid changes in society brought about by globalisation and economic development, as well as to changing expectations of the role and functions of school education in society. The reform initiatives are still in their early implementation phase the rst batch of graduates from the reformed secondary school curriculum is scheduled to take the new accreditation examination, the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Exam, in 2012 (Education Commission 2006). It is too early to evaluate fully the success of the reforms. Nonetheless, the implementation of reforms has brought stress and grievance to teachers. Cheng (2009) analysed this problem and described the educational system as suffering from a bottleneck effect; when multiple reform initiatives are being simultaneously implemented in a short time, they jam and block one another, creating a huge burden for educators. Thus, teachers complain about dealing with increasing workloads, while also having to adapt to dramatic changes both in teaching technology and pedagogy. Besides, given a 1:35 teacher-to-student ratio in an ordinary classroom, and with the introduction of inclusive education since the 1990s, classroom management has also become difcult and stressful for many teachers (Workgroup for a Comprehensive Investigation on Teachers Continuing Professional Development 2006). These factors, coupled with the lack of sufcient support for the implementation of reforms, lead to an overworked and highly stressed teaching workforce. In line with Chengs analysis, Choi and Tang (2009) found that over half of the teachers they studied show a decreasing level of commitment to teaching from 1997 to 2007. Reform policies are frequently cited by participants as contributors to their diminishing commitment. Some teachers have found that it is too difcult and demanding to cope with frequent policy changes and switches to new pedagogies. To ameliorate partly the problem of teacher dissatisfaction in the profession, the Hong Kong government introduced the Early Retirement Scheme in 2004. Under the scheme, teachers may opt to leave the teaching profession in exchange for nancial incentives (Legislative Council Secretariat 2009). Nevertheless, many teachers have chosen to leave even without these rewards. Hence, there is currently a worrisome

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trend of increasing teacher wastage rates in both primary and secondary school sectors. The projected teacher wastage rate in Hong Kong in the school year 200910 in both sectors is close to 10% (9% for primary and 8.6% for secondary schools), showing a steadily increasing trend since 200304, when the gures were 5.6% and 3.9%, respectively (Education Bureau 2009a, 2009b; Government Secretariat 2009). The problem does not only extend to in-service teachers; senior secondary school students who are contemplating careers in teaching are also affected. In 2002, about 50% of Secondary 7 students reported their interest in becoming teachers. Teaching was third in the top ve occupations, among 20 listed occupations, that most students wanted to enter (Lai, Chan, Ko, et al. 2005). Teaching is seen as an attractive occupation with good working hours, good job security, and longer holidays. The students also ranked school teaching just after medicine and re ghting as the most respected occupation, showing that teaching is a well-regarded profession. In a similar study conducted in 2005, the picture was very different. The percentage of students who were interested in becoming teachers dropped dramatically from about 50% in 2002 to 34% in 2005, after reform initiatives were launched for some time (Lai, Chan, So, et al. 2005). While teaching is still seen as a respected occupation, far fewer secondary graduating students nd it an appealing career option, and the rank of school teaching in the most preferred occupations dropped from third place to eighth. Signicantly, too much change in educational policies and strenuous duties are often cited as important factors that deter students from joining the profession. Many students also believe that other occupations offer better prospects. In the society as a whole, public respect for teachers has also declined (Morris 2008). This has a demoralising effect on teachers while they are struggling to cope with the challenges and demands to meet the requirements of education reform. Furthermore, in Confucian thought, education is regarded as a search for personal moral perfection (Lee 2000). Some teachers nd it difcult to adapt to new educational ideologies. Some see the reforms as a collapse of traditional values inasmuch as the current reform initiatives are largely engineered upon the development of human capital, which has been described by frontline teachers as over-emphasising economic value, as being vulgar and overly utilitarian, and as losing sight of the purpose of education (Choi 2003). These problems are likely to hinder teacher professional development and commitment. Teacher quality determines student learning outcomes; hence, teacher quality also affects societys future (Goe 2007). Teachers motivation to teach and teacher satisfaction To understand and improve the commitment of teachers, motivation to teach, and related constructs, such as belief of teaching, orientation to teach, and concept of teaching, are frequently studied. Studies seek to determine teacher values in teaching, as well as their teaching career aspirations. The following summary suggests the different reasons of teachers for joining the profession (Manuel and Hughes 2006; Sinclair 2008):  love of or desire to work with students and make a difference in students lives;  make a difference in communities and society;  inuence of signicant others: family members, past teachers, or members of the wider community;

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calling to teach; personal fullment; love of teaching or of a particular subject; desire to impart knowledge; perceived benets and/or convenience of teaching, such as work schedules, work hours, vacations, career security, and salary;  opportunities for creativity that teaching provides;  a desire for a career change as a result of dissatisfaction with a previous career or a stressful life event, such as divorce;  status teaching provides: opportunities for career and/or social advancement. Although the elitist model of thinking prevails among teachers in society (Lam 2008a, 2008b), recent studies have also shown that having opportunities to make a positive inuence in the lives of the next generation are highly cherished by local teachers (Choi and Tang 2009; Tang and Choi 2009). Herzbergs two-factor motivationhygiene theory (Herzberg 1987; Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman 1959; Sergiovanni and Starratt 1983) is frequently used in examining the job satisfaction of teachers (Spear, Gould, and Lee 2000). Herzbergs theory asserts that factors leading to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are different and separable; that is, employees job satisfaction cannot simply be achieved by taking away the factors that lead to dissatisfaction, nor can being satised with some aspects of the job compensate for factors that lead to dissatisfaction. Herzberg argued that typically, job dissatisfaction arises from factors that relate to the job environment, such as company policy, salary, and status. These so-called hygiene factors are important metaphors for a clean environment: people get dissatised in an unhygienic environment and want to leave it because they derive minimal positive motivation from it. Job satisfaction is derived from factors related to job nature, that is, what employees actually do. The job is perceived as providing positive satisfaction if it has characteristics that lead to the satisfaction of higher-order human needs, such as personal growth and recognition from others. In a series of papers on the job satisfaction and motivation of teachers, Scott et al. (Dinham and Scott 1998; Dinham and Scott 2000; Scott, Cox, and Dinham 1999; Scott, Stone, and Dinham 2001) conrmed predictions from Herzbergs twofactor models. They found that teachers in different countries generally derive job satisfaction from factors integral to the teaching job: assisting the growth of children, developing good relationships with students, and experiencing self-growth. On the other hand, major sources of job dissatisfaction result from factors extrinsic to the teaching job and relate more to the job environment, including poor status and pay and heavy workloads. These ndings are in line with the ndings of Spear, Gould, and Lees (2000) review of studies on the teaching profession published between 1988 and 2000 in the United Kingdom. An important point that emerged from Scott et al.s studies from both Eastern and Western countries is that school-based factors have the most variable effect on the job satisfaction of teachers. These factors include school leadership, how decisions are made in school, school reputation, and available resources. They are important parts of the job environment of teachers, and they may or may not be satisfying factors. Scott et al. also argued that school leaders should pay special attention to school-based factors because they have the most control over them.

   

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Beginning teachers and teacher career development While earlier studies on teacher development conceived the teaching career as generally having a stage-like progression, which would lead beginning teachers to become more competent and mature (Burke 1987; Fuller and Bown 1975; Katz 1972), later approaches placed the concept of career cycle into the context of inuences from personal and organisational factors, that is, teacher career development should be dynamic and exible (Fessler and Christensen 1992). In Fessler and Christensens (1992) framework, personal environment factors refer to family, positive critical incidents, crisis, individual dispositions, vocational interests, and life stages. On the other hand, organisational environmental factors include school regulations, management style, public trust, societal expectations, professional organisations, and unions. Personal and organisational environmental factors may interact in dynamic ways to inuence teachers career satisfaction and development. Therefore, it is difcult to sort out which variables have a greater inuence on ones career. Research in Hong Kong on the professional development of beginning teachers (Forrester 2007; Forrester and Draper 2005) has found that teacher development is a highly diverse and individual process. It is dependent on an array of factors, such as past teaching experience, school-based support, and teacher training experience, and the results cannot be easily predicted or summarised because the interaction among these factors is complex. Similarly, Choi and Tang (2005), focusing on how beginning teachers develop their professional identity, have found that many different factors, including individual human agency, school context, and societal factors, inuence the professional socialisation process of beginning teachers in Hong Kong. The current study is set in the context of Hong Kong at a time of education reform when teachings appeal as a career is in doubt. The present study adopts a qualitative study approach using a longitudinal research design. It seeks to understand teachers reasons for joining the profession, whether they have a satisfying teaching experience in the past two years and how their personal goals interact with the teaching environment to shape job satisfaction. As reviewed above, teacher development is a diverse and individual process: the interplay of different factors affects job satisfaction and retention. We see job satisfaction as a construction process that can be captured by knowing participants motivation, reasons for joining the profession, teaching orientation, and opinions about the school environment. Method Participants Eleven teachers participated in two in-depth interviews in the present study. In 2007, 17 graduands from the Post-graduate Diploma of Education (PGDE) Primary Programme of the Hong Kong Institute of Education were interviewed mainly about their motivations for teaching. Eleven of them were successfully re-contacted in 2009 after they had taught for two years to take part in another in-depth interview. These interview data make up the core database of this study. The participants studied English as their major teaching subject; they also studied a second major (i.e. mathematics, general studies, special education needs, and physical education). They have diverse backgrounds: two participants joined the PGDE programme as new graduates; one has less than one year of work experience; and eight others have two to ten years of work experience. Between 2007 and 2009, three of the participants changed schools for different reasons.

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Data collection and analysis Participants were interviewed twice: rst, when they were about to start work as beginning teachers; and second, when they had already taught in school for two years. The interviews were semi-structured with an open-ended design. Three major domains were covered in the rst interview: (a) motivation to teach and previous experience, (b) orientation of teaching and preferred teaching methods, and (c) career plan. In the second interview, after their two-year teaching experience, participants recalled their motivation for joining the profession and orientation to teaching. They were asked about (a) whether their orientation has changed and why, (b) whether there were any changes in their career and why, (c) whether they were satised with their work experience in school and why. There were additional questions to probe their two-year school experiences. The interviews were conducted face to face, with each interview lasting for 1.5 to 2 hours. The interview schedules are attached in Appendix I. The interviewer has a close relationship with these students, as she was their professor in the rst semester of the PGDE programme. Naturally, the interviewers good rapport with the interviewees and their close teacherstudent relationship facilitated the disclosure of authentic feelings and thoughts. The use of in-depth interviews enabled the researcher to see the motivations and problems of participants from their point of view. These motivations and problems became even more evident after the researcher entered these participants lives through autobiographical accounts, themes, and factors in the societal context. Thus, these accounts offer valuable glimpses into the lives of teachers, whose opinions and thoughts are not always adequately represented (Goodson 2001; Goodson and Choi 2008). The interviews were semi-structured, allowing authentic, intersubjective conversations to take place, which is in contrast to the questionnaire method where participants often have to choose among alternatives that may not truly represent what they feel. Archival data, including the CVs of the participants, informal contacts between the interviewer and the participants during the two years following their graduation, and information over the Internet on the school where the participants work, were used to triangulate interview data and validate interview results. Participants voluntarily consented to take part in the research without reward. The anonymity of their identities is protected with aliases in the processing and presentation of results. The constant comparison method was utilised (Goetz and LeCompte 1984; Miles and Huberman 1984; Patton 1980; Strauss and Corbin 1990). Data were sorted into themes and categories to illustrate similarities and differences by comparing them back and forth. Comparisons based on emerging themes and categories were made across participants, to generate a satisfactory conceptual theory addressing our research questions. Among the comparisons that were initially identied were those on changes in the participants motivation and orientation to teaching; possible changes in their career during the two-year period; and whether they are satised with their experience over the past two years. Results Participants in the study uniformly state that their major source of work satisfaction is from teaching students. They unanimously feel that developing relationships with students, watching them grow, and guiding their development give them much

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enjoyment. Interestingly, this enjoyment extends even to those who entered the eld of education mainly for its material rewards. On the other hand, extrinsic reward is also a major concern for many teachers. The level of satisfaction of teachers is not only determined by how much pleasure they derive from teaching; whether they can maintain a good worklife balance and have manageable workloads and good salaries also affect their job satisfaction. The experiences of the participants are best captured by a conceptualisation comprising their initial teaching orientation and the teaching environment they have experienced the two main factors identied from the interviews as having the most important inuence. A four-fold typology was used to describe how the original teaching motivations of the participants interact with the environment. These typologies represent an idealised simplication of reality for ease of conceptualisation because we believe that the complexities of an authentic life do not fall into watertight categories. The typologies are schematically depicted in Table 1. The teaching orientations of beginning teachers can be delineated into two categories: idealistic and pragmatic. Idealistic teachers choose teaching mainly because of its job nature. They nd it meaningful to teach; they like teaching. Pragmatic teachers are more concerned about the extrinsic rewards that teaching offers: salary, working hours, holidays, and status. Further discussion on this categorisation can be found in the paper discussing the rst phase of this longitudinal research (Lam, forthcoming). This paper focuses on how the teaching orientation and level of satisfaction of the participants changed with their teaching experiences. In this study, the school environment is broadly differentiated as either suitable or unsuitable, capturing in essence whether a given teacher likes the school environment, nds it conducive to his/her professional development, and generally perceives a t with the school culture. Factors of school environment that are critical to teacher satisfaction are explained in more detail in later sections of this paper. The school environment does not necessarily stay unchanged. In our study, these changes arise because of the change in the schools mode of subsidisation and mode of operation (Participant 7) and change in job initiated by participants (Participants 2, 8, and 9). Thus, in one phase of their two-year experience, they may be in an unsuitable environment, and in another phase, the environment may be suitable. Type 1. Idealistic suitable school environment In Type 1, idealistic teachers nd a suitable environment and are satised with their situation. There is a match between the environment the teachers are in and their educational ideals. They feel that they can full their wish to help the next generation grow. Their passion and love of teaching do not diminish after they experience the reality of teaching. Their motivation to teach is sustained and their job satisfacTable 1. The interaction between the effects of school environment and teachers teaching motivation. Teaching motivation School Environment Suitable Not suitable Idealistic 1 3 Pragmatic 2 4

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tion is high. Generally, they have a genuine say in how they teach and can concentrate on teaching without an overwhelming workload. Participant 1s case in our study best represents a Type 1 experience. Firmly believing that innovation is important for effective teaching, he teaches in a school under the governments Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS). Compared to other government or government-aided schools, DSS schools have much more exibility in deciding what to teach and do not need to follow the ofcial curriculum. Participant 1s school uses the International Baccalaureate programme, an internationally recognised curriculum. Leaders in his school are open minded, allowing teachers to experiment with different teaching methods. In such an environment, Participant 1 works hard to improve his teaching. With a reasonable workload and an effective and enjoyable professional development programme, Participant 1 is satised with his job and enjoys it.
I like to use creative teaching elements, such as drama and role playing, in teaching. It is quite difcult because its new and you have to think hard to tackle difculties. But you really feel a sense of achievement when you see that theyve produced something useful. Leaders in my school have a long-term vision and know how to develop the school. We are encouraged to share our experiences and interact with teachers and people outside our schools, so that we are always learning.

Type 2. Pragmatic suitable environment Type 2 teachers went into teaching mainly for its material rewards. Interestingly, we found that an environment conducive to teacher professional development can change these teachers and enable them to become more interested in teaching. Their teaching motivation may change from being extrinsically oriented to one that focuses more on the intrinsic rewards offered by teaching. They no longer see teaching merely as a good job but also as a way to increase their devotion to teaching. From them, we can see that when the environment is right, teaching does have its special charm that favourably engages teachers in the job. Participant 6 exhibits a Type 2 experience. Having much life experience, Participant 6 went into teaching mainly for its relative stability. Currently teaching in a DSS school, Participant 6 is quite satised with his job. His salary has been generously increased during the two-year period, and he also enjoys the extra holiday teachers have, which he did not have in his previous jobs.
I like that teaching has many holidays. In other jobs, you are lucky if you have about ten days of holiday. We teachers can have 2030 days off during the summer holiday.

While enjoying the more extrinsic reward offered by teaching, Participant 6 devoted no less time and energy to teaching than other, more idealistic teachers. Believing that the old-fashioned, drill-based pedagogy common in traditional schools is not suitable for promoting the cognitive development of students, he likes that his school allows him enough autonomy to use more suitable methods to teach, such as challenging students to go beyond their present ability levels in solving problems.

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Furthermore, his students further encourage him to become a better teacher. Their interest in learning and active participation in class give Participant 6 a sense of satisfaction, thus motivating him to put more efforts into better teaching.

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Type 3. Idealistic not suitable environment In the case of Type 3, teachers are originally passionate about teaching and want to make a difference in the lives of students. However, they are caught in an environment that is not conducive to actualising their educational beliefs. They face problems, such as heavy workloads, tedious administrative work, and managerial pressures from school. Overall, they are dissatised with their situation. While they may still enjoy the core nature of teaching, they may become disillusioned with teaching as a job. They may switch to other schools for a change of environment and, while it was not observed in our sample, there is also the possibility that they may eventually leave the profession. Participant 3 typies a Type 3 experience. Participant 3 quit her steadily developing career in the business eld and joined teaching because of her love of teaching. She enjoys developing relationships with students and seeing them grow and learn. She sees teaching as a moral calling. However, the school environment has deeply de-motivated her:
The heavy workload is really very demanding. I really think its unfair that the senior staff have much less workload than new teachers like me.

Participant 3 feels overwhelmed by the excessive workload from both teaching and administrative duties. She is also disappointed by the unequal distribution of work in her school. Nevertheless, she still enjoys the teaching aspect of her job.
If we dont talk about the administrative work, I love teaching very much. Seeing the children grow up and become better in many ways, I feel so happy.

However, poor worklife balance and school administration put a heavy load on Participant 3s emotions. Participant 3 often nds herself in a bad mood and resents work. She believes that she needs to switch to a better-managed school before she can be satised with her job.
Im really affected by the school administration. I really hope that I can nd a school thats more suitable for my development.

The case of Participant 2 further illustrates a Type 3 experience. Strongly believing in the principle of learning for all, Participant 2 greatly resented the situation in the rst school where she taught. Because of the lack of resources, the school did not provide sufcient support to students with special needs, and concentrated on supporting more academically able students. She felt that she could not properly perform her role as a teacher in the school; thus, she was very unhappy. This led her to apply for a position in a special education school. Now, Participant 2 is satised in the new environment where she enjoys being able to make a real difference to children in need.

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Type 4. Pragmatic not suitable environment Like Type 3 teachers, Type 4 teachers become discontented with the environment and feel dissatised with their job. Type 4 teachers entered the teaching profession because of its extrinsic rewards. However, they have come to resent the monetary aspect of teaching. For example, as Participant 7 expresses:
I only got paid around HK$20,000 a month, but we have a heavy workload. The requirement on teachers is increasing. When I was a student, teachers were lazy and had a light workload. Now everyone studies for a master degree, and we have to pass many tests.

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Participant 7 joined the teaching profession in search of a job with good work life balance. However, she is now overburdened with work at school. As a result, she has become quite cynical about teaching as a job.
[If I had a choice], Id choose to teach in a Band 1 school. Why? Because most school principals only appreciate teachers who can bring awards and prestige to school. Nobody cares if you help failing students get a passing mark or not. Nobody appreciates it.

Type 4 participants are likely to be more pragmatic in dealing with problems. For example, they focus their energy on promising students, hoping that they will garner awards and good grades, which may be highly valued by school leaders. Discussion The result of the study suggests that the school environment how a school is run and managed interacts with the initial teaching orientation of teachers and critically affects their teaching motivation and job satisfaction. A passionate student teacher who is full of educational ideals may become disillusioned, leading him/her to loathe teaching, if the school environment makes it difcult for him/her to focus on teaching. Those who enter teaching mainly for its relatively high salary and job security may become more involved and interested in teaching if the school environment is favourable to developing teachers motivation. Importance of school environment The teaching environment seems to be even more important than the original teaching orientations of teachers in determining their level of job satisfaction. A person entering the profession mainly for extrinsic reasons may become a caring teacher and derive great satisfaction from his/her job as a teacher as long as the school environment is right. What Participant 9 says is representative of what teachers feel when they can work in a suitable environment:
I feel satised with my work. They give me freedom to try to do new things. They believe in my ability. I feel that it is suitable for my development.

Enjoying a low administrative workload and consequently being able to focus on teaching, Participant 9 derives great satisfaction especially from seeing students who are lazy and not serious about their studies transform into engaged students.

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Hence, Participant 9 is becoming more devoted to teaching. To lead his music students better, Participant 9 has even learned to play the violin and studied for an advanced certicate in piano playing last year.
I need to be able to play better than my students. If Im not better than them, then they wont listen to me.

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Despite his original pragmatic orientation, Participant 9s level of commitment to his work and his students has been positively inuenced by the environment. Now, he is as devoted as other teachers who entered teaching for more idealistic reasons. Thus, we see that the school environment is critical to teachers teaching motivation and job satisfaction. From our analysis, three school factors emerged as having the most impact on teachers level of job satisfaction. These are  volume of administrative/non-educational workload;  equitable distribution of work and ofce politics;  teachers professional autonomy. Our ndings are in line with Dinham and Scotts three-factor model of teachers career satisfaction (Dinham and Scott 1998, 2000). Our present study nds that a good school environment where teachers can focus their attention and energy on the growth of students and their own personal growth is important to their teaching motivation and satisfaction. While teachers join the teaching profession for different reasons, it seems that sustaining their teaching motivation and gaining job satisfaction critically depend on school-based factors. School-based factors, such as the clear and systematic distribution of work, outsourcing of non-core duties, and focusing on and providing resources for staff professional development, are important in sustaining the motivation to teach. Regardless of their original motivations to teach, an environment suitable to teaching allows teachers to focus on teaching, and giving them manageable workloads and professional autonomy is likely to result in the enjoyment of teaching and job satisfaction. When the environment is not right, even very idealistic teachers will feel burned out and dissatised with their work. Furthermore, our data suggest that suitable environments are more often present in DSS than government-aided schools. Besides being generally better funded, DSS also tend to be better managed. They have supportive teacher-related measures, such as having separate manpower for teaching and administrative duties, a special department for curriculum development, and minimal out-of-eld teaching. Without the need to respond to changing policy directions from the education department, DSS usually give teachers more freedom and independence to use different teaching methods. Teachers can use methods which they believe are most suitable for students. It seems worthwhile to conduct further studies to understand how the impacts of DSS and government-aided schools on teacher professional development and satisfaction differ. This has important implications on the governments educational policy. Comparative evidence for teachers job satisfaction and work environment The importance of the school environment to the job satisfaction of teachers is supported by converging evidence from other countries. For example, a recent fouryear national study on the status of the teaching profession in the United Kingdom

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(UK) identied the internal sphere of the school environment as teachers main source of esteem (Hargreaves et al. 2007, 69). Factors such as fair and democratic leadership, good school management, and proper recognition of efforts, contribute heavily to teachers feeling of satisfaction. Moreover, similar to the situation in Hong Kong, there are also complaints about heavy administrative workloads in the UK. According to a governmentcommissioned study on teachers workload, up to two thirds of teachers work hours are spent on non-teaching activities (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2001). An additional similarity is that teachers in the UK also have to cope with a series of school reforms in the past decade. The combined effect of these reforms creates immense stress for teachers, leading to retention and recruitment problems (Burgess 2010). To tackle the workload problem, the UK government instituted a major workforce reform in 2002 (Department for Education and Skills 2002). It identied 25 non-teaching tasks that teachers should not routinely do, such as photocopying, producing class lists, and record keeping. A major strategy of the reform is to employ supporting staff extensively to assume these non-teaching tasks. By 2004, there were about two teaching assistants working in mainstream primary schools for every teacher, considerably increasing the number of adults working in school communities (Burgess 2010). Teachers responded positively to the policy. Research suggests that the reforms have effectively improved teachers worklife balance. Teachers greatly value the help of supporting staff in managing pupils and teaching, and the reforms have successfully enabled them to focus on teaching and learning (Ofce for Standards in Education 2007; Webb and Vulliamy 2006, as cited in Burgess 2010). Non-teaching workloads and long working hours are among the reasons that contribute heavily to job dissatisfaction among teachers. In a recent large-scale teacher survey, over 80% of the surveyed teachers reported feeling exhausted by work, and one-fourth of them indicated dissatisfaction with their work (Lai and Law 2010). In line with ndings from the present research and previous literature, non-teaching workload was found to give teachers little job satisfaction. The UKs reform experience suggests that supporting staff and teaching assistants could play an important role in providing teachers with more time to focus on teaching and learning and in enabling them to have a better worklife balance. While some schools in Hong Kong employ supporting staff as teaching assistants, there seems to be no serious attempt to understand their roles and there is no systematic policy to relieve teachers of their non-teaching workload. It is perhaps worthwhile to explore whether a generous introduction of supporting staff, like the policy implemented in the UK, could help alleviate teachers stress and improve their job satisfaction. Conclusion The present research found that the teaching environment teachers found themselves in critically affects their professional development and job satisfaction. The effect of environment was such that it overrode teachers initial teaching orientation. While some participants were more pragmatic and focused on extrinsic rewards of teaching such as a good salary and social status than idealistic teachers who were more motivated by their love of teaching, their level of

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satisfaction and motivation to teach were not to a great extent determined by these initial orientations. The school environment was found to be more determinative of teachers satisfaction: If teachers have to expend too much effort on non-teaching activities, and are bound by rigid and unfair administration, even the most passionate of them will be de-motivated. Examples in our research show that a poor working environment can extinguish the enthusiasm of teachers, eventually causing them to leave the profession. On the other hand, when the school environment allows teachers to focus on the core business of teaching, and allows teachers a reasonable worklife balance, teachers are likely to become interested and engaged in teaching, irrespective of their initial teaching orientation. Based on our ndings, we suggest that teachers level of job satisfaction may be improved through systematically reducing their non-teaching workload by a generous increase in the number of supporting staff in schools. As identied in our research, teaching environment has a direct impact on teachers professional development. It is therefore imperative that we act now to improve teachers teaching environment, to ensure that teachers can sustain their devotion to teaching, as well as to reduce the wastage of experienced teachers. It might be tough to change how schools are run and managed; nonetheless, the task must be tackled head on so that efforts in developing passionate teachers who care about the next generation will not be hampered by poor teaching environments. Notes on contributors
Dr Bick-har Lam is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Her research interests include curriculum development, teacher knowledge and professional development. Mr Hoi-fai Yan is a senior research assistant in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. He has experience of teaching in the higher education institution in Hong Kong and is specialized in psychology.

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Appendix 1 Interview schedules The interviews in this study were conducted in a semi-structured format. The interviewees were expected to talk about the topics in an interactive and conversational manner with the interviewer. Below is the schedule of the two interviews. Interview One: Entry to teaching
(1) What is your reason/motivation for joining the teaching profession? (2) Describe your educational background until the time you joined PGDE. (3) Describe your working experience before joining PGDE. Was your decision to join PGDE part of your career plan? (4) Will you consider teaching as a lifelong career? (5) What do you think are your personal characteristics/interests/strengths that are related or not related to teaching? (6) How do you spend your pastime? (7) What is your rationale for teaching/education (for example, your aim or mission)? (8) How do you describe your teaching style? (9) As a teacher, what difculties do you encounter (including your personal difculties and those that you nd in primary school teaching)? (10) What are your comments on Hong Kong education? (11) Do your family and friends support your choice to teach or is there a possible career change? (12) What are your current career plans? How about in the next few years?

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Interview Two: After two years of teaching

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) At which school do you currently teach? What is the mode of operation of the school (DSS, aided, etc.)? What subjects are you teaching this year? Any other duties? How do you describe your workload? Do you enjoy your job (both teaching and non-teaching duties)? What is your impression of your school? Do you have any opinion about your schools policy? Do you think your current school is a good match with you? Would you like to continue developing your career there? What are the reasons for your desire to stay/not stay in the school? What special changes happened in your career in the past two years? Going back to the reasons you gave two years ago for becoming a teacher, since then, have there been any changes in your motivation and career choice? Do you think your choice is right or wrong? Have there been changes in your teaching beliefs or ideals in the past two years? Are you taking (plan to take) any professional development courses? What are your plans for the future? What changes do you foresee, if any?

(10) (11)