Contributing factors to teacher satisfaction for Jewish day school educators

Abstract

At a time of rising concern for hiring and retaining qualified Jewish educators, this study looked at factors contributing to the decision to enter or remain in the field of Jewish education. If Jewish day school administrators can determine what characteristics attract and retain qualified teachers then perhaps they can mitigate the current "teacher crisis". The purposes of this study were to: a) examine to what extent, Herzberg's fourteen factors contributing to teacher satisfaction, are generalizeable to Jewish day school teachers b) determine to what extent value alignment contributes to teacher satisfaction for Jewish day school teachers c) determine the level of satisfaction experienced by Jewish day school educators in America d) determine to what extent teaching Judaic or General studies predicts teacher satisfaction e) determine to what extent years of experience, while teaching in a public, private (non-religious) or Jewish school, predicts teacher satisfaction and f) examine to what extent recognition, value alignment and salary mediate or moderate the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable, teacher satisfaction. Secondary analyses were conducted using data from the EJSS study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were run in order to answer the hypothesis questions. The author ran Pearson Product-Moment correlations, simple linear regressions, multiple regressions and hierarchal multiple regressions. Five variables emerged as being the strongest predictors of teacher satisfaction when alone or part of the whole model: advancement, value alignment, recognition, interpersonal relations and supervision.