Teachers’ Satisfaction with Teaching

This article proposes a conceptual scheme of the influences affecting teachers’ career satisfaction and reports a study using that scheme to investigate the relationship between selected abilities, values, and accomplishments and teachers’ career satisfaction. Results supported the scheme. Specifically, women were more satisfied with their teaching career than men. Teachers’ skills and abilities were significantly related to satisfaction but accounted for only small amounts of the additional variance. Career satisfaction is related to assigning little importance to activities and accomplishments that, given the structure of the school, may be difficult to achieve. Yet, actual accomplishments in these areas have a strong positive relationship to satisfaction. Last, the importance of recognition by administrators to teachers’ career satisfaction was discussed.