From Passion to Pressure: Exploring the Realities of the Teaching Profession

Joy Chikaodi Nwoko ^1* Emma Anderson ¹ Oyelola A Adegboye ¹ Aduli E.O Malau-Aduli ² Bunmi Sherifat Malau-Aduli ^1,2

• ¹ James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
• ² The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia

Recently there has been increasing interest in the issues relating to teacher retention, workload, and intention to leave the profession. Investigating teacher occupational well-being from a holistic point of view becomes imperative. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was employed to probe cross-sectional quantitative survey data (n=247) on teachers' perception of their occupational well-being and phenomenological qualita�ve interview data (n=21) on their experience of well-being at the workplace. Adapting the OECD teacher occupational well-being framework for data collection and analysis, quantitative and qualitative findings were integrated to associate relationships regarding factors that impact teacher occupational well-being and to identify ways to enhance teacher occupational well-being. Findings revealed that teachers displayed good self-efficacy for engagement influenced by social support, which resulted in job satisfaction and decreased psychosomatic symptoms. An increase in stress levels led to an increase in health-related issues.Increased teaching experience was associated with higher reported stress levels. Male teachers had lower psychosomatic symptoms when compared to female teachers. Junior-grade classroom teachers were more motivated to leave the profession than non-classroom teachers. Having a larger number of children in the classroom increased stress and burnout compared to having a smaller class size. Younger and early career teachers were more motivated to leave teaching. Availability of social support led to a reduction in psychosomatic symptoms and a decrease in stress and burnout.Experience of stress at the workplace; and being intimidated or verbally abused by students were positively linked to psychosomatic symptoms. Addressing parent or guardian concerns was positively associated with cognitive and social well-being, and reduced psychosomatic symptoms. In contrast, lack of support resulted in increased stress and burnout, psychosomatic symptoms, and consequent low job satisfaction. Ongoing support from school leadership and incorporation of appropriate policies that reflect positive well-being for teachers will foster teacher occupational well-being and consequently retention of early career teachers. School administrators, policymakers, and educators can use these findings to implement targeted strategies that enhance teacher occupational wellbeing.