A preliminary measure of teachers’ occupational well-being in Baku schools and how the school environment can affect it

Abstract

Teachers’ occupational well-being is the work-related aspect of teacher’s well-being. This study investigates the levels of occupational well-being of Baku school teachers and the factors that may influence them. The studiedindicators of occupational well-being are self-efficacy, job satisfaction, psychosomatic symptoms, and social relations (among colleagues, principals, and students), and the studied contextual factors are school type, classroom size, gender, age, experience, and education. First, a quantitative questionnaire was implemented among 100 participants to assess their occupational well-being and compare the contextual factors. Later, an open-ended qualitative interview withfour teachers helped to find factors in the school environment affecting their occupational well-being. The quantitative data showed positive levels of the participants' occupational well-being, the teacher-student relations werenotoriouslystrong, and the teacher-principal relations significantlylow. The classroom size and teachers’ educational levelshowed the most notorious differences in occupational well-being, while the quality of teachers' relation with their principal was a predictor of job satisfaction and self-efficacy. The most frequent psychosomatic symptom among the participants was fatigue, which showed some differences across groups. The qualitative data corroborated the link between the teacher-principal relationship and job satisfaction and showed feedback as an essential factor of self-efficacy. It also showed that online lessons might induce fatigue, eye irritation, and back pain. The minor participation of male teachers did not allow for the analysis of the data based on gender. More details and other findings, as well as implications for research and practice, are discussed.