Job Satisfaction, Grit And Mindsets Of Teachers

Abstract

Growth mindset, job satisfaction and grit are non-cognitive factors conducive to the optimal exercise of the teaching profession. COVID-19 pandemic affected teachers’ profession in an unparalleled way. The resulting effect on their job satisfaction is largely unknown. The purpose of the current study is to assess the level of Czech teachers’ job satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the relationship between the level of fixed and growth mindset, grit and job satisfaction of teachers is analysed. Dweck Mindset Instrument (DMI) and Duckworth’s Short Grit scale supplemented with additional questions was electronically administered to collect a set of data. The research group consisted of kindergarten, primary and secondary school teachers (N = 175). The results show that a large part of the respondent sample is job-satisfied. No relationship was found between the measured level of fixed and growth mindset of teachers, grit and job satisfaction.

Keywords: Gritjob satisfactionmindsetteachers

Introduction

Teaching is extremely challenging work, many factors are involved in whether teachers are successful in their profession. In our study, we will focus on factors such as mindset, grit and job satisfaction.

Grit is defined as perseverance and passion towards a goal over long periods, working towards challenges, and maintaining effort and interest over the years despite failure and adversity (Duckworth et al., 2007; Robertson-Kraft & Duckworth, 2014). Novice grittier teachers outperformed their notice less gritty colleagues and were less likely to leave their classrooms mid-year (Robertson-Kraft, & Duckworth, 2014). Grittier soldiers were more likely to complete an Army Special Operations Forces selection course, grittier sales employees were more likely to keep their jobs, grittier students were more likely to graduate from high school, and grittier men were more likely to stay married (Eskreis-Winkler et al., 2014). These results demonstrate that grit is a successful predictor for achieving goals.

Mindsets, also called implicit theories, are core assumptions that people hold about the plasticity of their abilities. Dweck (1986) defines two types of approaches: an entity implicit theory and incremental implicit theory relabeled as a fixed mindset and growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). People with a growth mindset believe that intelligence, talent, personality or ability can be grown or developed over time. They value effort, so they work harder and spend more time on the task. People with a fixed mindset trust that intelligence and talent is something given and done. They try to look smart and prove their ability (Dweck, 2015a, 2015b). According to the findings of Dweck and Molden (2018), the distribution of a fixed and growth mindset is evenly represented in the population. Testing of children and adults shows that about 40 % of people tend to endorse a fixed mindset, and about 40 % tend to endorse a growth mindset, and about 20 % are undecided.

Job satisfaction refers to the attitudes and feelings of people about their work. Positive attitudes towards the job indicate job satisfaction. Negative and unfavourable attitudes towards the job indicate job dissatisfaction (Armstrong, 2006). One-factor theory of job satisfaction views satisfaction as a continuum - at one pole stands satisfaction and dissatisfaction on the other. This means that when satisfaction decreases, dissatisfaction automatically increases. On the contrary, the two-factor theory views job satisfaction and dissatisfaction as two different alternatives that are influenced by other factory workers independent of each other (Herzberg et al., 2017). In our research, we considered job satisfaction through the lens of one-factor theory. Viktorová (2017) found that job satisfaction for Czech primary school teachers in the Zlín Region is ambivalent, while kindergarten teachers are satisfied with their work. Among Prague primary school teachers, 17 % are very satisfied with their work, 66 % are rather satisfied and 17 % are rather dissatisfied (Kaláčová, 2017).

COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on many sectors, one of which is education. The closure of schools did not automatically stop teaching and education. The gradual closure of schools in the Czech Republic from March 2020 has changed the way of education from face-to-face methods in the classroom to online. COVID-19 pandemic requires Czech teachers to change learning patterns. Research results of Indonesian elementary school teachers showed that online learning helps teachers in the COVID-19 pandemic period, but they felt to be ineffective. Many problems were found, for instance, availability of facilities, network and internet usage, planning, implementation, and evaluation of learning, collaboration with parents. During these online learning activities, 80 % of the teachers were dissatisfied (Fauzi & Khusuma, 2020). Impact of work from home on Indonesian teachers during COVID-19 pandemic was not just bad, there are several advantages like more flexible in completing work, does not follow office hours, does not need to spend money to pay for transportation, have more free time (Purwanto et al., 2020).

What are the relationships between grit, mindset and job satisfaction? The author of the concept of grit Angela Duckworth has been collaborating with Carol Dweck (author Mindset Theory) on a couple of projects. They have found is that children who have more of a growth mindset tend to be grittier. Duckworth claimed: “The correlation isn’t perfect, but this suggests to me that one of the things that makes you gritty is having a growth mindset.” (Perkins-Gough, 2013, p. 17). The relationship between grit and mindset is examined in diverse research groups differing in the profession, age, nationality, method of data collection, and several respondents. Probably the diversity of research groups is the reason for the ambiguous results. Strength positive correlation between Grit and Mindset score (r = 0,527; p < 0,01) was detected in Caucasian (UK, Greek) and Asian (Chinese, Arabic) undergraduate and postgraduate students (Barbouta et al., 2020). A weak correlation relationship between Grit and mindset (r = 0.2; p <0.05) was found in Australian physiotherapy students (Calo et al., 2019) or Korean office workers (r = 0, 32; p <0.01) in Lee (2018).

Job satisfaction of nurses demonstrated a moderately positive correlation with grit (r = 0,3; p < 0,001) in the research of Sellers et al. (2019). Findings are contradictory. Findings from study Reed et al. (2012) found that grit is unrelated to physicians’ job satisfaction. Growth mindset was positively and strongly correlated with well-being (r = 0,32; p < 0,01) u Chinese secondary school teachers (Zeng et al., 2019).

Problem statement

Since March 2020, the incidence of COVID-19 has been recorded in the Czech Republic. COVID-19 pandemic affected teachers’ profession in an unparalleled way. The resulting effect of their job satisfaction is largely unknown.

Mindset, job satisfaction and grit are important aspects influencing whether teachers thrive or fail in their demanding profession. However, the connection between these aspects is not so clear.

Research Questions

The study aims to assess the level of Czech teachers’ job satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the relationship between the level of fixed and growth mindset, grit and job satisfaction of teachers is analysed.

Purpose of the study

We operationalized these goals into the following research questions:

Question 1: What is the level of job satisfaction of Czech teachers during COVID-19 pandemic?

Question 2: Is there a relationship between teachers’ level of growth and fixed mindset, grit and job satisfaction?

Research methods

Findings

Job satisfaction of teachers

Teachers had the opportunity to express the degree of satisfaction with the profession on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 = least satisfied and 10 = very satisfied. The most frequently chosen value was 8 (33.1 %), the average value of satisfaction was 8.22 (SD = 1.66). More detailed results are shown in Figure 1 .

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Furthermore, it was found out how satisfaction with the teaching profession is related to the age and length of teachers' practice. Pearson's correlation coefficient was chosen for the calculation. No statistically significant correlations were found between job satisfaction and age (r = -0.057; p = 0.455) and between job satisfaction and length of practice (r = -0.121; p = 0.111).

Conclusion

Teaching is by all accounts a meaningful but also a demanding profession. Many factors contribute to whether teachers are successful in their profession. In our study, we focused on job satisfaction, the assumption that intelligence level is not a fixed number and can change (growth mindset), and perseverance and passion towards a long-term goal by overcoming obstacles and challenges (grit). Understanding the relationships between growth mindset, grit and job satisfaction in teachers can be one step in providing better education. Based on the results of study and discussion, a large part of the respondent sample (N = 175) is job-satisfied during COVID-19 pandemic. No relationship was found between the measured level of fixed and growth mindset of Czech teachers, grit and job satisfaction. We, therefore, recommend verifying further research. The current study findings can provide the framework for other studies examine the relationship between mindset, job satisfaction and grit.

This paper was supported by the Specific Research of the Faculty of Education, the University of Hradec Kralove 2020, No: 2104, entitled: Feedback in Teaching Communication at the First Stage of Primary School.

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