EDU 702 : Research Methodology

Article Review: Teaching in the Yukon-Exploring teachers’ efficacy beliefs, stress and job satisfaction in a remote setting

Submission date :

Summary

How does a teacher perform when placed in locations far from their family and

friends? Will a teacher become more effective or will he or she find her job less

gratifying when put in remote areas? Also, will a teacher be able to integrate with a

community different from her own? This article will look at the link between settings

and teachers’ motivation beliefs; particularly providing us with answers on how

teachers view their self- efficacy, as well as collective efficacy; job stress and job

satisfaction when working in an isolated Canadian province such as Yukon Territory.

The method employed in this research is a mixed-method study where the first stage

relies on a quantitative instrument modelled after a Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy

Scale (TSES) survey. It was then followed by qualitative data collection, in the form

of individual interviews to understand teachers’ job beliefs. The result of the study

shows us that there was no significant difference between the Yukon Territory and

urban western Canadian regions, for overall workload stress, student behaviour

stress, nor job satisfaction. In fact it could be noted that when the two settings were

compared and rated for workload stress of larger class sizes, Yukon teachers

reported less workload stress than urban western Canada. Despite that, the study

also revealed slightly reduced levels of self and collective efficacy among Yukon

teachers. For study 2, three main themes were identified, namely the influences of

physical and human geography on job stress and job satisfaction, how job

satisfaction can be acquired through community networking, understanding

cultural transition when looking at teachers’ professional stress.

Overall the study was well documented providing specific details of the

methodology as well as results. This could prove helpful should a need arise for the

research to be replicated. The study also provided a different take on teachers’ job

beliefs since it also delved into a qualitative method of research which is rarely

undertaken when studying motivation beliefs.

Introduction

The article in review is entitled “Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teachers’

efficacy beliefs, stress and job satisfaction in a remote setting”. It is written by Robert

M. Klassen, Rosemary Y. Foster, Sukaina Rajani and Carley Bowman. The article

has been selected from an International Journal of Education research published in

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the year 2009. The objective of the article is to evaluate whether teachers working in

Yukon, a predominantly secluded place in Canada, serves as a more stressful place

to teach for teachers as compared to teachers teaching in urban, Western Canada.

The differences between the two groups were checked for teachers’ self and

collective efficacy, job stress and job satisfaction. Another purpose of the study was

to collect information about how geographical and social issues may or may not

affect teachers’ work. The implications and significance of a study like this is to better

understand the perceptions and views of teachers’ workload, stress as well as

community roles and factors which influence stress leading to job satisfaction.

Before the study was carried out, the article clearly defines several

operational definitions and context of the study. The review includes the definition of

‘remote setting’ as areas with a lack of amenities, professional development like

training opportunities and specialized services for teachers. It also states that such

setting is a place where stark differences in cultural backgrounds can be found.

According to Mill & Gale, 2003, this could prove as a challenge for teachers who

share different values and beliefs from mainstream school teachers.

With respect to the location Yukon Territory was selected due to its unique

setting. Bordering Alaska, there are only 32,000 residents in which there are only 28

schools housing 5000 students between K-12. Based on Fraser Institute, 2009,

Yukon Territory students show a markedly decreased academic performance as

compared to schools in urban Canada.

Variables that were measured in this article are 2-folds; teachers’ motivation

beliefs, i.e. teachers’ self and collective efficacy beliefs, as well as teachers’ stress

and job satisfaction. It was pointed out however, that job satisfaction was a

dependant variable where self and collective efficacy and stress precede job

satisfaction. The problem that is researched here is whether teachers in remote

settings such as Yukon Territory have different motivation beliefs than those in urban

Canadian provinces. The research problem thus can be broken down into three main

research questions, which are:

to find out the relationship between Teacher efficacy beliefs, job stress

and job satisfaction in Yukon Territory.

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to explore the levels and relationship patterns between remote Yukon

and urban western Canadian provinces.

to discover the factors which influence job stress and job satisfaction?

Literature Review

The resources for the study were taken from articles dated between the years

1995 to 2009. Definitions of motivation beliefs were divided into teachers’ self and

collective efficacy beliefs and teacher stress and job satisfaction. From the literature

review, Bandura’s social cognitive theory, 1997 said that the former is influenced by

student and teacher outcomes, where one’s efficacy can help handle students’

behaviour and may in turn affect one’s job satisfaction. Another aspect of efficacy is

to look at collective teacher efficacy, where it has been reported that better teacher

and staff collaboration can influence student outcomes in challenging conditions. It

can also be purported that based on previous research, teachers’ stress is negative

emotions resulting from a teacher’s work. It is understood that the higher the stress,

the lower will be a teachers’ self-efficacy. Nonetheless, the extent of previous

studies, have not ventured into the multi-faceted factors leading to stress. One such

facet not yet fully explored is the setting of the teacher.

The literature review is clear in presenting the definitions of the key variables.

Yet, since the article does state that sources of stress is not based on a uni-factor,

more details could be included on the types of stress attributed to workload and

student misbehaviour. Are such stress factors different over the grade levels or do

they remain the same. One underlying factor that could have been better addressed

is the types of school that usually reported higher levels of stress, and whether

issues like different grade levels , socio-economic status of students showed higher

or lower teacher stress levels. A class teacher that is teaching an exam class will

surely have more stress level than a non- exam class. If such were the case, these

factors could be controlled to provide better reliability of results, and should have

been highlighted in the literature review. Another issue which perhaps needed to be

addressed is the demographics of the Aboriginal versus the European students in

the schools that were surveyed. Does the demographic of the student play a role in

the stress levels of students? Then again, such information may infringe upon ethical

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practices, which was not divulged in this article. It was however stated in the article

that ratio of male and female teachers, experience and even grade ranges were

similar between the two groups including socio-economic status of students and

therefore these extranneous factors were controlled.

Methodology

The study was divided into two parts. The quantitative research which was

conducted in four visits over a period of two years in Yukon Territory. The survey

data was collected at teachers’ conventions, which represented all 28 schools of the

territory. The 107-sample also contained both elementary and secondary school

teachers and with different compositions of grade levels; 22 % (K-12) 30 % (K- 9)

and 43 %( 7- 12). The sample in the comparison group came from varying suburban

schools in western Canada, and they also consisted of approximately 61% female

teachers, with also 13.1 years experience. The sample size was not explicitly stated

and the configurations of teaching levels were not mentioned. However it was

reported that there were no significant difference in sample age, experience in

teaching and gender. Several assumptions on the other hand may have to be made

by the reader with respect to the grade configurations, and ethnicity of the teachers.

It is mentioned in the Yukon Territory sample that a majority of the respondents

taught older school children which may mean different student behaviour challenges

from younger school children. The comparison group could have taught younger

school children, which may mean another array of stress issues. Since this was not

addressed, it is to be assumed that the varying grade levels do not result in varying

teachers stress levels. It was also mentioned that Yukon territory teachers were not

permitted to state their school or community due to request by authorities. This could

mean an acknowledgment on the part of the authorities that certain schools may

thrive academically more than others school, and should not be divulged due to

ethical responsibilities. The implications of this show us that sample may not be

equally represented in all schools. The method of collecting data from such group

was thus the accessible population, and may not necessarily reflect the true target

population. Another issue in the method of collecting data should have stated details

of how teachers were employed. Is the placement of teachers in such remote areas

a matter of choice or is it decided by a governing body- like the Ministry of

Education? If so, this factor could have an impact on a teachers’ job satisfaction,

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since teachers could have felt forced to work in remote settings. Such sample

identification was not specified in the study.

The method of collecting data in Study 2 showed a stratified sampling method

where samples were selected based on teaching level, sex and geographical

locations. The interviewees were also willing participants who totalled 20 teachers in

various towns in the Yukon Territory. The ethnicities of the teachers however were

not disclosed. Even though a random method of sampling was utilized, samples

were small, and therefore limit the population generalizability. Also every

characteristic of the interviewees were not recorded completely which thus makes it

less ecologically generalizable. Once such characteristic that could have been

looked at is ethnicity of teachers, since representative of how other ethnicities may

view stress in different work settings could be an interesting angle to research.

Findings and Analyses

Teachers’ self and collective efficacies were measured using a TSES scale,

with a 12-item survey using a 9-point measure Likert scale;1= Disagree strongly,

3=disagree, 5=neutral, 7=agree and 9=agree strongly. Such scale has provided

reliable and valid results in previous studies since it has successfully transcended

cultural settings, thus being appropriate for this study. Thus reliability and validity of

the TSES scale was highlighted as acceptable. Job stress and factors leading to

stress were measured using 1 and 7 items respectively. Job satisfaction on the other

hand was represented using 4 items, with one specifically addressing location. The

data collected produced a composite value, due to the small sample sizes and the

study also included the reliability coefficient for both samples. It can be noted that

Yukon sample displayed low reliability coeffiency at (This would imply that

there could be low reliability. Perhaps this could be because samples taken with

matching subgroups were perhaps too low. However, an ANOVA was carried out to

check for significant difference against the dependant variable, job satisfaction and

no significant difference was found, or too minimal a difference for data on self-

efficacy, collective efficacy and stress from work load.

In addition, this was justified because, a Fisher-Z transformation were applied

and showed no significant difference in correlation coefficients. Thus there was no

big difference between the two samples; in Yukon Territory and Western Canada.

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Interestingly enough it could also be said that when job satisfaction was taken as the

dependant variable and a correlation was seeked between job satisfaction and

stress, efficacy beliefs; a Chow test revealed that there was also no directionality,

which means that it is not pointing to precession of stress or efficacy beliefs as

precursors to job satisfaction. Furthermore, to test for statistical relialibility of the

analysis, a Direct regression logistic regression analysis was carried out to rule out

incorrect identification of groups. The study successfully established groups that

were high stress groups and low stress groups at 64.3% and 76.3 % respectively,

making the results statistically sound.

On the other hand, study 2 was collected via stratified sampling from a group

of participants that had stated their willingness to be interviewed. Although the

samples were carefully selected to ensure representativeness of the target group, it

can be argued that the sample of 20 was relatively small. This could be a strong

argument against generalizing such a study. Characteristics of interview groups

however were chosen to mirror different subgroups of Yukon teachers. The

interview procedure included field notes, interview protocol, and non-static

conversations which were re-checked and monitored over a period of two years. This

ensured that the reoccurring themes and ideas could be properly validated . The

content analysis content was two stages, where the themes were coded using

coded frequency check and also endorsement by the interviewee to verify what they

had said. The three general overlapping themes were

Theme 1: Physical and human geography influence job stress and job

satisfaction

Theme 2:Building connections with the community leads to teaching

satisfaction

Theme 3: Cultural transitions in the community leads to teacher’s professional

stress.

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Discussion

Overall it can be said that this study can shed light on teachers’ roles in small far-off

communities and remote areas and how career decisions as well as teacher

motivation can be promoted on a large scale. It is interesting to note that according

to the quantitative findings the study showed no significant difference between the

stress levels and motivation beliefs between teachers teaching in Yukon Territory

and Western Canada, although there were findings that showed a slightly lower

sense of self and collective efficacy and workload stress among Yukon teachers.

Also, when the qualitative data was collected to probe into the types of stress that

affected a teacher's job stress and satisfaction, an intricate set of factors were

revealed. It proved that job stress and satisfaction were to a certain degree affected

by the community and setting in which teachers lived in and many issues were at

play when teachers were placed in remote settings. Some of the factors lie in the

unique physical geography of Yukon. Since winters are long and daylight is limited

in, some teachers reported that it could have an immense psychological effect on a

person. The setting is also very far and removed from other parts of Canada, so this

could impact one’s professional development since training and resources were

limited. Additionally human geography is a major factor in locations which have

larger First Nation communities. Since First Nation communities were not necessarily

cooperative to schools and accepting of European-Canadian culture, this may

reduce teachers’ motivation and increase stress levels. This is especially so when

tribal leaders and parents felt that the curriculum did not meet their community

needs. Therefore, owing to this, an increase sense of isolation was felt among

teachers and an increase pressure was felt. Nonetheless, over time, when teachers

gradually integrated into the community, reached out to the parents, a renewed

sense of belonging developed. It was mentioned that it was important for teachers to

respect the culture and views of the community in order to fully understand the

people.

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Comments

On the whole I felt that the study could not conclusively state the factors that

influence Yukon teachers’ self and collective efficacy although it was successful in

proving that teachers regardless of their location, felt that workload stress goes hand

in hand with the teaching profession. The implications of the study are that the stress

factors and motivation beliefs of teachers in the Yukon are markedly different from

the comparison group and also perceived differently by teachers. It would thus

benefit future studies to further explore these differences to possibly help in career

decisions. The study doesn’t indicate if there are immersion programmes that may

help teachers’ to adjust to remote settings, and this could have been included in the

study as ways and methods to counter teacher isolation issues.

So in general, I believe this article can provide insight for teachers and school

administrators alike on the placement of teachers in remote settings and how to

possibly increase the morale of teachers placed in locations foreign to their own. The

general benefits of the study can possibly be applied to remote settings in Malaysia

too, since many teachers are also sent to rural villages to teach. Nevertheless, as

mentioned earlier, the study is limited in its generalizability as the study only covered

a small scope.

The study definitely carries a lot of value and is well written. The method was

also clear with very direct explanation of biasness, and limitations on the findings.

Most of the threats to validity were also addressed in the article and I consider the

issues to be covered in a detailed way. I would have liked to understand the different

factors that affect teachers’ job stress and satisfaction, and thus would like to have

seen suggestions and comments from the authors, on how to combat these issues.

Perhaps a good approach would be to introduce teacher-training programmes and

immersion training. Without a definitive guide on how to overcome such stress, the

study does remain completely objective, but somewhat leaves the reader asking the

relevance of such a study.

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