Browsing by Author "Väänänen, Anna"

Goals: The reasearch on teachers’ job satisfaction shows that the teachers’ job satisfaction is getting lower. The barometer on work conditions, published in May 2018 by the The Trade Union of Eduaction in Finland, shows that the teachers’ job satisfaction had lessened in the preceding two years. One viewpoint to understand more thoroughly the concept of job satisfaction is to look into the factors that cause job satisfaction in teachers’ work life. In this research, the goal was to widen understanding on the communication that lies behind teachers’ job satisfaction. The answers to this research problem were approached through the experiences of special education teachers. Job satisfaction was defined by the definition of Locke (1976): job satisfaction is "a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experiences". The recent research literature (e.g. Pepe, Addimando & Veronese 2017) shows that the relational communication is a factor that explains job satisfaction In this research, the interest is in the communication with the pupils, colleagues and pupil’s parents that supports job satisfaction. Methods: In this research, the data consisted of two interviews of special education teatchers. They were conducted in April 2018. The interviews were transcribed and the data consisted of 32 pages. The data was analyzed using qualitative, hermeneutic-phenomenological principles. Resuls: The communication relations with the pupils and the colleagues were seen as strongly meaningful factors explaining special education teachers’ job satisfaction. The communication with the parents was seen as less meaniful when considering job satisfaction. The communication atmosphere and the roles in the different communication relations were common factors when looking into the communication that was considered strenghtening job satisfaction. These factors apporach the transactional factors explaing burnout that Chan (2009) has represented. Openness, honesty and experience of trust seem to be the central common ground on all communication supporting the job satisfaction of the special education teachers.