Special and rehabilitation teachers, in most cases, decide on a profession based on internal factors associated with a sense of purpose for this kind of work. Experiencing the professional mission is associated with job satisfaction and life satisfaction. At the same time, it is a reason why special and rehabilitation teachers continue to work in this field. Even if professionals in education see their work as mission-driven, their daily work overload can reduce their motivation and limit their job satisfaction, thus negatively affecting their teaching and students with special needs they work with. By exploring the relationships between experiencing the professional mission, motives for career choice, and job satisfaction, we can identify working conditions that contribute to greater job satisfaction of professional workers and consequently to a higher quality of professional work with students with special needs. For the empirical part of the research, we used a causal non-experimental method and the quantitative research approach among 105 special and rehabilitation teachers. Our findings show that respondents chose a profession based on internal factors. Among external factors with a smaller impact on the future profession and career choice predominates decision by mere coincidence. Survey data show that respondents primarily see their work as experiencing the professional mission and that those workers are more satisfied with their career choice. Studying the relationship between the expressed level of experiencing the professional mission and length of service, we discovered that they are nondependent. Based on the average values of expressed professional sense of purpose by individual job classes, we found that individuals with 4-6 years of work experience expressed the highest experiencing the professional mission. Individuals with 7-18 years of work experience expressed that the least. Our research showed that the respondents' job satisfaction did not differ statistically significantly according to their length of service. Average job satisfaction values are highest for individuals with the longest length of service and lowest for beginners and those with 7-18 years of work experience. Due to many positive aspects of experiencing work as experiencing the professional mission, it would make sense to develop strategies that would help promote or establish a professional sense of purpose in Special and Rehabilitation Pedagogy during studying and in the first years of employment.
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