The master's thesis The motives for choosing the teaching profession and resilience
of primary school teachers consists of two parts: theoretical and empirical. The
theoretical part is divided into four substantive sections. In the first section, we define
the role of the teacher, the importance of professionalisation and their competences.
In the second section, we list several teachers' motives for choosing the teaching
profession. In the third section, we present the professional development of a
teacher, describe five models of professional development and list the factors that
influence professional development. In the last section of the theoretical part, we
focus on work stress and resilience, which we connected with the area of education
and schooling.
The empirical part of the master's thesis presents the results of a survey which
included 104 elementary school teachers from various elementary schools in
Slovenia. The purpose of our master's work is to determine the role of various
motives for choosing the profession of a teacher in their professional satisfaction,
professional development of teachers, and the experience of stress and resilience.
The obtained results are presented in five main content sections, which we designed
according to the research questions. The first part presents the motives that influence
the choice of the teaching profession, followed by the level of satisfaction in
performing the teaching profession and the factors that influence the satisfaction of
teachers. The third part presents the assessment of work stress of the teaching
profession and the most common signs of stress. The fourth section deals with to the
teacher's resilience and strategies for maintaining resilient behaviour. In the last part,
we present the assessment of the importance of professional development and the
factors that influence professional development.
Our research shows that primary school teachers choose the teaching profession
mainly because of their love for teaching, satisfaction with their profession and the
desire to work with children and adolescents. In addition, the research shows that
teachers are satisfied with their profession, and professional development is
important to them. On average, the teaching profession is rated as very stressful.
However, most teachers successfully cope with various pressures, which indicates a
high level of their resilience.
This master's thesis is aimed at promoting professional development and resilient
behaviour in primary school teachers with different motives for choosing a profession.
We have also compared the findings of our research with some foreign research and
found similarities, namely, that there are no differences among elementary school
teachers in Slovenia in the motives for choosing a profession and the importance of
professional development. Some smaller deviations were observed only in the level
of resilient behaviour, which is slightly higher among Slovenian primary school
teachers.
|
