AN EXAMINATION OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENGLISH TEACHERS’ JOB SATISFACTION AND KEY COMPETENCES FOR LIFELONG LEARNING

Abstract

The new trends, teaching methods and techniques in education have greatly altered the traditional understanding of how teachers can learn and teach. These changes force teachers to be in constant development and gain new proficiency. Besides that, today's political developments and social conditions also lead to positive or negative changes in the teachers' view on their profession. This paper examined the relationship between English teachers’ job satisfaction and lifelong learning competences. The participants of this research were 306 English teachers, who work in a province located in the eastern region of Turkey in the spring semester of 2016/2017 academic year. In the research, Mann-Whitney U test was used in the analysis of gender variable, and Kruskal Wallis H test was used to compare the English teachers’ opinions in the groups of occupational seniority and types of the schools they work in. Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between scores from job satisfaction scale and key competences for lifelong learning scores, and finally simple linear regression analysis was used to determine whether the teachers' job satisfaction is a meaningful predictor of key competences for lifelong learning. The results showed English teachers’ job satisfaction and key competences for lifelong learning were high, and the English teachers’ job satisfaction and key competences for lifelong learning levels did not differ significantly according to gender, occupational seniority, and type of school they work in. The research found that there is a positive, moderate and significant relationship between job satisfaction and key competences for lifelong learning, and job satisfaction is not a significant predictor of lifelong learning competences.