Teacher Job Satisfaction as Related to Student Performance on State-Mandated Testing

The growing demand placed upon educators has taken a toll on the profession (Walker, 2014). Teacher burnout, stress, and unhappiness may be predestined unless administrators recognize how to prevent these from happening (Elias, 2012). The intent of this quantitative study was to survey teachers in southwest Missouri to determine their level of job satisfaction as it relates to student performance on state-mandated assessments. The survey included items designed to collect data on overall level of teacher job satisfaction in relation to demographic areas of age range, gender, level of education, years of teaching experience, subject areas taught, and salary range. The first research question was designed to determine the correlation between high school teacher job satisfaction and high school student achievement. Based on this research, there was a relationship between teacher job satisfaction and Missouri Performance Index scores. The second research question was designed to determine the correlation between teacher job satisfaction and years of experience, salary, age, level of education, and gender. Based on the data collected, there was a correlation between teacher job satisfaction and years of experience and between teacher job satisfaction and the age of the educator. However, there was no correlation between teacher job satisfaction and level of education, nor between teacher job satisfaction and gender. Research question three was posed to determine if there was a difference in teacher job satisfaction between those teachers required to administer end-of-course (EOC) exams and teachers who were not required to administer EOC exams. The research determined there was no difference in job satisfaction between the two groups