Abstract:

Around 40 thousand people were assigned to teaching profession in the year of 2014 in Turkey. This group of novice teachers are considered to be trainee tecachers in their first year of the profession and it is well established that they have difficulties in adapting the profession. These difficulties emerge from the reasons such as personal characteristics, expectations, school culture and routines of school. Another reason for this could be of that the training and modules that they have during their pre-service training may not reflect the real school structure and routines. One of the most important principles of carrying out a profession in a happy and rewarding way is to have satisfaction from the profession. Teaching satisfaction is a perceptional correlational function between the expectations of individual from his/her job and how s/he perceives teaching that is evaluated by the opportunities and conditions. This situation is an outcome that emerges out through teachers’ attitudes and emotional reactions. The perception of self-worth, which is one of the leading factors that shapes teachers’ attitudes and emotional reactions, affect teaching satisfaction and in turn is affected by it. Individual may try to feel the perception of self-worth in different areas. If s/he cannot feel it in the job environment, s/he makes up for it by taking interest in other areas. While issues related to students and their learnings are covered particularly in relation to their maturation in the module of educational psychology which is an important module for teaching profession, psychology of teachers are usually not addressed properly. However, it is important to cover personal and social features of teaching profession to prepare student teachers psychologically for the profession. In this respect, comments of novice/trainee teachers could provide more critical contribution than those people’s comments who are student teachers or experienced teachers.

The research was carried out with trainee teachers in the school year of 2013-2014. Mixed methodolgy was used to explore the issue in detail. First set of data was collected through interviews. Variables to be examined determined by analysing the interview data. In the second stage, scales representing the variables were applied. While interviews were carried out with 30 trainee teachers; personal information form and “teacher satisfaction and conditional self-worth scale” were filled by 220 trainee teachers.

According to the research findings, significant differences were found in relation to sub-variables of demographic characteristics, teaching satisfaction and perception of self-worth. The findings are evaluated in the light of literature. There is a significant correlation between academic competence, which is an area through which the perception of self-worth is consructed, and teaching satisfaction. It is observed that individuals who do not fulfill their self-worth emotion in academic competence head towards other areas of self-worth. In the end, recommendations are proposed in the light of the findings.

Keywords:

Trainee teacher, teaching satisfaction, self-worth, psychology of teacher.