Findings of a study that examined the working conditions that teachers face in an urban school district in the southern United States are presented in this paper. A survey mailed to 1,329 teachers in 15 secondary and 68 elementary schools produced an approximate 50 percent response rate per school. Interviews were also conducted with the union…

This dissertation examines factors associated with the successful recruitment and retention of black teachers. A literature review and a pilot study were used to identify 10 factors salient to teacher recruitment and retention. Those 10 factors were incorporated into a survey administered to 116 black first-year teachers and 116 white first-year…

A major lesson of the past decade's education reform measures and school improvement efforts is that educational change of almost any stripe is a problem of the smallest unit. It is a problem that turns on the incentives, attitudes, abilities, and responses of those ultimately responsible for seeing that initiatives for improvement translate into…

An examination of the various ways in which teaching is uncertain and how uncertainty pervades teachers' lives points out that teachers face uncertainties in their instructional content, ranging from difficult concepts, to unclarity about how teaching might be improved. These forms of uncertainty undermine teachers' authority, creating situations…

Examines the pupils' reactions to a teacher's absence and discusses the relationship between regular and substitute teachers. Includes suggestions for change. (Author/SDH)

Addressing the need to consider ways in which the quality of educator work life can be improved, the author uses J. Walton's eight-point definition of the quality of work life as a framework for discussion. The eight points include (1) adequate and fair compensation, in which financial incentives are provided for advanced coursework; (2) safe and…

This study provides information on science teachers' perception of themselves and their working conditions. A stratified random sample of junior and senior high school science teachers from three regions (12 states) of the United States was selected to respond to a questionnaire and an attitude measure. The questionnaire contained 20 items dealing…

A questionnaire (appended) was administered to a sample of elementary and secondary teachers in Tennessee in three consecutive years to analyze the effects of negotiated contracts on teachers' attitudes toward job satisfaction, interpersonal trust, organizational commitment, and career satisfaction. The findings include a decline in the opinion…

Information from 823 of the 1,127 non-teaching agricultural education graduates from Iowa State University from January 1940 to July 1964 was examined to investigate environmental factors influencing agricultural education graduates to teach vocational agriculture and reasons for leaving vocational agriculture teaching. Examination of the data…

This document identifies teacher attitude as the most important variable in effective teaching, describes a preliminary study of teacher conceptions of reading, and outlines the scope of subsequent research on teacher decisions, patterns of instruction, and time allocation. Two instruments, the Proposition Sort and the Rep Test, were used to…

A study investigated from a national perspective factors that influence the attrition and retention of newly hired secondary business teachers in the public sector. It also identified factors important to determine a business teacher's interest in continuing or not continuing in the teaching profession. The survey developed for the study consisted…

Howard Community College uses the Quality Evaluation of Service Trends (QUEST) Survey to ask its employees to evaluate themselves and each other in terms of the quality of service they render to their various constituencies each year. Results of the 1999 survey include: (1) of the 51 service areas listed, 34 improved their ratings over the last…

The objective of this study was to investigate the concept of stress in the community college faculty governance unit. While research has found that most faculty experience stress as a result of workload, publishing pressures, and insufficient salaries, this study asserts that some faculty experience an additional dimension of stress as a result…

Notes why teachers can identify with the characters on the television police drama "Hill Street Blues." (RL)

Fifty rural physical educators teaching disabled students in northern New England completed the Reflective Ecological Inventory, which assists teachers to reflect on their teaching environment and the influence of mainstreaming on that environment to gain appropriate perspective and control. Contains 29 references. (SV)