Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teachers efficacy beliefs, stress, and

job satisfaction in a remote setting

by Robert M. Klassen a,*, Rosemary Y. Foster b, Sukaina Rajani a, Carley
Bowmana

Summary
This article, Teaching in Yukon: Exploring teachers efficacy beliefs, stress and
job satisfaction in remote setting written by Robert M. Klassen et al. was
published in International Journal of Education Research in 2009.

The

authors conducted a research that examines how social, cultural and

geographical factors affected teachers motivation especially those who taught
in remote area. The authors believe that teachers in that particular area are
physically and resourcefully isolated, culturally challenged as well as hold
different in values and beliefs with the community.

These isolations,

challenges and differences are the barriers for teachers to excel thus
contribute to lack of enthusiasm, tense and fulfilment in their profession.

Introduction
This research aimed to provide a clear picture on teachers efficacy beliefs,
stress and job satisfaction in remote setting. It concerns on the challenges
faced by the teachers which include the geographical and professional
isolation as well as cultural, values and beliefs while teaching in remote areas.
The Study 1 reveals that both setting, urban and rural, emphasize the
similarities between the variables while Study 2 highlights the importance and
interrelatedness of microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem
factors.
1

Analysis
Based on the findings in Study 1, the three themes i.e. social, cultural and
geographical factors suggest considerable similarity on these two variables.
However in Study 2, there was existence of correlation between the themes
that can be seen through the interviews that takes place during the research.
For that reason, it is said that the perspective from the teachers itself is vital
when examining these themes which at times were mostly concealed. It is
then adequate to say that the mixed method approach used by the
researchers in this study is highly recommended for future studies that would
like to look into motivation and job satisfaction.

In this article, the author did a good job of presenting the variables of interest
in this research and clearly stating that they employed mixed methods
approach. The justification is rather lengthy but can be summarized by saying
that teachers motivation is influenced by social, cultural and geographical
factors. The aim of the research is clearly stated as follows: to examine
teacher self- and collective efficacy, job stress and job satisfaction in a
particular context the Yukon territory in Canadas far north. The author state
no hypotheses; but rather specific assumptions are stated and the research
design follow immediately afterwards.

It can be said that this article is significant given that studies of teachers
motivation deemed to be higher interest than others (predominantly as a
result of mixed method approach used) are relatively rare.

The authors

present an argument for the importance of mixed methods research by

emphasizing that most studies of teacher motivation and job beliefs have
relied solely on de-contextualized self-report questionnaire that may overlook
the complexities of teaching in particular situations. Therefore, the findings of
this particular research provide a complete picture of a research hypotheses
as it was based on the strength of both quantitative and qualitative methods
used. My overall impression is that this research provides stronger evidence
for a conclusion through convergence and corroboration of findings as
methods used complement each other.

After a detailed background review on keywords and settings of the study, the
authors turn their attention to the main focus of the study: an original
quantitative analysis of Study 1 which examined self- and collective efficacy,
job stress and job satisfaction for teachers in Yukon and compared level and
patterns of these variables with a comparison group of teachers from several
school districts in a city in Western Canada. The authors has relied on the
data taken from a survey given to 107 teachers in Yukon and 6,000 attendees
of teacher convention for the comparison group (teacher from urban/suburban
school districts in a metropolitan centre in Western Canada) all of whom were
deemed of a similar, with no significant differences between the two samples
for age, teaching experience or gender.

The authors explained the number of participant and its procedure as well as
the agreement made with territorial education authorities not to identify the
school and community on surveys in Yukon.

However, participants in

comparison group were stated in percentage thus enable us to clarify whether

the same numbers of participant were recruited in this research. It should be
stated instead since this would be a factor in judging the generalizability/
transferability of the results.

Using a variety of statistical methods, the authors demonstrate a number of

interesting findings.

A descriptive statistics analysis mostly measures

adequate reliability, but the workload stress reliability coefficient was low for
participants in the Yukon and in Western Canada revealing an equal source of
stress i.e. too much work to do, having extra duties because of absent
teachers and large class size in both areas. Additionally, an ANOVA (Analysis
of Variance) shows that overall job stress, stress from student behaviour and
job satisfaction was not significantly different between the two settings but
teachers in the Yukon rated three variables significantly lower than their urban
peers, confirming assumptions that teaching in urban area is more likely
stressful than in remote area in terms of student behaviour and class size.

Furthermore, the authors have used bivariate correlations to show a

relationship of the four main variables for both setting which showed similar
directions and magnitudes with self- and collective efficacy and job stress
significantly related to job satisfaction. Hence, it can be conceptualized that
individual teacher self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy as different but
correlated construct. However, there is no generally agreed upon definition of
teacher job satisfaction as the impact of different circumstances is dependent
on how important each of the circumstances to the individual teacher.

The authors then conducted hierarchical multiple regression to examine the

influence of self- and collective efficacy and job stress and its sources on job
satisfaction for both groups combined.

An analysis shows that collective

efficacy was the strongest predictor of job satisfaction followed by job stress
and self-efficacy.

Nevertheless, the sources of job stress; workload and

student behaviour did not significantly contribute to the prediction of job

satisfaction of teachers. On the other hand, findings from logistic regression
reveals that teachers self-efficacy, stress from student behaviour and job
satisfaction were variables that reliably distinguished between teachers with
high and low overall job stress across setting.

While these findings are

certainly of interest, the authors somewhat overbearing attention to look into

problem with measuring teachers satisfaction; with different circumstances
and letting those measures indicate overall job satisfaction is that different
circumstances may be important to different teachers.

In support to their quantitative analyses, the authors have been able to design
qualitative study in which its findings elaborate and provide further and deeper
analysis of the previous findings with a particular focus on teachers job
satisfaction and job stress. The method used is face-to-face interviews with
20 teachers from different background of teaching (10 secondary grades, 10
primarily elementary grades) and areas (5 from capital city, 8 from mid-size
town and 7 from remote). Before the interviews, the authors have kept field
notes through observation of schools and conversations with education
stakeholders in each setting. This note is not reported directly but used as a

guide the line of questioning of the face-to-face interviews. By doing so, it

may help the authors coding the themes based on the findings from
quantitative methods.

A semi-structured interview was then carried out to elicit specific answers from
the respondents in which the information can later be compared and
contrasted.

The interview was audio-recorded, transcribed and reviewed,

compared to the field notes and discussed on emerging codes and themes.
The interview protocol included sections on general teaching, context of
teaching and beliefs about teaching but was not static as other questions
evolved during interaction with participants in previous visit to the territory.
The authors have been able to come out with concept mapping as a result of
data analyses made that based on relationships between codes and themes.
The procedures benefited the authors in increasing the salience and
relevance of the questions where interviews are built on and emerge from
observations. Nevertheless, it can be quite difficult to organize and analyse
the data gathered.

After specified analyses of codes and themes in concept mapping, the

authors have revealed the three themes; physical and human geography
influence job stress and job satisfaction, building connections with the
community leads to teaching satisfaction and cultural transitions in the
community lead to teachers professional stress.

The authors took the

primary theme as support to their implied assumptions in which teachers job

stress and satisfaction in remote area are influenced by physical and human

geography.

However, the other two themes came directly from the

assumptions on the issue that cultural and community does contribute to

teachers job stress and satisfaction. The results are presented in narrative
form supported with quotes to reflect the voices of the participants. Therefore,
the reader must trust that these descriptions accurately reflect what was said
and observed during the research.

On the other hand, the internal validity/credibility of this research involve the
soundness of the conclusions reached, based on its design and execution.
The quantitative variables seem to have reasonable operational definitions
although some question arises as to whether participants might have said
more in responding to the short-answer question if they hadnt had to write
their responses. Besides, the differences among participants as well should
be looked as a possible threat to internal validity where it seems like their
socio-economic status is related to both job stress and satisfaction.

Overall, it can be said that this research exhibits how the effect of qualitative
and quantitative methodology mutually can offer an additional absolute
perceptive of a phenomenon than could be attained by using only one of the
methodologies itself. This was shown as the authors begin their analysis of
the quantitative results in which guiding the qualitative findings to meet the
assumptions.

The convergence and divergence of the qualitative and

quantitative data were also explicitly addressed thus making the research
more reliable in its context.

Conclusion

In summary, I believe that the conclusions of the study justify its findings and
manage to correlate the factors on geographical, community and cultural to
teachers job beliefs. Thus, the result shows that environment, society and
culture play an important role in determining ones job satisfaction in which the
study focus on teachers in rural areas. The chosen method proves to be
adequate in a manner that the questionnaire were supported by interview that
enhances the findings.

Besides, analyses of data were presented and explained in a manner that is

understandable to the reader. The results of the questionnaire were divided
accordingly and then explained. While quotes from the interview session help
the reader in understanding the teachers situations better rather than build
how the factors related to one another.

References:

Fraenkel, J.R., Wallen, N.E., Hyun, H.H. (2006). How to Design and Evaluate
Research in Education. 8th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill International
Edition.

R.M. Klassen et al. (2009). Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teachers efficacy
beliefs, stress and job satisfaction in a remote setting. International Journal
of Education Research, 48, 381-394.