The job satisfaction level of New Brunswick's French Business and Trade and Industrial Education teachers in relation to attitudes and other demographic variables

The purposes of the study were (1) to gather descriptive data on the French Business Education and Trades and Industrial Education teachers of New Brunswick, (2) to determine the relationship between selected demographic variables and the overall job satisfaction of these teachers and (3) to determine whether any or all of the chosen variables can predict overall job satisfaction.

A mail survey technique was used to collect the data for this study. A set of three questionnaires was sent to each teacher via his/her chairperson. One of the questionnaires was used to collect the demographic data. Another, the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory was used to measure the teachers' attitudes. The third questionnaire, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire - short form, was used to measure the overall job satisfaction. The collected data was analysed by means of the SPSS program (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences).

The major findings of this study were that the percentage of the satisfied teachers was similar to that of other major studies although there was a large shift in the population from the Very satisfied group to the Satisfied group. Also the Business Education teachers were found to be more satisfied than the Trades and Industrial Education teachers.

Other findings were that the overall job satisfaction was not related to sex, age, tenure status, experience, education, the number of teaching positions or the type of background experience. However, a number of these variables were found to predict the overall job satisfaction. Working conditions, length of tenure, the attitude score and the program of the teacher, combined together to form a predictor, accounted for a little over 50% of the variance of the overall job satisfaction.

Finally, the study revealed that a low number of the teachers possessed a graduate degree while a high percentage of them (75%) said that they wanted further professional development. The first recommendation would be made to the training institutions. They should try to find out what kind of training these teachers want.

Other recommendations to be made for a future study are; (1) a monitoring study to measure the job satisfaction level all through the year in order to make sure that the final results are not influenced by some brief external influence such as an announcement of a budget cutback, (2) to include both the original and the translated versions of the questionnaires. (3) to include the entire teaching population rather than only part of the Vocational Education teachers. Lastly, the teachers' union would do well to look at which working conditions these teachers are not satisfied with so as to consider them as a part of the next collective agreement.

In conclusion, the study did gather some useful data which were not available before. It also provided some information as to which variables were related to job satisfaction as well as to which one could predict the overall job satisfaction.