A multi-group higher-order factor analysis for studying the gender-effect in Teacher Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Teachers’ performances also depend on whether and how they are satisfied with their job. Therefore, Teacher Job Satisfaction must be considered as the driver of teachers’ accomplishments. To plan future policies and improve the overall teaching process, it is crucial to understand which factors mostly contribute to Teacher Job Satisfaction. A Common Assessment Framework and Education questionnaire was administered to 163 Italian public secondary school teachers to collect data, and a second-order factor analysis was used to detect which factors impact on Teacher Job Satisfaction, and to what extent. This model-based approach guarantees to detect factors which respect important properties: unidimensionality and reliability. All the coefficients are estimated according to the maximum likelihood estimation method in order to make inference on the parameters and on the validity of the model. Moreover, a new multi-group test for higher-order factor analysis was proposed and implemented. Finally, we analyzed in detail whether the factors impacting Teacher Job Satisfaction are characterized by gender.