Field instructors and professional identity: factors predicting job satisfaction

Abstract

ABSTRACT This cross-sectional study tested a model in which professional identity explains the factors affecting social work field instructors’ job satisfaction. The sample included 405 Israeli instructors with a wide range of professional and organizational backgrounds. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire and were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results demonstrated the direct effects of organizational and academic support on instructors’ job satisfaction. At the same time, their professional identity acted as a mediator in the association between motivation, work importance, and their satisfaction with student’s quality in practice and field training, and their job satisfaction. These findings reassert and broaden understandings regarding the crucial role of institutional and structural factors, including organizational and academic support, in directly affecting job satisfaction among social work field instructors. Moreover, the findings support the idea that instructors’ professional identity contributes to their job satisfaction and specifically, help explain how motivation, work importance and student’s professional quality affect this relationship.