Job Crafting among Younger and Older Academic Teachers

Abstract

The subject of the study is job crafting, currently (from the point of view of empirical research) very evolving in the subject literature, but relatively rarely undertaken in Polish conditions. The study is composed of two parts: theoretical one, which discusses the concept of job crafting and cited research results on the phenomenon and factors co-occurring with job crafting, as well as empirical one, including the presentation of mixed-qualitative research results carried out in the group of academic teachers. The research was conducted in a group of 64 and then a group of 36 teachers selected from them, of public and non-public academic teachers in Poland. As a result, it turned out that there is statistically significant differentiation among younger and older representatives of academic teachers, both in terms of frequency and content of behavior job crafting. Older academic teachers more often modify their way of perceiving their work and reflect on their previous professional activity (modification is made at the cognitive level), i.e. they boil down to critical reevaluation of their own assessments and most often positive reflections over their own professional achievements; younger teaching staff more often introduce structural changes related to work with students.