A Correlation Study Of Middle School English Teachers’ Agency And Occupational Well-being

The curriculum reform marks that China’s fundamental education has entered a new stage of development,and the New English Curriculum Standards also places greater demands on teachers.English teachers need to constantly learn new knowledge and educational concepts to be better qualified for teaching.In this regard,many studies have explored teachers’ agency and professional development,and believed that English teachers need to display agency to promote their professional development,so as to improve teaching quality.There are also studies holding that teachers’ well-being is an important prerequisite for doing a good job in teaching and it is an internal driving force for teachers’ professional development.However,previous studies focused more on the status quo of teacher agency or well-being,explored their influencing factors and improvement paths,but did not comprehensively explore the relationship between the two.Therefore,from a micro perspective,this study focuses on the agency and occupational well-being of middle school English teachers.Based on the activity theory and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory,the quantitative research method was used in this study to answer the following three questions:(1)What is the general situation of teacher agency for middle school English teachers?(2)What is the general situation of occupational well-being for middle school English teachers?(3)Is there a correlation between teacher agency and teachers’ occupational well-being? How are the two related?This study mainly used the method of questionnaire survey,and took English teachers in middle schools in Yunnan Province as research subjects.A total of 182 questionnaires were collected.This thesis used SPSS 22.0 statistical software to conduct the questionnaire data,such as factor analysis,descriptive statistical analysis,one-way ANOVA,independent sample t-test,correlation and regression analysis.The following conclusions are drawn through the study:(1)The overall agency of middle school English teachers is at a high level.There are significant differences in teachers’ agency in such demographic variables as marital status,age and years of teaching.(2)The overall occupational well-being of middle school English teachers is at a medium-high level.There are significant differences in their occupational well-being in terms of teaching stages and years of teaching.The main reasons for middle school English teachers to achieve occupational well-being are job stability,the common growth of teachers and students,harmonious colleague relationships,love for the teaching profession,and the teaching environment.Nevertheless,the main reasons for the lack of teachers’ occupational well-being are the heavy workload,the difficulties of teaching students and the lack of cooperation of parents,the mismatch between pay and work,the failure of schools to correctly evaluate the work and the heavy teaching and research tasks.(3)There exists a significant,positive and strong correlation between the agency and occupational well-being of middle school English teachers.The decision participation,self-adjustment and professional identity of agency are important predictors for teachers’ occupational well-being.Based on the above conclusions,this thesis puts forward suggestions from three perspectives: teachers,schools and education departments.Middle school English teachers can recognize the importance of agency,which is positively related to teachers’ occupational well-being.Teachers’ agency can not only promote teachers’ professional development,but also affect their experience of well-being.