my article review

AZURAWATI BT WOK ZAKI ED7701A2

EDU702- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

ARTICLE REVIEW

Klassen,R.M., Foster,R.Y Sukaina, Bowman,B., (2009). Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring

teachers’ efficacy beliefs, stress, and job satisfaction in a remote setting, International

Journal of Education Research, (48), pp 381-394.

Introduction

The article chosen is ‘Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring teacher’s efficacy beliefs, stress and

job satisfaction in a remote setting’ written by Klassen, Foster, Sukaina & Bowman (2009)

discuss on the influence of cultural and community factors on teacher’s working lives. The

article highlights the job’s beliefs for teachers and how the geographical, community and

cultural factors were related to teachers’ job beliefs. At such, teachers’ motivation is

determined by the degree of job stress and job satisfaction which lead to their engagement

and transformation in teaching. Even though there are many studies have been conducted in

highlighting teachers’ motivation in teaching but those studies maybe over look the

intricacies of teaching in a specific circumstance. This article facilitates in providing insight

into the framework of motivation that infrequently emphasized such as job stress and job

dissatisfaction.

This article which stresses on the job beliefs and how geographical, community, and cultural

factors were related to it shows that teachers nowadays encounter lot of challenges in their

career which could lesser their motivation level in teaching especially in inaccessible setting.

The challenges turn into the factors that affect teachers’ working lives. In order to get

engaged wholly in a job, one should have a high level of motivation to ensure that job done

is satisfied and decreased stress level. The motivation will easily decrease in thorny

situations and change one’s belief or assurance in potential to successfully carry out a

particular course of action. Teachers is one of the factors to inject motivation among

students, therefore, teachers should have a high level of motivation in teaching the students

so that the learning process can be done effectively and cooperatively. By the end of the

day, teachers will gain job satisfaction efficiently.

In this paper, article summary, critical reflections as well as comments about selected aspect

and suggestions to the issue being raised are precisely presented.

Article summary

As indicated in the article, job stress and job dissatisfaction are influenced by physical and

human geography, level of connection with the community and by the community’s cultural

transitions. The major points made in the article include 1) job beliefs for teachers from the



Yukon and western Canada and 2) how geographical, community, and cultural factors were

related to Yukon’s teachers’ job beliefs. Few possible questions which may be asked; what

is the relationship between teachers’ efficacy beliefs, job stress, and job satisfaction for

teachers in the Yukon? Are the levels and patterns of relationship different for teachers in

remote and urban setting? Since there are theories such as job satisfaction has been shown

to influence career decisions and to enhance motivation and performance (Judge et al.,

2001), thus it would be good to get the dept insight regarding teachers’ working lives and

factors influenced their job stress and satisfaction that could point the way to more

understanding of teachers and teaching.

Critical reflection

Teachers’ motivation is important and it influenced by self-and collective efficacy as well as

job- two related beliefs such as job stress and job satisfaction. Education is a lifelong

learning meanwhile teaching is the lifelong career. In order to make the lifelong learning is a

triumphant, teachers’ first need to have the interest and passion as well as motivated

enough towards the job.

The use of mixed methods for this study impressed me as Klassen, Foster, Sukaina, &

Bowman, attempt to explore more on the factors that teachers understand to influence the

stress they experienced in a work setting and the satisfaction that they derived for teaching

in inaccessible setting. The researcher mix quantitative and qualitative research methods,

procedures, and paradigm characteristics in a way that the resulting mixture or combination

has complementary strengths and non-overlapping weaknesses. The qualitative phase in

the study helps to elaborate and present deeper analysis of the quantitative findings. These

mixed methods are to complement one set of results with another, to expand a set of results,

or to discover something that would have been missed if only a quantitative or a qualitative

approach had been used.

It is observed that in this article, in Yukon, teachers experienced difficult time that influenced

by the harsh climate and hours of daylight leads to job stress and dissatisfaction. Teachers

need time to adjust themselves with the new weather and surrounding. While adjusting their

life to the new environment, teachers will be affected psychologically. Then, the isolation that

brought by distance can be a big challenge for teachers too which affect their emotional and

psychological well being. Therefore, the self-and collective efficacy and geographical factors

do affect their motivation level. Nowadays we can see that many people choose to join this

noble education field in order to educate the young generation enthusiastically. However,

when they are already in this field and got posted to certain remote areas with so many

challenges that need to be faced every day, their self-esteem will diminish and motivation



level will easily descend. A motivated teacher is one who not only feels pleased with his or

her job, but also is empowered to do the best for excellence and enlargement in instructional

practice.

In Asia, specifically Malaysia, teachers also encounter the same challenges of job stress and

satisfaction as well as the influence of the geographical, community and cultural factors in

their working lives. Teachers need to cater with students’ behaviours and workloads.

Therefore, teachers have the high tendency to live in a stress life. Then, in geographical

matter, every teacher wishes to be posted near to their home as they are already familiar

with the place. However in Malaysia, posting near to home or in a hometown area is not a

promise. Therefore, for those who do not prepare much when they are sent to remote area,

this does affect them psychologically and emotionally. When they live far away such as who

is from peninsular Malaysia and got posted in Sabah or Sarawak, the stress level is higher.

The main factor is they are far from home and rarely able to go back home as they are not

familiar with the new place and need time to prepare their mental and physical with the new

environment. Their level of motivation can decrease easily.

Other than that, when teachers are in a new community with a new cultural, there are certain

rules that they need to follow or values that they need to accept which contra to their own

rules and values. Some researchers have found that students from some ethnic groups

behave in ways that make educational tasks more difficult than others (2008). For example,

in Malaysia, there are few dialects in certain states. Teachers from other areas need time to

adjust themselves with the new dialects in order to communicate well. In rural area

specifically, the level of education is low and people is strongly upholding with their traditions

and culture. For example in teaching English, the mind set of people in rural area differs than

in the town area. Some people in rural area think that English is not so important and useful

for them. Therefore, the students refuse to learn best the subject. Teachers need to change

the mind set first in order to attract the students to learn best for the subject. Thus, whenever

the teachers are either in Malaysia or Yukon, still they share the same feelings when they

are in different area of their own hometown. The level of motivation will be influenced by

internal and external factors. When community strongly believe in traditional learning, it is

tough for teachers to bring about new transformation in teaching and learning if they refuse

to do so.

I moderately find that Klassen, Foster, Sukaina, & Bowman have managed to bring out the

over look of complexities of teaching in particular situation as they successfully highlights the

challenges that teachers face in their working lives other than teaching itself especially in

Yukon remote setting. However, in the article, the author could actually dwell more into the



contextual factors of the study that should be translated well. This job beliefs and job

dissatisfaction is surely differ for each remote setting. This study which is conducted only in

one part of the Canada cannot be generalised as the other part of the world as different

places got different factors influenced teachers’ motivation. Job beliefs and job satisfaction

might be the main factors but the meaning of them differs according to places and situations.

This article offers the cultural and community factors that influence teachers’ working lives

remote setting. As the key cultural and community is that, it explores on the situation that

teachers face when they are in one culture and one community as a part of their life.

According to the article, teachers experience external relationship with parents and

community members. Novice teachers especially have problem to build rapport with the

parents in the community. If this case is prolong, how teachers can achieve self-esteem as

well as self-actualization if they are not able to achieve the third hierarchy in Maslow’s

Hierarchy of need which are love and belong. Teachers are not belong to the community and

lose their focus in order to achieve the goal in education as the First Nation people do not

see themselves reflected in the school system.

Then, the article also raised the issue of jobs beliefs and job satisfaction among teachers; it

provides that the physical and geographical context influenced job stress and satisfaction. In

this article it is stated that teachers face a difficulty in adjusting themselves with the weather.

Long hour of daylight and the long periods in winter make the teachers feel stress in

working. For example, during winter, the situation and surrounding are almost the same at

one time; 8a.m is just like 3a.m in the morning. Other places will experience different

difficulties from the geographical context that influenced job stress and satisfaction. For

example, in certain rural school in Malaysia, in order to reach the school, teachers need to

travel for two hours by boat. So, teachers are tired already before they reach to school. The

situation does affect them emotionally.

Another issue that has been identified by the authors could lead another study in teachers’

job belief and dissatisfaction. The issue is what are the ways that teachers can do in getting

support from the parents in one community to strengthen the children education in remote

area.

In contrast, this article also has an array of weaknesses, there is no clear suggestion

provided in order to improve teachers’ motivation in remote setting. The subject only relies

on teachers in one part of Canada, I think, it would be better the study also conducted in

various kind of remote setting to see the similarities that they have among teachers that

influenced jobs belief and dissatisfaction. The data would be more realistic and the

implication of the theory and practice can derive to the other part of world.



Several statement also seems to express the authors own disappointment in the reason of

conducting the study that have been overlooked in much motivation research. For example,

Bronfenbrenner’s much cited ecological approach (1979) continues to provide a useful

model for understanding factors in teaching and the teaching environment. Influences on

teachers and teaching involve more than the microsystem (e.g, factors in the classroom), but

also include influences from the broader layers of the mesosystem (e.g., factors in the

school), the exosystem (community factors), and the macrosystem (cultural factors), the

latter three layers that have been largely ignored in teacher motivation research. (p. 393).

These statement highlights that there are various kind of factors that influence teachers’

motivation not only from one the first layer of the mesosystem. Therefore, Klassen, Foster,

Sukaina & Bowman are called to carry out the study in that particular situation with different

contexts. The article provides trustworthy information and a credible point of view how the

community in remote setting sees the education. However, there is no means provide in

suggesting to improve this kind of situation which involves one community in remote setting.

Recommendation and further research

I think that teachers’ motivation can be enhance gradually by ongoing support from the

respective government or authorities. I personally agreed with the authors that geographical,

cultural and community become the factors that influence teachers’ working lives. I would

suggest that this study to be carried out to another remote area in other part of the world

such as in Malaysia. Being the only source of manpower in the education field to produce

quality education, there is an urgent need for investigation to counteract the negative

consequences of work-related stress on teachers.

Conclusion

Klessen, Foster, Sukaina & Bowman have presented a realistic research that the factors

influence job and stress depend on the context and also depend on the outside of the

classroom factors as strongly as school-based factors. The links with community and

stakeholder plays an important role in the satisfaction and stress in the classroom. The

article does contain supporting information as the finding shows that those factors do

influence teachers’ motivation.



References:

Santrock W. J. (2008). Educational Psychology. Third Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Klassen M. R, Foster Y. R, Sukaina & Bowman C. (2009). Teaching in the Yukon: Exploring

teachers’ efficacy beliefs, and job satisfaction in a remote setting. International Journal

of Educational Research. Retrieved on March 9, 2012 from

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2010.04.002

Ash K. (2007). The Teacher's Role in Motivation. Education Week. Retrieved on March 25,

2012 from

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/motivation/2007/12/student_incentives_revisited.html

Suslu S. (2006). Motivation of ESL Teachers. The Internet TESL Journal. Vol. XII, No. 1.

Retrieved on March 16, 2012 from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Suslu-

TeacherMotivation.html

Bennet B. (2009). Motivation and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Retrieved on 26 March 2012

from http://billbennett.co.nz/2009/01/10/managing-knowledge-workers-motivation-

and-the-hierarchy-of-needs/