Relationship between teachers' professional identity and career satisfaction among college teachers: role of career calling

Jinshun Wu; Saba Ghayas; Aiman Aziz; Adnan Adil; Sadia Niazi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348217

Relationship between teachers' professional identity and career satisfaction among college teachers: role of career calling

Front Psychol. 2024 Apr 10:15:1348217. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1348217. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jinshun Wu¹, Saba Ghayas², Aiman Aziz², Adnan Adil³, Sadia Niazi²

Affiliations

¹ College of Economics and Management, East China Jiaotong University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China.
² Department of Psychology, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan.
³ Department of Psychology, GC Women University Sialkot, Sialkot, Pakistan.

Abstract

Objectives: Professional identity has been found an important determinant of career satisfaction of employees working in various fields. Teachers' professional identity is a relatively less explored domain. Considering the importance of teacher's career satisfaction, the current study was designed to test the role of career calling in the relationship between teachers' professional identity and career satisfaction.

Methods: A sample of teachers (N = 300) with (n = 115) men and (n = 185) women was recruited from the colleges of Sargodha City, Pakistan with an age range from 24 to 45 (M = 31.3, SD = 6.4). A purposive sampling technique was employed for data collection. Variables of the present study were operationalized through the Professional Identity Scale, Brief Calling Scale, and Career Satisfaction Scale.

Results: Path analysis revealed that normative identity did not have any direct or indirect effects on career satisfaction and career calling. Whereas affective and efficacy identity demonstrated significant positive direct effects on career calling whereas career calling had significant positive direct effect on career satisfaction. Efficacy identity also had a significant positive direct effect on career satisfaction. Finally, both affective and efficacy identity had significant positive indirect effects on career satisfaction via career calling.

Conclusion: The findings of the current study may help in devising plans to improve the career satisfaction of teachers working in the higher education sector.

Keywords: career calling; career satisfaction; mediation; mediation professional identity; professional identity; teaching.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. We acknowledge financial support from the research project “A Research on Parameter Identification and Application of DSGE Models Allowing for Indeterminacy” (Approval Number: 71863008) sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China.