Predicting job satisfaction based on self-efficacy beliefs, teacher's sense of efficacy, job stress and Hierarchy of needs in exceptional children's teachers at lorestan province

The purpose of this study is to present and analyze a model according to which the prediction of job satisfaction based on self-efficacy beliefs, teacher's sense of efficacy, job stress and hierarchy of needs in exceptional children's teachers is investigated. To do this, 165 subjects (99 females and 66 males) among the exceptional children's teachers of elementary grades in lorestan province were selected using the multi-stage cluster sampling and were tested using the questionnaires of JDI, SGSES, TSES, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The findings showed that the job satisfaction of these teachers is lower than average. In the first phase, the results of path analysis suggested that the proposed model is not fitted; however, extracting the fit indices of the corrected model confirms the coincidence between the corrected and the proposed models. Based on the path coefficients, the effect of general self-efficacy on teacher's sense of efficacy and the effect of teacher's sense of efficacy and the hierarchy of needs on job satisfaction was confirmed. Also, a significant relationship between job satisfaction and security/social needs was observed. The analysis of demographic characteristics showed that the job satisfaction of mentally handicapped group is more than that of the deaf group, but there was no significant relationship between age, education and service years with any of job satisfaction dimensions, and the relationship between sex and job satisfaction was significant only in terms of satisfaction toward colleagues. The difference between females and males in teacher's sense of efficacy and needs levels (except the security needs) was significant; however, for general self-efficacy and job stress, no significant difference was found between two groups. It can be concluded that job satisfaction is a multi-dimensional concept in which more than one factor interfere.