FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO TEACHERS' JOB SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES

Educational landscape is becoming more and more complex in 21st century requiring a teacher to have a wide range of professional competencies. Moreover these competences should be very flexible and constantly updated to meet the requirements of the modern students. In other words to become a good teacher seems to be not quite feasible having no urge for consistent improvement. At the same time, not all teachers are ready for such a perception of their profession, which does not influence the educational success of their students in the best way. This study explored factors contributing to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction of Russian university teachers. A Likert-scale 32-item questionnaire was developed which was completed by 340 participants. The questionnaire also included open-ended questions which investigated participants' motivation and demotivation. Focus-group interviews were used to verify the results obtained. According to the research participants the most teacher motivating factors were found to be serving the society, having an internal desire to teach and imparting knowledge to others. Inadequate salary, students' lack of motivation to learn, multicultural diversity in the classroom, teachers' psychological fulfilment, job stress, low occupational and social status, necessity to perform an excessive amount of extra activities not directly related to teaching were mentioned as the most demotivating factors contributing to Russian university English teachers' job dissatisfaction. The relationship with students have both positive and negative implications for the job satisfaction of teachers. Although slight differences were found between male and female teachers in relation to the demotivating factors, religious and ethnic backgrounds of the participants significantly conditioned their job satisfaction. Authors commented on the ways to improve teachers job satisfaction and to strengthen the status of the teacher. Recommendations for further research are discussed.