Investigation of the Relationship between Early Childhood Teachers’ Knowledge of Children and Their Job Satisfaction

Abstract

This study aims to examine the relationship between early childhood teachers' knowledge of children and their job satisfaction levels. A relational survey model was employed, and the study sample consisted of teachers working in public preschools and kindergartens in Diyarbakır province, selected through a simple random sampling method. Data were collected using the General Information Form, the Student Recognition Competence Scale, and the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale. The normality of the data was tested with the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test; based on these results, the independent samples t-test was used for normally distributed dimensions and the Mann–Whitney U test was used for non-normally distributed dimensions, while the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient was used to examine the associations between the two scales. The findings revealed a statistically significant and positive relationship between teachers' knowledge of children and their job satisfaction levels. A strong positive correlation emerged between intrinsic job satisfaction and the recognising individual differences sub-dimension. Moderate positive correlations were identified with the managing-learning and recognising-developmental characteristics sub-dimensions, and a weak positive correlation was observed with the guidance sub-dimension. Regarding extrinsic job satisfaction, moderate positive correlations were found with all four sub-dimensions. These results suggest that strengthening teachers' child-recognition competencies supported by appropriate resources and teacher–child collaboration can effectively support their job satisfaction