School Counselors’ Hope, Stress, and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Objective: Previous studies suggest hope may protect against stress and burnout. Hope has also been associated with higher levels of job satisfaction for individuals across professions. However, no research has yet explored the relationships among school counselors’ hope, stress, and job satisfaction. Method: We conducted a hierarchical regression with a sample of school counselors ( N = 450) to examine whether hope would predict school counselors’ job satisfaction, even in the presence of stress. We sought to examine the extent to which the subscales of hope (pathways and agency) predict school counselors’ reported job satisfaction and to what extent hope pathways and agency continue to predict school counselors’ reported job satisfaction when stress is added to the model. Results: Our findings indicated that hope predicted job satisfaction, suggesting that participants who reported overall hope were also more satisfied with their jobs. When we added stress to the model, the pathways subscale of hope remained a significant predictor of job satisfaction. Conclusions: These findings provide new insights into the usefulness of hope as it relates to school counselors’ job satisfaction and stress. We offer implications for practice, training, and future research.