A Qualitative Study of Secondary Physical Education Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Japan, South Korea, and the United States

The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore the themes and factors surrounding secondary PE teachers’ job satisfaction and to find similarities and differences in the factors that influence job satisfaction among secondary school physical education (PE) teachers in Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Using a purposive sampling, nine secondary school PE teachers, three in each country, were recruited. A total of five investigators visited each participant’s school for an entire day and collected field notes while observing PE sessions. At the end of each class period, each participant reported their job satisfaction on an 11-point visual analog scale, and a semi-structured interview was conducted in their native language. Four primary themes surrounding job satisfaction emerged: 1) student behavior, attitude, & motivations, 2) teacher’s workload including their compensation and work-life balance, 3) their relations with coworkers, and 4) administration, funding, & professional development support, among which workload and student behaviors were consistently reported in all three countries. Future research should quantitatively examine, with a larger sample size, the interrelationships of these identified themes impacting overall job satisfaction in secondary PE teachers.