Attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of casual relief teachers and permanent teachers in Victorian schools
Creators: name: Cleeland, Lara
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: Four hundred and eight casual relief teachers (CRTs) and 670 permanent teachers from government, independent, and Catholic primary schools and secondary schools in and around metropolitan Melbourne were surveyed using the researcher-developed Issues in Teaching Questionnaire (ITQ) in order to assess their attitudes, perceptions, and experiences in relation to 10 areas of concern including: job security, provisions and facilities, information and communication, lesson management, status, relationships with the school community, relationships with students, student management, job satisfaction, and job stress. These 10 areas of concern were derived from the literature regarding casual relief teaching, which comprised of various anecdotal, published, and unpublished sources. Classical test theory methods (e.g., Cronbach¡¦s ƒÑ and exploratory factor analysis) were used to determine the psychometric properties of the survey instrument, which indicated that the ITQ possessed excellent internal reliability and construct validity, and confirmed the existence of an ¡§in-class¡¨ factor and an ¡§out-of-class¡¨ factor. Using descriptive and multivariate inferential statistics, the responses of the CRTs and the permanent teachers were analysed. By comparison with the other group characteristics, employment status (i.e., CRT or permanent teacher) was the best predictor of scores on the ITQ. The CRTs reported significantly more positive attitudes, perceptions, and experiences regarding job stress (i.e., less job stress) compared with the permanent teachers, whereas the permanent teachers reported significantly more positive attitudes, perceptions, and experiences across all other areas of concern compared with the CRTs. When the responses of the CRTs and the permanent teachers were compared on a scale of magnitude (i.e., effect size), much larger effects were observed for the ¡§out-of-class¡¨ con cerns (e.g., Information and Communication, Provisions and Facilities, Lesson Management, Relationships with the School Community, Status, Job Security, and Job Satisfaction subscales) compared with the ¡§in-class¡¨ concerns (e.g., Relationships with Students, Student Management, and Job Stress subscales). Although many parallels were found between the CRTs and the permanent teachers in terms of their general classroom concerns, substantial differences existed between the two groups in relation to their concerns in the wider school context. Of particular importance were the considerable differences between the CRTs and the permanent teachers in terms of their employment conditions, and how they are currently being accommodated in schools and integrated into school communities. In these regards, CRTs are not receiving professional parity with their permanent counterparts. Overall, the results of this study (a) provide evidence of a psychometrically sound instrument for assessing the attitudes, perceptions, an d experiences of CRTs and permanent teachers across a range of school settings, (b) highlight the importance of employment status (i.e., CRT or permanent teacher) as a predictor of the ITQ subscales compared with the other group characteristics, and (c) present comprehensive and convincing evidence on the similarities and differences between the teaching experiences of CRTs and permanent teachers.