Public schools need to enhance teacher job satisfaction which should improve teacher retention, teacher performance, and student achievement. This was a qualitative study of those factors which teachers with high and low job satisfaction perceived affected how they felt about their jobs.

A sample of 200 tenured Virginia Beach teachers was randomly selected sent the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ). Eighty-four of these teachers who agreed to be interviewed were rated on performance by their principals. Eight teachers, who placed at the top the ranked list of TJSQ scores and who were rated at least above average by their principals, were selected for interviews. Five teachers, who placed at the bottom of the list of TJSQ scores and who were rated average at best by their principals. were also selected for interviews.

The teachers in the study said they liked student success best and paperwork least. Respondents said the principal, coworkers, students, materials, autonomy, home life, parents, personality and participatory decision-making all affected job satisfaction. The principal was ranked most important.

Job satisfiers were tabulated across questions. The most frequently identified intrinsic factor was student success. The extrinsic factors of working conditions, principal support and coworker support were identified. Intrinsic dissatisfiers included lack of teacher achievement, lack of recognition and lack of student success. Extrinsic dissatisfiers were poor working conditions and unpleasant student relationships.

Concerning demographics, the teachers with the top 30 job satisfaction scores were older, more female, more minority, more elementary, more experienced and about equally educated than the teachers with the lowest 30 job satisfaction scores.

In general, there was little difference between the responses of the high job satisfaction group and the low job satisfaction group perhaps because of the manner in which they were selected. However, teachers with low job satisfaction in this study were slightly more concerned with recognition, coworker support, working conditions, salary, student support, parent support and input into decision making than the high job Satisfaction group.