TEACHER QUALITY OF WORK LIFE - INTEGRATING WORK EXPERIENCES, PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AND MORALE

What are the positive and negative work experiences reported by teache rs, and how do these contribute to their quality of work life? This pa per reports structural equation analyses conducted on questionnaire da ta obtained during three studies from 1539 Australian primary and seco ndary school teachers. Drawing on perceived quality of life research i t was hypothesized that psychological distress and morale would be sep arate outcomes of positive and negative work experiences. Results conf irmed that psychological distress and morale operate on different dime nsions. Three structural equation models showed that positive experien ces were stronger determinants of morale than psychological distress, whereas negative experiences were stronger determinants of psychologic al distress than morale. Psychological distress and morale contributed equally to teachers' overall quality of work life. When examined simu ltaneously it was found that positive experiences contributed only to morale whilst negative experiences contributed only to psychological d istress. These findings challenge conventional wisdom and suggest that it is not possible to enhance morale by reducing negative experiences , nor is it possible to reduce psychological distress by focusing on p ositive experiences.