Training teachers to improve their job satisfaction : theoretical proposals and empirical illustrations

Former les enseignants pour accroître leur satisfaction au travail : propositions théoriques et illustrations empiriques

Sébastien Chalies (1) , Jérôme Amathieu (1) , Stefano Bertone (2)

1 EFTS - Education, Formation, Travail, Savoirs
2 DIMPS - Déterminants Interculturels de la Motricité et de la Performance Sportive

Bien qu’il soit admis qu’elle a une influence sur la santé des enseignants, seuls quelques travaux ont montré un lien de causalité entre la satisfaction professionnelle des enseignants et la possibilité qui leur est offerte de se former. À partir d’un cadre conceptuel inspiré des théories générales de l’apprentissage (Berducci, 2004 ; Nelson, 2008) et de l’action collective (Wittgenstein, 2004), et de données d’autoconfrontation à propos de l’expérience vécue de classe et de formation, cette étude montre que l’activité de formation joue un rôle crucial sur la construction des règles de métier et des critères d’appréciation par les novices de la qualité de leur travail. Elle documente également l’idée selon laquelle c’est au cœur de la situation de travail elle-même, aménagée en situation de formation, que l’émergence de ces règles et critères est facilitée et que les formés éprouvent du plaisir à faire leur travail selon les règles de métier. Outre le fait de discuter l’efficacité du principe de l’alternance, cette étude propose finalement trois orientations pour parvenir à accroître par la formation la satisfaction professionnelle des enseignants novices.

Training teachers to improve their job satisfaction : theoretical proposals and empirical illustrations Job satisfaction has become an issue of some importance, particularly as it is now widely acknowledged that it has an impact on health, particularly for teachers. Training is one of the main ways to increase job satisfaction but, paradoxically, few works have focused on the causal link between teachers’ level of job satisfaction and the help that can be offered to them by training programs. Moreover, these studies have been quantitative experiments working from a positivist and causalist perspective. This study seeks to determine the circumstances in which teacher training has an impact on the job satisfaction of the trainees. It is structured in three parts. The first part presents a conceptualization of training based on postulates from a general theory of learning (Berducci, 2004; Nelson, 2008) and collective action (Wittgenstein, 2004). This conceptualization provides the basis for an original definition of job satisfaction at the scale of training and/or work situations and the real activities of the actors who are involved. With reference to a hypothesis developed in the Clinic of Activity, according to which “work well done is the source for health at work” (Clot, 2010, p. 21), job satisfaction is considered to be correlated with the adequacy of the work from the perspective of those who are doing it. In other terms, job satisfaction can be correlated with the employee’s “retrospective authentification” (Chauviré, 2010) of what was expected. The second part presents a case study to illustrate and then discuss the two main training circumstances in which the instructors’ training activity had an influence on the job satisfaction of preservice teachers. Last, the third section discusses the three conditions that must be met in order to arrange teacher training order to improve job satisfaction: re-thinking the principle of alternating work/study, working toward the emergence of criteria for satisfaction by teaching work rules, and accentuating the quality of work rather than its yield.

Mots clés: règles de métier; satisfaction professionnelle; alternance; Formation

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Philosophie

Sébastien Chalies, Jérôme Amathieu, Stefano Bertone. Former les enseignants pour accroître leur satisfaction au travail : propositions théoriques et illustrations empiriques. Le travail humain, 2013, 76 (4), ⟨10.3917/th.764.0309⟩. ⟨hal-01452577⟩