Context and Problem Statement. Whereas teachers’ quality, status, and motivation are defined as an important factor in the success of an entire educational system (OECD, 2014; Ololube, 2006), in Kazakhstan teaching profession has been reported to have low status and prestige (OECD, 2014; Korotkikh, 2015). Not only do Kazakhstani teachers feel undervalued, but they are also underpaid (OECD, 2014; Fitzpatrick, Figueroa, Golden, & Crosby, 2018). It is not a problem that emerged recently, but the ones that have evolved over the decades. Yet, teachers’ quality and status have recently gained greater momentum in Kazakhstan. As a result, certain steps have been made to improve the status of educators. In 2019 the law of teachers’ status was adopted as a strategy to support teachers. The law determines the roles, duties, and rights of teachers (Mynbayeva & Yelbayeva, 2020). Another step can be seen in the participation of Kazakhstani secondary teachers in the international survey TALIS that allows assessing teacher status and quality. So, participating in 2018 for the first time, Kazakhstani 6566 teachers from 331 schools provided their insights on the learning environments in which they work, their job satisfaction, and working conditions. According to the national reports on the TALIS results (2019), every third teacher in Kazakhstan doubts their choice of becoming a teacher. Moreover, the teachers’ responses to job satisfaction have placed Kazakhstan among countries where teachers regret their choice. Unlike these results, Bogapova (2018) in her study of teachers’ job satisfaction in Kazakhstani intellectual schools (which is also described as elite schools) revealed opposite results. Teachers were satisfied with professional development opportunities and salary, which was found as a determinant for job stay, student support, and collegial support. This is, indeed, not surprising because intellectual (elite) schools have different resources and, thus, different working conditions and the environment in comparison to mainstream schools. This difference in the type of school can explain the difference in the results of the two studies. The lack of studies on mainstream school teachers and the existence of large scale survey data of job satisfaction motivates to study the issue of teachers’ job satisfaction deeper. Moreover, the national report of TALIS results presented overall descriptive data, but it did not determine the factors and correlation between factors that influence the teachers’ status and job satisfaction.

Study aims and research questions. Given the context and the problem described, the study aims to examine the relationship between teachers’ job satisfaction in secondary schools in Kazakhstan with factors such as school climate, teacher motivation and teacher self-efficacy beliefs moderating teacher characteristics. The following research questions guide the study: What is the relationship between school climate, teacher demographic characteristics, teacher self-efficacy and motivation and job satisfaction?

Hypothesis 1: School climate significantly influence teacher job satisfaction moderating gender, age, and years of experience and the language of instruction

Hypothesis 2: Teacher motivation and teacher self-efficacy beliefs significantly influence job satisfaction moderating gender, age, years of experience and the language of instruction.

Hypothesis 3: School climate significantly explains job satisfaction moderating teacher self-efficacy and motivation.

This study is the secondary analysis of TALIS 2018 data. In 2018 for the first time, 6566 teachers from 331 Kazakhstani schools provided their insights on the learning environments in which they work, their job satisfaction, and working conditions. Taking into consideration the research question, the study uses three types of variables including demographic variables, dependent and independent variables that are nested within school and teacher factors. Variables such as teacher cooperation, school climate, distributed leadership and teacher-student relations are considered as predictors at the school level (Dou et al., 2017; Giambona & Porcu, 2018). Teacher factors include teacher motivation, teacher self-efficacy beliefs and demographic characteristics including variables such as age, the years of experience, gender, years working at current school and level of qualification (Crossman, 2006). The TALIS 2018 database for Kazakhstan will be analyzed using statistical software SPSS. More precisely, based on the empirical results of previous studies and TALIS report the following analyses will be made. They are CFA, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA), reliability test, t-test (where the difference is explored between two groups), ANOVA (where the difference is explored between more than two groups), and regression analysis. Specifically, the data will be analyzed using multiple regression to identify statistically significant predictors of secondary school teachers’ job satisfaction.

Participation in this large-scale survey has allowed studying the issue of job satisfaction at a more sophisticated level, at a country scale, especially when there is an urgent need in exploring this issue. The study results can contribute to the development of mechanisms for further improvement of teachers’ status and job satisfaction in Kazakhstan. In particular, the study focuses on dimensions of the school climate, teacher motivation and self-efficacy beliefs that might influence the job satisfaction and the likelihood of retaining teachers (Aldridge & Fraser, 2015). In addition to investigating the effects of school climate, demographic factors will be also included to explore whether they have any moderating effect on teachers’ job satisfaction dimensions. Explorations of the relationships between these constructs - school climate, teacher motivation and teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction and teachers’ characteristics - have also implications for teachers job retention and recruitment and by extension quality of education.

References Bogapova, N. (2018). Teacher Job Satisfaction within Intellectual Schools in Kazakhstan: A Mixed Methods Study(Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Nebraska - Lincoln, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018. 10793740. Fitzpatrick, M., Figueroa, D. T., Golden, G., & Crosby, S. (2018). Education Policy Outlook: Kazakhstan. OECD Publishing. Kim, I., & Loadman, W. E. (1994). Predicting Teacher Job Satisfaction. Retrieved from: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED383707.pdf Korotkikh, Y. (2015, January). ‘Teacher status’. Otkrytaya Shkola Newspaper. Retrieved from: http://iac.kz/en/publishing/teacher-status Mynbayeva, A., & Yelbayeva, Z. (2020). Modern trends of involving Kazakhstan’ schoolchildren and teachers in school management. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 12(1). DOI 10.14658/pupj-ijse-2020-1-10. OECD. (2014). Reviews of National Policies for Education Secondary Education in Kazakhstan. OECD Publishing. Retrieved from: https://mangystau.edu.kz/uploads/docfiles/secondary_education_in_kazakhstan_eng2014__6002ba8539f781ebe3fcca87c47785d0.pdf