No abstract

Purpose Singapore is a country with low teacher attrition rates and high performance on international assessments (TIMSS 2011/2015 and PISA 2012/2015). Consequently, its education system is often considered as a model for other nations. The purpose of this paper is to extend research on teacher job satisfaction in Singapore and provide comparative information for other education systems. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a secondary analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey with a focus on relationships among teacher and principal perceptions of distributed leadership and teachers’ job satisfaction in Singapore. Hierarchical linear modeling is applied to investigate teacher job satisfaction with principal perceptions and aggregate teacher perceptions of distributed leadership as school-level (level 2) variables and individual teacher perceptions of distributed leadership as a level 1 variable. Findings Results indicated that distributed leadership significantly predicted teachers’ work and professional satisfaction; higher distributed leadership scores were associated with higher satisfaction scores. Originality/value The significant positive relationship between distributed leadership and both dimensions of job satisfaction after accounting for individual teacher characteristics is a new finding in the Singapore schooling context.

Using the National Center for Education Statistics 2002–2012 Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) data set, this study examines the relation between college undermatching and bachelor’s degree attainment, and whether the influences of undermatching on bachelor’s degree attainment vary by race/ethnicity. Results revealed students who undermatched were less likely to graduate college within 4 years, as well as 6 years, than students who matched to a college commensurate with their academic qualifications. The evidence also showed the negative relation between college completion and undermatching was stronger among students with a relatively high probability of graduation. Thus, policymakers and educators need to be concerned about bachelor’s degree attainment for even highly qualified students if they are undermatched. Our results also illustrate that race/ethnicity and undermatching effects on degree completion can be best understood in concert rather than separately. It suggests that undermatching can be a mechanism for structural inequality in terms of bachelor’s degree attainment across racial/ethnic groups. In particular, the bachelor’s degree attainment gap among Hispanics based on undermatching was the largest across race/ethnicity groups. We highlight the importance of addressing Hispanic undermatching, as Hispanics show the greatest negative effects of undermatching among all student groups.