Analytical Critique of the Research Article: ‘Teaching Young Children; Perceived Satisfaction and Stress’

This article that we reviewed appears in the Educational Research Journal. The journal is interdisciplinary in its approach, and includes reports of case studies, experiments and surveys, discussions of conceptual and methodological issues and of underlying assumptions in educational research, accounts of research in progress, and book reviews.

This study is part of a project by Blatchford, Goldstein and Mortimore (1998), this article explores how early year teachers feel about their work; this study is a follow on from the project and looks at teacher stress, dissatisfaction and satisfaction in their jobs. The study also looks at external factors such as educational change and the current curriculum initiatives as the causes of stress.

The study focuses on teachers of the youngest children in school. During this period when the research was being carried out there was a rapid change in the education system. These questionnaires were distributed and completed by teachers in schools in England and Wales. The teachers at the time were coping with the new demands of the National Literacy Strategy and preparing for the introduction of the National Numeracy Strategy. The Literacy and Numeracy frameworks were established as a result of anxieties expressed by the Government. Especially, concerning standards of achievement in Literacy and Numeracy by children in primary schools. However, in the actual study there is no mention of teachers in Wales.