Job satisfaction and teacher-student relationships across the teaching career: Four case studies

We studied the development of teacher-student relationships and teachers' job satisfaction throughout the careers of four veteran teachers who retained high job satisfaction. Teacher data gathered with the narrative-biographical method were compared with students' perceptions of the teacher-student relationships, using the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction. Teachers' job satisfaction appeared positively related to the self-reported quality of the teacher-student relationships. Positive retrospective teacher perceptions did not always coincide with positive student perceptions. It appeared that teachers may have positive job satisfaction despite, in the eyes of the students, a poor teacher-student relationship. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.