Keywords: teachers' needs; Research; Self-examination/introspection
American humanistic psychologist abrabam. H Maslow expounded the basic human needs and their hierarchical structure in the article 1943, which has a history of nearly 60 years. After Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, David? David mcclelland's achievement motivation theory, Herzberg's two-factor theory, Adams' fairness theory, roaring expectation theory, etc. Need is a very important research field in organizational management and social psychology. In modern society, management and science and technology are also called the three pillar systems of social and economic development. Good management can greatly improve work efficiency, and school management is no exception. The core of school management is how to meet the needs of teachers, stimulate their enthusiasm and guide them to produce work behaviors that meet the needs of schools. Therefore, how to realize the transformation of school management from experience management to scientific management and how to stimulate teachers' enthusiasm with higher-level means of need are key research topics in the field of school management. Nowadays, education reform is deepening. Teachers are the direct undertakers of educational practice and implementers of educational reform. All educational reform and development are inseparable from the participation of teachers, whose participation (initiative and enthusiasm) directly determines the success or failure of educational reform and development. What is the teacher thinking in school management? Any psychological needs? This is an important issue worthy of managers' serious consideration. Only by clearly grasping their psychological needs and guiding them according to the situation can we fully mobilize their enthusiasm, finally improve the school management level and work efficiency, fundamentally improve the teaching quality and ensure the realization of school education goals.
However, in theory, Chinese mainland's research on organizational management and behavioral science started late, and there are few research materials on demand, especially in the fields of education and psychology. In reality, we know too little about the needs of teachers and pay too little attention to them. Therefore, the study of teachers' needs has both important theoretical value and great practical significance.
I. Overview of the study
Based on the research literature of Chinese scholars on teachers' needs in recent 10 years, the author briefly summarizes and comments on the relevant research on teachers' needs in China from the aspects of research methods, research perspectives and research priorities, with a view to providing a new starting point for the future research on teachers' needs.
research method
In the study of teachers' needs in China, Chinese scholars pay more attention to the theoretical level, but there are also many research results in empirical research. Of the 48 papers retrieved this time, 28 belong to theoretical research and the other 20 are empirical research. In the empirical research, Chinese scholars mainly use questionnaire survey, content analysis and other research methods. Among them, the questionnaire survey is the most frequently used, with 14 out of 20 empirical papers, accounting for about 3/4. So far, the author has not seen the qualitative research on teachers' needs.
(B) Research perspective
China scholars mainly study teachers' needs from the perspectives of pedagogy and psychology. It is believed that "need" is the response of people's demand for objective things in their minds, and it often shows their dependence on objective conditions for survival and development through some lack or imbalance within people. When the individual's needs are not met, it will prompt people to engage in behavioral activities to meet their needs, thus generating corresponding motives. Need is the source of people's enthusiasm and the most fundamental psychological basis of motivation. "Therefore, school administrators should fully consider teachers' needs in the process of school management." Only by understanding teachers' needs, fully considering teachers' needs when establishing school management objectives, and combining organizational interests with personal interests, can we stimulate motivation and fully mobilize teachers' work enthusiasm. "
(3) research focus
In the existing research, we can see that the current research on teachers' needs mainly focuses on urban teachers, while the research on rural teachers' needs is rare. Among the 48 papers retrieved by the author, there are 23 studies on the needs of urban teachers, such as "Educational Research" 65438+ Feng Bolin's "Research on Teacher's Job Satisfaction and Its Influencing Factors" 0996 No.2, which is a study on the job satisfaction of 434 teachers in Beijing and its influencing factors. Educational Theory and Practice (200 1 No.2) The research on teachers' needs in middle schools and the incentive strategy of middle school management is a survey of the needs of some teachers in 28 middle schools in Shanghai. The Status Quo, Problems and Countermeasures of Primary and Secondary School Teachers' Self-development Needs Yang, The Status Quo, Problems and Countermeasures of Primary and Secondary School Teachers' Self-development Needs published in theNo. 1 2002 issue of Educational Science, is a survey of the status quo and problems of teachers' self-development needs in five primary and secondary schools in Dalian. However, only Lin Yu and He Dechang's The Needs, Incentives and Management Strategies of Rural Primary School Teachers have been studied.
Second, the main contents and viewpoints of the study
Chinese scholars' research papers on teachers' needs mainly focus on four aspects: the characteristics of teachers' needs, the levels of teachers' needs, the relationship between teachers' satisfaction and work enthusiasm, and teachers' needs and incentive strategies.
(A) the characteristics of teachers' needs
Domestic scholars believe that teachers' needs have their particularity, that is, teachers have strong spiritual needs. As the inheritor and disseminator of social culture, teachers have high cultural level, aesthetic tendency and personal needs, and their special professional activities and professional quality requirements form the spiritual characteristics that teachers need. In the article "On the Characteristics and Management of Teachers' Needs", He Jianzhong believes that "the vast majority of teachers have lofty ideals, they deeply understand the significance of education to society and individuals, they pursue truth, love students, are willing to be poor, work quietly and have lofty dedication, and they often pay more attention to the pursuit of spiritual life and expect to be satisfied. So I think the needs of teachers are different from the general needs. Measured by Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, high-level spiritual needs account for a larger proportion of teachers' needs. "Zhang Wu pointed out in" On the Effective Mechanism of Optimizing Teachers "that to realize the particularity of teachers' needs, teachers' spiritual needs have a strong demand compared with material needs.
Teachers' demand level
When studying teachers' needs, domestic scholars also refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory to divide teachers' needs. Chai Wanfa divides teachers' needs into five categories: social needs, achievement needs, life needs, learning needs and cultural needs. Hu Xiaodong divided teachers' needs into three levels, namely, survival needs, enjoyment needs and development needs. Wu Jinlong's article Exploring Teachers' Psychological Needs to Enhance the Vitality of School Management holds that teachers' psychological needs can be divided into three categories: economic needs, political needs and knowledge and business needs.
(C) the relationship between teachers' need satisfaction level and work enthusiasm
Domestic scholars have drawn the following conclusions through sampling survey and analysis of teachers' needs:
1. The satisfaction of teachers' physiological needs is low. Teachers' economic and welfare needs are not met, which greatly affects their enthusiasm for work. Chen Yun Ying and Sun Shaobang of the Central Institute of Education conducted a survey of 204 primary school teachers in Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, and found that most teachers were dissatisfied with their salaries, and 54.4% of them felt that their salaries were too low. Liu Haiyan of Shandong Normal University conducted a survey on 347 primary and secondary school teachers in Kaifeng, Luoyang and Xuchang in Henan on 1994. It is found that the income of primary and secondary school teachers is low, which is far from other industries. Among the factors that dampen teachers' enthusiasm, low salary and unreasonable salary rank first, accounting for 24.9%. Feng Bolin 1996' s survey of 434 teachers in three types of schools in Beijing shows that "teachers' satisfaction with salary and work intensity is low. "History, a survey of some teachers in 28 middle schools in Shanghai shows that" at present, the average needs of primary and secondary school teachers are average, and the level of meeting their physiological needs is low, which is obviously lower than the average level of meeting their needs (P < 0. 1) ".
2. Teachers are highly satisfied with the needs of safety and belonging, and are highly satisfied with job stability and establishing good interpersonal relationships. Ju Bin and Xie 1997 of East China Normal University investigated and analyzed more than 700 middle school teachers in Shanghai area, and found that many teachers realized that their "professional stability" was high and their interpersonal relationship developed well. 92.3% teachers think that their relationship with leaders is good or good, and 97.8% teachers think that their relationship with colleagues is harmonious. Shi He also thinks that the needs of middle school teachers for safety, belonging and love have been met at a high level in the article "The Present Situation of Middle School Teachers' Needs and the Incentive Strategies of Middle School Management".
3. There are different views on the satisfaction of self-esteem and self-realization needs. Feng Bolin believes that teachers are highly satisfied with self-realization in the article "Research on Teachers' Job Satisfaction and Its Influencing Factors". Shi He's "Research on the Present Situation of Middle School Teachers' Needs and Middle School Management Incentive Strategies" holds that the satisfaction level of middle school teachers' self-realization needs is high, while the satisfaction level of self-esteem needs is average. Yang He's "The Present Situation, Problems and Countermeasures of Primary and Secondary School Teachers' Self-development Needs" shows that "only a few teachers are satisfied with their own development, accounting for 12.9% of the total number, most of them are basically satisfied, accounting for 45.84%, and a considerable number of teachers are dissatisfied with their own development, accounting for about 35% of the total number of people surveyed". The research shows that work values, self-confidence, sense of responsibility and enterprise related to self-esteem and self-realization need are the main factors affecting teachers' work enthusiasm. Zhou Jianda and Lin Chongde put forward in the article "Psychological Research on Teachers' Quality" that the greater the value of teachers' work, the more development conditions they provide themselves and the higher their work enthusiasm; If teachers can make a confident, positive and correct evaluation of their ability level, they can give full play to their initiative and creativity in their work, have a high sense of responsibility and dedication, and achieve satisfactory work results.
Teachers' Needs and Incentive Strategies
How to arouse teachers' enthusiasm is an extremely important issue in school quality management. It is fundamental to mobilize teachers' enthusiasm by using the motivation principle of psychology and adopting appropriate motivation strategies. According to the present situation of middle school teachers' demand satisfaction level, it is put forward that "middle school managers should use systematic strategy, contingency strategy and development strategy to improve the efficiency of school management in an all-round way". In the article "Strengthening Incentive Mechanism to Promote School Management", Hu Xiumei talked about four views on how to optimize school management from the aspect of strengthening incentive mechanism: target incentive, demand incentive, example incentive and democratic incentive. In the article Enlightenment of Western Incentive Theory to School Management Practice in China, Han Xiu and Han proposed that in school management, "to make teachers work with peace of mind, we must constantly improve health care factors to meet their low-level needs" and "to make teachers achieve excellent results, we must make full use of incentive factors to meet their high-level needs"; Drawing lessons from Ferum's expectation theory, this paper puts forward that "the setting of goals should consider teachers' values and beliefs" and "the setting of goals should consider teachers' expectation probability"; Drawing lessons from Adams' equity theory, this paper puts forward that "teachers' remuneration should be linked to their work performance" and "teachers should be encouraged both spiritually and materially".
Third, the reflection on the research of teachers' needs in China.
Chinese scholars have studied and explored the needs of teachers from many disciplines and angles, published a certain number of academic papers and achieved certain research results. However, there are still many aspects to be carried out in this field in China. For example, China has not formed his own needs theory, nor has he produced any influential works in the world, and his research methods tend to be simplified. In order to better promote the research on teachers' needs and form a complete theoretical system at an early date, the author believes that it needs to be improved in the following aspects.
(A) Pay attention to the study of teachers' needs in the era of knowledge economy. Today, with the rapid social transformation, the tide of knowledge economy is unstoppable. As the main body of knowledge inheritance and creation, teachers' needs and structure are constantly changing in the new living, social and working environment. We researchers know too little about their new needs and pay too little attention to them, and feel unsustainable about how to mobilize their enthusiasm for work. Therefore, we researchers should grasp the pulse of the times, understand and pay attention to the demand structure of teachers in the knowledge economy era, adjust the existing basic teacher incentive model and teacher management model in combination with the contingency theory of incentives, truly meet the demand structure of teachers, realize the effective incentive function, and then explore the appropriate teacher incentive model and teacher management model. This is the field that teachers need to study most, and it is also the research field with the most potential and value.
Pay attention to the needs of rural teachers. When studying and discussing educational problems, our educational theorists mainly pay attention to cities, while the vast rural areas are ignored intentionally or unintentionally. In fact, as we all know, the rural population in China accounts for about 78% of the total population, but the research on the needs of rural teachers is a weak link, so we researchers can't turn a blind eye and should pay attention to it.
(3) Pay attention to multidisciplinary comprehensive research. Nowadays, the integration of disciplines and the blurring of disciplinary boundaries have become a trend, and any clear demarcation study is not conducive to the in-depth study. The demand of teachers is not only a complex psychological problem, but also a complex sociological problem, which can not be thoroughly analyzed by any single discipline. Therefore, in the study of teachers' needs, we should use multidisciplinary comprehensive research to show the whole picture of teachers' needs.
(4) In terms of research methods, we should overcome the monotonous and simplistic tendency in previous studies. In the process of research, methods should be diversified. On the basis of using literature, investigation and other methods, introducing and learning to use new research methods (such as qualitative research) can help us to look at the phenomena we are used to with new eyes and facilitate the excavation of seemingly simple rich connotations hidden under the surface; It is convenient to understand teachers, the richness of teachers and society, and the needs of teachers.
Besides the above-mentioned research fields need to be expanded, research perspectives need to be integrated and research methods need to be diversified, our researchers should make further efforts in theoretical depth and theoretical system. Only in this way can our research on teachers' needs achieve fruitful results and achieve a qualitative leap.