Abstract

• The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between principals’ practice of building professional capital and teacher job satisfaction at selected Basic Education High Schools in Sagaing Township. Mixed methods research was applied to collect data. A total of 108 teachers from seven selected high schools participated in the quantitative study while 12 teachers from two selected high schools were interviewed for the qualitative study. The quantitative study was conducted by using two instruments; “Teachers’ Perception of Principals’ Practice of Building Professional Capital Questionnaire” developed by Adams (2016) to measure the principals’ practice of building professional capital and “Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ)” developed by Lester (1987, as cited in Waters, 2013) to measure teacher job satisfaction. Data were analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviations, independent samples t-test, ANOVA, multiple comparison analysis, and correlations through SPSS software. When studying the mean values of the principals’ practice of building professional capital and teacher job satisfaction, teachers perceived that their principals had high levels of practice in building three components of professional capital: “Human Capital”, “Social Capital” and “Decisional Capital”. Moreover, they were highly satisfied with their job. In addition, “Human Capital” was positively and moderately related to “Job Satisfaction” (r=0.625, p=<0.01); “Social Capital” was positively and highly related to “Job Satisfaction” (r=0.701, p=<0.01); and “Decisional Capital” was significantly and positively related to “Job Satisfaction” (r=0.631, p=<0.01); “Professional Capital” was positively and highly related to “Job Satisfaction” (r=0.738, p=<0.01). The findings of this study provided important implications for the relationship between principals’ practice of building professional capital and teacher job satisfaction. Further research needs to be conducted to extend the study in other school building levels and townships or regions to determine if principals’ practice of building professional capital is associated with teacher job satisfaction.