Psychological needs as the working-life quality predictor of special education teachers

The purpose of this research is to determine whether psychological needs that the special education teachers have, significantly predict the professional quality of life. Descriptive survey design was used in the research. The data of the research were obtained from 238 special education teachers (45% males and 55.5% females) who were working as a special education teacher in the schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Kayseri in 2017 and were selected by simple random sampling method. 69.7% (166 people) of the special education teachers who participated in the research were married, and 30.3% (72 people) of them were unmarried. In the research, professional quality of life and the psychological needs levels of special education teachers were measured by “Professional quality of life scale” and “New psychological needs scale,” respectively. Pearson correlation technique and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze the collected data. The results of the research showed that there was a positive significant relationship between the burnout levels of special education teachers' and their psychological needs (success, relationship, autonomy, and dominance needs) and that there was a negative relationship between compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue. According to the findings obtained as a result of the predictive analyses, the autonomy, relationship, and dominance, which are the sub-dimensions of the psychological needs scale, were found to be the most important predictors of special education teachers' life quality. The results obtained from the e discussed within the scope of the relevant literature, and proposals were made for future researches.