Exploring the role of school climate, teacher workload, and job satisfaction in student achievement: insights from PIRLS and TIMSS

Abstract The study investigates how teachers’ working conditions – specifically workload and perceptions of a safe and orderly school climate – relate to teachers’ job satisfaction and student achievement in Swedish Grade 4 classrooms. Drawing on data from two international large-scale assessments, PIRLS (2016 and 2021) and TIMSS (2019 and 2023), the study applies parallel mediation structural equation modelling to investigate whether changes in working conditions mediate changes in teacher job satisfaction and student performance over time. Results show that perceptions of school climate are consistently associated with teachers’ job satisfaction and student achievement, while workload is related to job satisfaction but not achievement. Notably, the introduction of a socioeconomic proxy (number of books at home) reversed the initial decline in reading achievement in PIRLS, highlighting SES as a key confounding factor. In contrast, mathematics achievement in TIMSS improved over time regardless of SES adjustment, suggesting greater SES stability. The findings underscore the importance of school climate as a job resource and the need to account for demographic shifts when interpreting achievement trends.