Job Satisfaction Among Physical Educators at English-speaking Canadian Universities PDF Download

Author: T. Lawrence Maloney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : College teachers
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The study was conducted to investigate three major areas of interest concerning job satisfaction in physical education departments, schools, and faculties in English-speaking Canadian universities. There were three central concerns: 1) the relationship between satisfaction and preferred-perceived discrepancy; 2) the relationship between global and specific measures of satisfaction; and 3) the relationship between selected demographic and biographic variables and satisfaction. Two questionnaires were designed for the study. The Chief Administrator's Questionnaire was designed to obtain demographic information about university physical education organization. The Work Environment Questionnaire was designed to obtain information from full-time academic staff members in physical education on several different measures: 1) biographical information; 2) satisfaction scores on global and job-specific aspects of the work environment; and 3) preferred-perceived and employer-employee discrepancy scores on job-specific aspects of the work environment. The questionnaires were mailed to thirty-two universities in Canada which offered degree programs in physical education. A 59.9 percent return was realized. The available data was analysed using nonparametric statistics -- the Kendal and Spearman rank order correlation procedures, and the chi square tests of goodness of fit and independence. From the data analysis a number of significant results were discovered. Satisfaction levels for job-specific aspects of the work environment were significantly related to preferred-perceived and employer-employee discrepancy levels -- that is, as the discrepancy between what one preferred and what one saw as existing in the work environment decreased, satisfaction increased. Correlations on these measures between individuals tended to be lower than correlations within individuals over fifty-one aspects. This suggested individual differences were operating in the perception of satisfaction and discrepancy. While correlations were consistently significant their absolute values were relatively low and as such did not account for a high percentage of variance in satisfaction levels. Satisfaction with the job as a whole was consistently and significantly related to satisfaction with the job-specific aspects of the work environment. Correlations from this analysis were low but served to indicate certain aspects of thw work environment were more related to satisfaction with the job as a whole than were others. The significant correlations from these analyses also tended to support the contention that the instrument of measurement was valid. A number of significant relationships resulted from the analyses of demographic and biographic variables in relations to satisfaction levels. Satisfaction appeared to increase as age increased up to the age of fifty-five. After age fifty-five there was an indication that satisfaction may decrease. Professors and associate professors were found to be more satisfied than individuals with other professorial ranks, and lecturers and instructors were found to be least satisfied. Bachelors degree program enrolment was assumed to be an indication of size of the physical education organization. As such individuals from institutions with enrolment up to 300 and over 600 students were significantly more satisfied than were individuals from other institutions in so far as several job-specific aspects were concerned. Finally, males were found to be more satisfied than females on a number of different measures. In view of the fact that the majority of females were in the lower age groups and lower professorial categories, this finding might have been expected.