İlköğretim Okulu Müdürlerinin İş Doyum Düzeyleri/Analyzing the Job Satisfaction Levels of Primary School Principals

Abstract

Bu calismanin amaci ilkogretim okul mudurlerinin is doyum duzeylerini ve bu duzeyin cinsiyet, yas, meslekte ve yoneticilikte gecen sure, egitim duzeyi, sendika uyeligi, yoneticilik gorevinden dolayi odul alip almama ve gorev yapilan yerlesim yeri degiskenlerine gore farklilik gosterip gostermedigini incelemektir. Bu amacla 2010-2011 ogretim yilinda Denizli ilindeki 338 ilkogretim okul mudurunun tumune Kisisel Bilgi Formu ve Minnesota Is Doyum Olcegi'nden olusan bir veri toplama araci uygulanmis, geri donen ve tum sorulari yanitlayan 198 ilkogretim okul muduru arastirmanin orneklemini olusturmustur. Elde edilen bulgulara gore, Denizli Ili'nde calisan ilkogretim okul mudurlerinin is doyum duzeyi ortalamasi 3.64 olup “oldukca memnunum” araligina girmektedir. Okul mudurlerinin is doyum duzeyleri cinsiyet, yas, meslekte gecen sure, yoneticilikte gecen sure, egitim durumu, sendika uyeligi ve yoneticilik gorevinden dolayi odul alma degiskenlerine gore farklilik gostermezken, gorev yapilan yerlesim yeri degiskenine gore is doyum duzeyleri farklilik gostermekte, sehir merkezinden koylere gidildikce is doyum duzeyi dusmektedir. Anahtar Sozcukler: Is doyumu, ilkogretim okul muduru, demografik degiskenler, mesleksel degiskenler. Extended Abstract Problem and Purpose: How people feel about their jobs and its different aspects can be considered as job satisfaction. It is the extent to which people like or dislike their jobs. Job satisfaction is a frequently studied subject matter because of its impacts on work effort and productivity, employee absenteeism and staff turnover in the eyes of many researchers. These positive impacts of job satisfaction on organizational effectiveness have increased the importance of the concept in the literature. The aim of this study is to determine the job satisfaction level of primary school principals. Independent variables of the study are gender, age, seniority, duration on management task, level of education, professional union membership, having any prize on management and school location (city center, county or village). Method: The descriptive survey method has been selected in order to answer the research questions. All school principals working for Denizli province primary schools have been considered as the sample of the study. The data collection instrument was administered to 338 principals through e-mail, but 198 questionnaires (58% of population) has been filled out properly and returned. Instrument: The data was gathered by Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire developed by Davis, Weiss, England and Lofquist in 1967. The calculated Alpha Coefficient (.84) in this study proves the reliability of the instrument. The selected demographic and professional characteristics of the subjects such as gender, age, seniority, duration on management task, level of education, professional union membership, having prize or not on management and school location have been collected by “personal information form”. Kolmogorov Simirnov test showed that the data obtained was normally distributed. For this reason, the data was analyzed by employing independent t-test and one-way anova. The satisfaction level of the school principals was assessed according to the arithmetic means between the ranges statistically determined as follows: 1-1.80: highly dissatisfed, 1.81-2.60: dissatisfied, 2.61-3.40 little satisfied, 3.41-4.20: fairly satisfied, 4.21-5.00: highly satisfied. Findings: Analysis indicated that the overall job satisfaction level of the school principals is in the “fairly satisfied” range (N: 198, X=3.64). A “highly satisfied” rating was assigned for job satisfaction by 15.15 % of the school principals. “Fairly satisfied” group's mean is 3.83 and its percentage is established 50 % of the whole respondents. “Little satisfied” principals' group has 3.03 arithmetic mean and its percentage is 31%. Only 3.54 % of the respondents expressed some degree of overall dissatisfaction with their jobs. Analyses yielded no significant differences among job satisfaction scores of the respondents in regard to gender, age, seniority, duration in management task, level of education, professional union membership, having prize or not on management. However, there was a significant difference among the principals' job satisfaction levels in terms of the school location. When the location of school where principals works shift from the city center to rural areas, their job satisfaction levels tend to decrease. The principals working for the schools in the city center have the higher job satisfaction than the principals working for the schools located in the counties and villages. The least job satisfaction level was found in the group which works in the villages' schools. Recommendations: Although the overall job satisfaction level of school principals was found “fairly satisfied”, lack of percentage of “highly satisfied” group and the groups expressing dissatisfaction in some degree show that there are some factors reducing the job satisfaction of the school principals. Some analytic research focusing related to these factors must be done. This study revealed that the principals working in the villages' schools have the lowest job satisfaction level. Thus, some measures must be taken by the authority for making the conditions more attractive for the school principals who work in rural areas. Keywords: Job satisfaction, primary school principal, demographic variables, professional variables