Public School Teachers' Workplace Aggression Behaviors: A New Scale with Mixed Method Approach

Abstract

Teachers who are believed to be engaged in sacred work might not be expected to commit acts of violence. However, contrary to their public image, teachers do not behave very differently from their students regarding violent behavior. This study aimed to examine how teachers in public schools perceived workplace aggression and what types of aggression behaviors were experienced in the schools and to develop a workplace aggression scale for the Turkish context. The study was conducted with a mixed-method approach, and in the qualitative stage, phenomenological approach was applied. In this phase, 20 interviews with public school teachers were conducted and the data analyzed using a descriptive technique. In the quantitative phase the steps of scale development were applied. The findings of the qualitative phase showed that workplace aggression was defined as "Unlike general aggressive behavior, mainly related to context, workplace aggression manifests itself in workers' feelings of anger toward other workers, and victims of aggressive behavior feel uncomfortable or irritated by these actions. In the quantitative stage, conducted with 213 teachers, exploratory and confirmatory analysis of "Teachers’ Workplace Aggression Behaviors Scale” showed a two-factor structure with its 53 items. The scale's factor structure didn't confim the aggression categories used in the qualitative analysis; for example, in the qualitative analysis, three types of workplace aggression were used: verbal, psychological, and physical workplace aggression; however, in the quantitative analysis, a two-factor structure appeared as overt and covert workplace aggression. In line with the findings of this study, practitioners were recommended to develop new strategies in teacher training and recruitment procedures, and researchers were recommended to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research more in the Turkish context.