Job Satisfaction of Secondary School Vocational Teachers in Oyo State, Nigeria

¹ADEOSUN Ayodele Olayinka, ²ADEYEMO Ayuba Olabode, ³ADELOWO Gbenga Edward

Greener Journal of Education and Training Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 001-009, June 2018

¹Agricultural Science Education Department, School of Vocational and Technical Education

College of Education, Lanlate, Nigeria.

²Curriculum and Instruction Department School of Education, College of Education, Lanlate, Nigeria.

³Fine and Applied Arts Department, School of Vocational and Technical Education College of Education, Lanlate, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

An educational system that is sound is usually considered to be the bedrock of a developing country. Quality teachers are indispensable for the attainment of such educational system. This high esteem role of teachers has made teaching profession to be extremely challenging and demanding. The situation has forced teachers into a hectic and busy schedule which has made them to experience high level of stress, unhappiness and job dissatisfaction in recent time (Salim, Nasir, Arip & Mustafa, 2012). Moreover, one of the job related topics that received greater attention of educational psychologists in Nigeria in the past years is job satisfaction of secondary school teachers. Many studies carried out within the last decades revealed a high rate of job dissatisfaction among teachers (Adeyoju 1999, Ajayi, 1998, 1981; Adeyemo, 1996, 1986). According to Locke (1976) Job satisfaction is the pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience. It refers to the fulfillment acquired by experiencing various job activities and rewards. Surprisingly, in recent years, research has reported moderate improvement in the level of job satisfaction among secondary school teachers (Adetayo, 2008; Gesinde & Adejumo, 2012).

Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to measure the job satisfaction level and to determine factors affecting level of satisfaction of Oyo state secondary school vocational teachers.

Statement of the problem

Despite many studies on teachers’ motivation and job satisfaction, detection of factors affecting job satisfaction and prescription of different strategies of addressing the challenges of job satisfaction, yet, efforts of addressing these challenges, are still witnessing a teachers that are lethargic and indifferent in assisting the learners to acquire the basic knowledge and competencies for future career. This study aims at contributing to the knowledge of job satisfaction factors among the secondary school vocational teaching force taking a case of Oyo State, Nigeria.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

The conceptual domain of job satisfaction is broad, because it includes all characteristics of the job itself and the work environment, which employees find rewarding fulfilling and satisfying or frustrating or unsatisfying (Churchill, Ford and Walker 1974: Snipes Oswald, Latour and Armenakis 2005). According to Locke’s definition, the evaluation of teaching satisfaction involves a cognitive, judgmental process as well; solely measuring the effective state of teachers cannot fully address teaching satisfaction (HD and Au, 2008). To continue with, job satisfaction of employees is very crucial to the success of any organization. It mediates the relationship between working conditions and organizational outcomes (Dormann & Zapt, 2001; Akomolafe & Olatomide, 2013). And also, job satisfaction enhances organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour and employee wellbeing (Rue & Byars, 2005; George & Jones, 2008; Ghazzawi, 2008; Ghazzawi & Smith, 2009; Robbins & Judge, 2009; Oyewobi, Suleiman & Muhammad-Jamil, 2012; Akomolafe & Olatomide 2013). At the same time, teachers who are satisfied with their jobs usually have a high degree of professional competence. They feel qualified in terms of their knowledge of subject matter and teaching skills, and they feel secured about classroom management. So the effectiveness of an educational system depends largely on the job satisfaction of teachers employed in the system (Sleyn, 1992).

There are many factors affecting job satisfaction as discovered by many researchers. For instance, According to Maslow theory, people are influenced by two sets of factors: motivator factors (intrinsic) and hygiene factors (extrinsic).  Intrinsic factors involve mainly aspects of the job itself (e.g.  Achievement, recognition, works itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth).  The presence of intrinsic factors produces job satisfaction, but their absence, does not lead to job dissatisfaction. On the other hand, extrinsic factors involve primarily the context in which the job was performed. The presence of these factors does not produce feelings of satisfaction, but their absence leads to job dissatisfaction. There is a relationship between job satisfaction and very different variables. There is a relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction (Ho and Au, 2008), service and quality (Hartline and Farrell, 1996: Schneider and Bowen, 1985), performance Luthans, 1995: 129), demographic, job and personality characteristics (Miller et al., 2009). Job satisfaction is found to be a mediator between emotional intelligence and organization commitment (Guleryurz et al., 2008).

Meanwhile, Judge and Ilies (2004) said that people who tend to be positive and cheerful most of the time do indeed tend to express higher job Satisfaction than ones who tend to be down and gloomy. Moreover, according  to  the  Employee  Job  Satisfaction  Survey Report by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) (2009) which reinforced the findings of Morrison (2004), employee relationship with management is one of the  factors  that  influence  job  satisfaction  of  employees. This employee relationship with management can be separated into two elements, that is, relationship with immediate supervisor (leadership)  and  communication  between junior  and  senior  employees   (communication  satisfaction). While according to Akintoye (2000) money remains the most significant motivational strategy. Though way back Abraham Maslow (1943), gave a model that shows that factors that motivate an individual keep changing as one climbs the ladder of age and maturity. And also, achievement of one goal sets the ball rolling for another one to be achieved. A  review  of  the  literature  indicates  that  the  level of earnings  is  substantial  and  has  a  positive  effect  on  job satisfaction  (Carvajal  and  Hardigan,  1999).  This argument is supported  by  Kazooli’s  Lenses  (2010)  who underline  that  pay  is  one  of  the  most  important  factors influencing workers’ level of job satisfaction. Accordingly, Handel (2000) found that most employees were satisfied with  their  compensation  which  is  associated  with  incentives,  stock  option,  cash  recognition  and  so  forth, while Miller  (1980)  identified  that  job  satisfaction  is  greater among workers who are more secure and highly paid.

Furthermore, there  are many  studies  which  found  that  working environment  is  linked  with  job  satisfaction  (Oraman 2011). Specifically, job security and working condition are the elements clustered under the working environment (SHRM, 2009). Job  security is  feeling  safe  at  work  which  is  a  basic requirement  that  must  be  addressed  before  high  level needs  can  be  met,  at  least  on  a  systematic  basis (Lockwood,  2009).  When  there  is  feeling  of  insecure at work,  it  will  lead  to  a  lower  level  of  job  satisfaction (Eurobarometer Surveys, 1996; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2000).  Because  of  this  argument,  many  studies  have found a positive relationship between job security and job satisfaction  (Nikolaou  et  al.,  2005)  which  imply  that employees  may  have  the  poor  performance  if  they are insecure in their jobs (Rosow and Zager, 1985).

The effect of rank, age, gender and length of service on job satisfaction of employees was studied by Oshagbemi (2003) for the universities in United Kingdom (UK). The study found individual’s rank within the organization as a major predictor of job satisfaction and there was positive and strong correlation between the two. Similarly the length of service was significantly and negatively correlated to the job satisfaction. But the relationship between job satisfaction and age and gender was found to be insignificant for employees of the UK universities. Demographic characteristics and job satisfaction which was conducted by Malik (2011) under the title of, “Study of job satisfaction factors of faculty members at university of Baluchistan”. The researcher tried to explain the relationship between demographic factors “Age, Gender, Family size, Income, Occupation, Education, Ethnicity, Nationality, Religion, Social standards” and job satisfaction. Olorunsola  (2010)  in  his  article  under  the  title  of  “Job satisfaction and gender factor of Administrative staff in south west Nigeria Universities”.  As conclusion was concerned male administrative members were comparatively more satisfied than female administrative staff.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework of the variables related to job satisfaction developed by the Authors

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Study area

The study was carried out in Oyo State between March and August 2016. The state covers a total of 28,454 square kilometers of land mass with a population of 5,591,589 (NPC, 2006). It is bounded in the south by Ogun State, in the North by Kwara State, in the West it is partly bounded by Ogun State and partly by Republic of Benin, while in the East by Osun State.  The landscape consists of old hard rocks and dome shaped hills. Oyo State has an equatorial climate with dry seasons and relatively high humidity. Average daily temperature ranges between 25⁰c and 35^oc. the vegetation pattern of Oyo State is that of forest in the South and guinea savannah in the North (Oyo State website, 2016).

Sample and sampling Techniques

A multistage sampling method was used in selecting the respondents for the study. Stage one involves dividing Oyo State into four areas (Oyo/Ogbomoso, Oke Ogun, Ibadan and Ibarapa region). Secondly, fourteen secondary schools were randomly selected per area and lastly, six vocational teachers were randomly selected. A total of three hundred and thirty six respondents altogether were involved in this study.

Instrument for the study and Administration

The instrument for the study was questionnaire. The instrument was administered by the researchers in person with the help of a well-informed research assistant to ensure a one hundred (100) percent return of completed questionnaire. On arrival at the schools, the researcher explained to the respondents the purpose of the study to allay fears and reduce misinterpretation of the items in the questionnaire. Finally, the researchers assured confidentiality of all information provided. The instrument comprise of two segments A and B. Section A is made up of demographic data of respondents such as sex, Age, educational qualification, marital status and years of experience. Section B consisted of ten (10) items on perceived challenges of effective implementation of VTE. The responses to the items on the problems were assigned as shown in Table 1 below:

Table 1: Response categories of the instrument

Method of data analysis

Descriptive statistics for data analysis procedure were used. Data which provided answers to the research questions were analysed using mean and standard deviation.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Table 2 shows the demographic characteristics of respondents, from the table, majority (54%) were male while 46% were female. Most of the respondents fall within the age range of 41-50 years followed by age of between 31 and 40 (32.4%). High proportion of the respondents being adult is an indication that they know what decision they are taking.  High proportion of the respondents possess B, Sc. /B. Ed (50.3%) followed by those with NCE (34.5%). Majority were married while only 34.2% were single. Most of the respondents had working experience of between 11 and 15 years.

Table 2: Demographic characteristics of respondents

Source: Field Survey, 2016

Table 3 shows the perspective of vocational teachers towards job satisfaction. From the table, most of items had mean above the criterion value of 2.5. The mean range from 2.01 to 3.44 whiles the standard deviation range from 0.33 to 0.94. However, using the respective means, the finding reveals that job satisfaction is a crucial measure of the success of any organization (M=3.44, STD=0.33), nature of job and working environment was also found as contributory factor to job satisfaction (M=2.82, STD=0.69), If teachers are satisfied then they will be more motivated toward students performance and achievement will be satisfactory. The vocational teachers were satisfied with their job (M=2.94 STD=0.51), however, they believed that their monthly income was not sufficient and was not commensurate with their qualification (M=2.06, STD=0.94).

Table 3: Perspective of vocational teachers towards job satisfaction

Source: Field Survey, 2016 (Percentages in parenthesis)

Table 4 shows the perceived factors determining job satisfaction of Vocational Teachers in the study area, from the table, all the items had mean above the criterion value of 2.5. The mean range from 2.55 to 3.08 while the standard deviation ranges from 0.6 to 1.1. This is an indication that all items were strong motivation factors toward job satisfaction.  However, using the respective means, one of the factors responsible for teachers’ satisfaction is job security (M= 3.08, STD=0.6); this confirms the work of Lacy & Sheehan (1997) who indicated that a clear relationship exists in the job security and satisfaction with the work. Siddique et al (2002) also stated that security of service is a feature that has a considerable affiliation with the job satisfaction, so permanent employees are more pleased with their jobs in comparison to the employees who are on contract. Another factor affecting job satisfaction is remuneration (M=2.90, STD=0.8) through salary (financial compensation). Material rewards are much essential in job satisfaction. According to the many researchers, a constructive relationship exists between salary and satisfaction of job. Increase in one thing must enhance the other. This is in line with Souza-Poza (2000) who stated that salary is a forecaster of work satisfaction; also Miller (1980) said that workers who were rewarded vastly showed a better job satisfaction.

Other factors as perceived by vocational teachers are working conditions (2.62) that has a major influence on the work satisfaction level of the employees. This is in congruent with Herzberg et al. (1959), working conditions are a key factor that affect job satisfaction level. Similarly Santhepparaj & Alam (2005) indicated a significant connection in the job satisfaction and working condition of workers. Promotion opportunities (2.55) are also seen as a factor affecting job satisfaction. This also suggested by Kosteas “promotion expectations also affect job satisfaction, workers who believe a promotion is possible in the next two year report higher job satisfaction”

Table 4: Perceived factors determining job satisfaction of vocational teachers in the study area

HM=highly motivating, M=motivating, NM=Not motivating, HN=highly not motivating

A Kruskal Wallis test was conducted to evaluate differences among the four point scale (HM, SM, SN and HN) on median of the responses. The test, (Table 5) which was corrected for tied ranks was significant x² (3, N=32) 16.56, p=0.0009. Null hypothesis of equality of means was rejected by Kruskal Wallis test.

Since the overall test of Kruskal wallis is significant, follow up tests were conducted to evaluate pair wise differences of medians among the four points. This was done controlling for type 1 error across tests by using Bonferroni approach. The results of this test indicated no significance between HM/M, HM/NM, HM/HN, M/HN and NM/HN pairs but only significant between, M/N pair (Table 6).

Table 5: Summary statistics on Rank and test results

Total Size=32, Overall Rank

Table 6: Pair wise Comparison

CONCLUSION

Job satisfaction (motivator) factors include achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibilities, and advancement. Job satisfaction factors allow individuals to reach their psychological potential and are usually associated with the work itself Job dissatisfaction (hygiene) factors are usually associated with the work environment and include pay, working conditions, supervision, company policy, and interpersonal relationships and teachers involvement in decision making.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the findings of the research, the following recommendations are made; there should be investigation on the role and impact of human resource management practices on job satisfaction among the employees (teachers)

Administrators should decide to make use of a rewarding system in order to identify those teachers who perform their job well and highly satisfied

Moreover, school administrators or managers should motivate teachers to be friendlier and be fair to their co-workers and their bosses in order to increase the teacher’s job satisfaction

The organization or school system should develop strategic ways of increasing the cooperation among the employed (teachers) to increase the relationship among the employees (teachers).

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