Job satisfaction indicators of practitioner school psychologists in the urban public schools
Abstract
The purposes of this study were to determine: (a) those socio-demographic variables and work environment variables which can be related to job satisfaction in a sample of 205 school psychologists serving the urban School Districts of the New York City Board of Education; (b) the degree of satisfaction expressed by the sample of psychologists within each of the 10 subscales of the Work Environment Scale (WES); and (c) the relationship between discrepancy between real and ideal work environment conditions and the Hoppock Job Satisfaction Index. Hypothesis 1: The socio-demographic variables of age, number of years in current position, number of years in education as a school psychologist, and highest degree held will be positively correlated with job satisfaction of employed school psychologists. This was tested using a hierarchical setwise multiple regression analysis. The results did not support the hypothesis. Hypothesis 2: The work-environment variables of Involvement, Peer Cohesion, Supervisor Support, Autonomy, Task Orientation, Clarity, Innovation, and Physical Comfort will be positively correlated to job satisfaction, with Work Pressure and Control negatively correlated to job satisfaction. Pearson correlations supported this hypothesis. With the exception of Work Pressure, the hypothesis was supported. Hypothesis 3: There will be a negative correlation between the subscale scores on the Real Form and the Ideal Form of the WES. This was supported only for Physical Comfort and Control. Hypothesis 4: To the extent to which the Real exceeds the Ideal, the discrepancy scores of the Real and the Ideal Forms of the Work Environment Scale will show a positive correlation with job satisfaction. This was confirmed for all discrepancy scores with the exception of Task Orientation. Job satisfaction scores were regressed over WES discrepancy scores in a stepwise fashion. Innovation, Involvement, and Control accounted for 16% of the variance in job satisfaction. It was concluded that school psychologists' job satisfaction was most strongly influenced by the discrepancies between actual and ideal innovation, involvement, and control. School psychologists in New York City tended to feel satisfied more of the time than dissatisfied. Their perceptions of working under highly adverse conditions were significant and need to be addressed in order to promote higher satisfaction and professional performance.
Subject Area
Occupational psychology|Educational psychology|Health education
Recommended Citation
Kaplan, Laura Joy, "Job satisfaction indicators of practitioner school psychologists in the urban public schools" (1994). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI9511235.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI9511235
