Teachers and school factors related to graduate teachers' job satisfaction in public secondary schools in Mombasa District, Kenya

Abstract

The main purpose of the study was to investigate teachers and school factors related to teachers' job Satisfaction in public secondary schools in Mombasa district. The primary purpose was to test these ideas using teachers' job satisfaction as the dependent variable and teachers and school factors as the independent variable. The research was conducted in Kenya among a sample of . 320 secondary school graduate teachers in Mombasa district. Research design for the study was descriptive survey which was used to develop the questionnaire and gather data for this study. The study involved 320 teachers drawn from 35 public secondary schools. Among the teachers' 218 were female and 102 males selected by both random and stratified sampling methods. The National Education Association (N.E.A.) small sample formula was applied to estimate the minimum sample size.

Demographic information was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Ordinary least square multiple regression analysis was used to determine the general trend and behavior of the predictor variables. The hypotheses were tested using the chisquare test at 0.05 level of significance. The results of testing the hypotheses were as follows: 1. Gender was not significantly related to teachers job satisfaction levels, however the mean job satisfaction scores indicated that females were slightly more satisfied than males. Gender was not a significant predictor of teacher's job satisfaction levels 2. There was a significant relationship between graduate teachers level of job satisfaction and their age. The results of the mean job satisfaction scores showed that teacher's aged below 25 years had the highest mean job satisfaction scores. Age was also found to be a significant predictor of teacher's job satisfaction levels. 3. There was no significant relationship between graduate teachers' job satisfaction level and their marital status; however married teachers were generally more satisfied than single teachers. 4. Teaching experience was found to be significantly related to teacher's job satisfaction levels. Teachers with a teaching experience of between 20 and 30 years were found to have the highest mean job satisfaction score. Teachers with 6 to 10 years of teaching experience had the lowest mean job satisfaction score. 5. The housing condition for secondary school teachers showed no significant relationship with their levels of job satisfaction. The research findings concluded that staying in a school house has minimal positive effect on the levels of job satisfaction.

The study concludes that the following independent variables of gender, marital status, academic qualification, and professional grade, category of schools, school size, and school discipline are not significantly related to teacher's job satisfaction levels, however the following factors were found to have significant relationship with teachers job satisfaction levels, age, teaching experience and teachers housing. This study can be replicated on other parts of the country for comparative purposes. The research study mainly concentrated on teacher and school factors. Other factors like administrative support, supervision, head teacher's leadership style and organizational commitment which may affect teacher's job satisfaction can be studied further.