Impact of Teachers Personal Characteristics on Their Job Satisfaction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Impact of Teachers’ Personal Characteristics on Their Job Satisfaction in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Vol. IV, No. IV (Fall 2019) 225 Researchers and scholars have identified various factors that may be responsible for teachers’ job satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Among these factors some are related to working conditions, some are related to children, some are related to head, and some are concerned with society. The major sources of job satisfaction of instructors working at school with children include contribution to society, opportunities for personal and professional growth, salary, collaborative work with colleagues, and schedule of the work. Similarly, the major sources of teachers’ dissatisfaction include students’ failure, social problems, lack of discipline, status, respect and lack of autonomy (Zembylas & Papanastasiou, 2006). Juma, Simatwa, and Ayodo (2011) have found that excellent relationships among teachers; remuneration, improvement and job security be the issues that influence the job satisfaction level. Burón and Lassibille (2016) have found that lack of basic infrastructure and teaching materials, low wages, job insecurity, principals’ controls of teachers, high student-teacher ratios and lack of in-service training may prove to be major causes of job dissatisfaction. Similarly, You, Kim and Lim (2017) have attributed school personnel job satisfaction to two traits i.e. enduring and attitudinal traits. The former is attributed to teachers’ gender and years of teaching experience, while the la tter is attributed to how teachers perceive their job effectiveness and how their colleagues behave at workplace. The teachers have limited power to alter the enduring trait while for attitudinal traits teachers have the greater power to alter. The same facets of job satisfaction have been identified by Pakistani researchers in the local context (Ali, 2011; Aziz, 2013, Chaudry, 2004; Ghazi, 2004; Iqbal, 2010; Rauf, 2012). Griffin and Bateman (1996) suggested that French benefits, opportunities for promotion, better working conditions, a good relationship with supervisors and colleagues, professional development opportunities and salaries are the aspects that are implicit to be the possible reasons for job satisfaction. There may be three attributes of employees which can affect their job satisfaction level which includes personality, culture and working conditions (Saari & Judge, 2004). In a similar way, teachers’ job satisfaction can also be Attributed to three influential factors including community, school and personal characteristics (Sargent & Hannum, 2005). The foregoing discussion indicates that a large number of research studies have been conducted throughout the world to highlight the importance of job satisfaction area; in contrast, in the context of local setting this area has not been examined in the background of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Therefore, there remains a gap to investigate this area in the field of education. Therefore, the researchers determined to fill this gap by conducting research on this ignored area. Research Methodology The researchers used quantitative design and a descriptive (survey) method was preferred to collect data from the sample teachers. All Senior Secondary School Teachers (7406) currently employed in Government Schools of seven headquarters districts (Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Kohat, Peshawar, Mardan, Malakand, and Hazara) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the academic year (2014-15) constituted the accessible population of this study. By using stratified random sampling technique the researchers selected 744 (10 %) school SSST from the seven districts. Out of 744 SSST, 476 were male and 268 female. Similarly, 281 SSST were employed in urban located schools and 463 were employed in rural locality schools. The researchers distributed 744 survey packets among SSST of sampled districts. A written consent letter was also attached to each questionnaire to invite the participants to participate and rank your opinion on continuum. The consent letter also consisted of describing purposes of study and ensuring confidentiality and anonymity for the institution and teachers. Five hundred and seventy filled questionnaires were collected from the respondents. Out of which twenty-six were un-useable and were discarded. Thus 544 useable questionnaires were used for data analysis with a final response rate 74.61%. The researchers validated the research instrument through very experienced and renowned experts. After validation of instrument researchers piloted it to thirty school teachers who have not participated in the study. The researchers also found the reliability of the instrument through inter-item consistency. The value of Cronbach’s alpha was (0.80) which indicates that the instrument is highly reliable.