Influence of dissatisfiers and motivators on level of job satisfaction of temporary agriculture teachers in public secondary schools in Homa-Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

Globally, teacher job satisfaction has been positively related to school reform issues such as participative decision-making, teacher growth and empowerment, collegiality, and workplace conditions which in turn improves the school effectiveness as a whole. A satisfied employee is more motivated and shows commitment to duty. Job dissatisfaction on the other hand has been associated with absenteeism, poor collegial relations and low motivation. In Kenya, labour turnover in public secondary schools among agriculture teachers has been common. This situation could be related to presence of dissatisfiers and absence of some motivators leading to lack of job satisfaction among these teachers. In Homa-Bay County however, there was little that was known about the level of job satisfaction of temporary agriculture teachers that schools hired to alleviate teacher shortage and the dissatisfiers and motivators that influenced their job satisfaction. This study therefore sought to analyse the dissatisfiers and motivators that influenced job satisfaction of temporary agriculture teachers in public secondary schools in Homa-Bay County, Kenya. The study employed a descriptive survey design. The target population was 316 agriculture teachers employed by the Board of Management (BOM) who were in service during the study period. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to select 176 teachers. A questionnaire with closed ended items was used to collect data. It was given to two experts from the Department of Agricultural Education and Extension, Egerton University and two agriculture teachers from the technical department at Obera secondary school to assist with the validation. Data collection was preceded by a pilot test with 29 temporary agriculture teachers from Migori County, whose analysis resulted in a reliability coefficient of 0.83. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics on SPSS version 22. Inferential statistic (linear regression) was used to test hypotheses at 0.05α. The study found that 84.6 percent of Temporary Agriculture Teachers in Homa-Bay County were satisfied with their jobs. Among the dissatisfiers, only work condition was found to have independently contributed statistically (β = .398, t = 2.973, p˂ .05), and significantly to temporary agriculture teachers’ job satisfaction. The five predictor variables however jointly contributed statistically (R2=0.09, F=2.976, p˂ .05), and significantly to their job satisfaction. Of the motivators, recognition independently contributed statistically (β =-.385, t=-2.038, p˂ .05), and significantly to temporary agriculture teachers’ job satisfaction. Predictors of motivators however, jointly did not contribute statistically (R2=0.048, F=1.525, p˃ .05), and significantly to job satisfaction of temporary agriculture teachers. The researcher recommends maintenance of good work condition and recognition to sustain higher levels of job satisfaction of Temporary Agriculture Teachers.