Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
EXAMINING THE ANTECEDENTS OF UNIVERSITY TEACHERS JOB SATISFACTION IN
PAKISTAN
Muhammad Asif Khanψ
International Islamic University, Pakistan
___________________________________________________________________________________
Abstract
This study examines the antecedents of Job Satisfaction among University Teachers in Pakistan. This
article involves the relationship between the independent variable like career development, balance
between work and life and recognition with dependent variable job satisfaction. The research data was
gathered from different Public and Private sectors Universities situated in Islamabad and Rawalpindi
on random sampling basis. For this purpose questionnaire was formulated which was comprised of four
parts and each part was further divided into different questions. Likert Scale was given against each
question for selecting the best possible option. The survey result suggests that of career development,
balance between work and life and recognition are the key outcomes which signify a positive
relationship with job satisfaction. Guidelines & strategies are also discussed with the reference of the
above detail.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Keywords: Job satisfaction; University teachers in Pakistan; Career development; Balance between
work and life; Recognition.
JEL Classification Codes: M54; J24.
1. Introduction
Indeed, teaching is the only profession not only in Pakistan rather in the rest of world which teaches all
other professions. Keeping in view, now special attention is being given to this profession which will
be helpful in producing the high quality professionals in different walk of like.
Quality of teaching includes the entire job, paying attention to the environment and the assigned tasks,
bringing up new ideas concerning the quality education you provide, dealing with the whole benefit of
an institution. In addition, majority institutions in a developing country like Pakistan are not much
concerned to bring up academic activities for the development. By generating workshops , training, and
development plans we can easily put the academic staff up to a higher level of achievement. These
implementations will bring career development in this field of profession. There is a positive impact of
teacher job satisfaction on education quality and education quality can be influenced by influencing
teacher job satisfaction (Michaelowa, 2001).
Teachers at different stages of their careers see some aspects of teaching significantly different (Fraser,
Draper and Taylor, 1998). Highly motivated and need satisfied teachers can create a good social,
psychological and physical climate in the classroom (Ololube, 2004). Teachers’ job satisfaction is the
important intermediate variable, which influences professional commitment, teacher autonomy, and
teacher burnout (Jiang, 2005). Teacher job satisfaction can of course be regarded as an objective in
itself, looking upon as a means to promote good teaching and thus high education quality (Michaelowa,
2001).
More research on teachers’ sector will increase the social welfare of our country; Pakistan. The present
study examines the importance of job satisfaction as a strong predictor of a developing country. This
research highlights the importance of three main variables by considering as well as understanding the
career development, balance between work and life and recognition influence on the job satisfaction.
Professional development in various angles of teaching will lead to satisfaction with the work
environment. This discussion will bring further improvements in satisfaction of teachers’ job nearly in
future.
ψ
Corresponding author. Muhammad Asif Khan. PhD Scholar. International Islamic University
Islamabad-Pakistan. Corresponding author Email: [email protected]
Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
2. Literature Review
Studies related to the job satisfaction of teachers have been the focus of many researchers (Korkmaz,
2007).The literature review clearly establishes a relationship between independent variables which are
career development, balance between work and life and recognition with a dependent variable of job
satisfaction. The research studies are beyond the concern in Pakistan Society reflecting the culture
because majority is unknown to its importance. An organization reflects its culture so people working
in an organization should show their values and beliefs also prove satisfaction and commitment at all
levels. Besides this, the culture of teachers’ of Pakistan is genuine and carries great importance. In
Pakistan, this occupation is given much importance because of educational facility is ranked as on of
the respectful job. The quality of teaching must include the whole job, both in the classroom and
outside it; the teacher as a professional, a colleague and a person; the whole social fabric of school life
(Fraser, Draper and Taylor, 1998).
Teachers’ job statisfaction
Job satisfaction can be defined as an overall feeling about one’s job or career in terms of specific facets
of the job or career (Thompson and Orr, 2003). Job satisfaction is conceptualized as a general attitude
toward an object, the job (Okpara, 2004). Teachers' job satisfaction is the leadership style of the
administrators of the school. Thus, it is teachers’ leadership that shapes the school learning climate, the
level of the relationship between staff, and the teacher morale, therefore transformational leadership
may be a triggering factor for higher level job satisfaction (Korkmaz, 2007). Job satisfaction is as
individual as one’s feelings or state of mind which is influenced by a variety of factors, for example,
the quality of one’s relationship with their supervisor, the quality of the physical environment in which
they work, the degree of fulfillment in their work, etc. (Ololube, 2005). It is hypothesized that selfimage as teacher would be positively related with job satisfaction (Borg & Riding, 1991).When an
employee's values were attained, job satisfaction rated higher and job turnover was less frequent
(McConnell, 1998).Teachers feel highly respected in the communities where they live and work (Kloep
and Tarifa, 1994). Research about job satisfaction in education has largely ignored the relationship
between importance of individual job facets and job satisfaction (Johnson & Holdaway, 1994).
Career Development.
Career development plays a major role not only in the teaching profession rather in all professions. It is
not possible that any one can touches the heights of his profession directly instead it is a process which
has to be followed to reach at the maximum level.
Definitely, a high-quality teaching staff is the cornerstone of a successful educational system (Perie and
Baker, 1997). Teachers’ opportunities for advancement should be developed and they should be
provided with the opportunity for advancement in their jobs, with the purpose of improving educational
efficiency and productiveness, the supervisor should benefit from teachers’ opinions and work in
cooperation with them (Karakose and Kocabas, 2006).
Work and Life
Work–life conflict is defined as a form of inter-role conflict in which work and family demands are
mutually incompatible so that meeting demands in one domain makes it difficult to meet demands in
the other (Higgins, Duxbury and Lyons, 2007). Work-family policies and their use by professionals and
managers are particularly appropriate foci for this research (Loy and Wharton, 2002). Both academic
and corporate research is confirming the existence of work-to-family and family-to-work spillover and
the importance of healthy work-family interface for families and businesses (Hill et al., 2001).
Recently many researchers have attempted to highlight significance of work life policies (Bashir and
Ramay, 2008). Work-life programs are effective in reducing work-family conflict, and they can also
improve attitudes (Konrad and Mangel, 2000). While work-life climate affects employee attitudes,
which in turn affects employee behaviors, in turn, employee performance (Soon et al., 2005).
Recognition
Recognition was not necessarily financial but could be expressed in much more personal terms, as
some kind of acknowledgement by the organization to the graduate. (Castillo and Cano, 2004) It seems
that a successful employee whose work performance is recognized by his superiors and his peers will
tend to do more than what is formally required of him. The most obvious form or recognition comes in
the form of salary increases and bonuses. But in the broader terms positive work environment,
recognition can take many forms from a formal award program to a thank you note for a job well done.
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
According to Castillo and Cano (2004), opportunities for growth, recognition of individual contribution
and good work and expanded job responsibilities form the essence of compelling places to work.
Whereas, Sturges and Guest (2001) found out in their research that what was extremely important to
the graduates was recognition by their employer of their achievements and their performance
3. Research Model
Recognition
Career Development
Job Satisfaction
Balance between Work /
Personal Life
Dependent Variable.
Independent Variable.
Hypothesis
H1:
Recognition is positively related to Job Satisfaction
H2:
Career Development is positively related to Job Satisfaction
H3:
Balance between work & life is positively related to Job Satisfaction
4. Research Methodology
Sample
In this research the renowned universities of Pakistan within a particular region were selected. 147
questionnaires were used in this research from different significant universities of Pakistan. This
research covered both the teachers’ of private and public sector.
Instrument & Measures
The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of various aspects of teachers’ on their job
satisfaction. The instrument of research was a questionnaire made on Likert-Scale: from 1 (Strongly
Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree), questions divided in sections of important variables. Participants of
research were the teachers’ at University Sector of Pakistan.
The research consisted of only 21 questions based on Likert-Scale measuring job satisfaction. The
questionnaire was divided into four main sections; over-all job satisfaction, satisfaction with career
development, satisfaction with balance between work-life, and satisfaction with Recognition.
Procedure
Data was collected by personal meeting with the teachers of private and public sector universities in
Islamabad & Rawalpindi. Comprehensive overview of the research had been given to the teachers
before the questionnaire was filled by them.
The data was collected on the basis of random sampling form the teachers of different universities
situated in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), were used as
the data analysis tool, it is comprised of correlation analysis and regression analysis.
5. Findings
The previous researches as well as this study clearly shows a highly significance relationship of job
satisfaction with its main variables. With the help of the questionnaires survey, findings are included to
make the research more hypothetical.
Table 1 indicate correlation between job satisfaction and career development is significant up to .675
which shows that, when career of peoples get develop, they will have more job satisfaction, job
satisfaction and balance between work and life is highly correlated with .691 which shows that when
there is balance between work and life than people will have more job satisfaction, job satisfaction and
recognition is strong up to .668 which shows that when career of peoples get recognition than they will
be more satisfied with job.
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
Table 1: Correlation between the variables
Job Satisfaction
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Career
Development
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Balance between
Work and Life
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
Recognition
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2-tailed)
Job
Satisfaction
Career
Development
Balance
between
Work and
Life
1
.675**
.691**
.668**
.000
.000
.000
147
147
147
147
.675**
1
.576**
.551**
.000
.000
.000
Recognition
147
147
147
147
.691**
.576**
1
.729**
.000
.000
147
147
147
147
.668**
.551**
.729**
1
.000
.000
.000
147
147
N
147
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
.000
147
Table 2 below indicate the value of the R Square is .620 which indicates that there are 62 % variations
in teachers’ job Satisfaction explained by the three independent variables, career development, balance
between work and life and recognition equally.
The values of coefficients are positive which indicates that there are positive relationship between the
dependent variable and independent variables. Further, the t-values of all coefficients are significant,
this means that the career development, balance between work and life and recognition have positive
impact on job satisfaction individually. Hence we accept the alternate hypothesis that there is a
positively significant relationship between the dependent and independent variables.
Constant
Table 2: Regression analysis dependent and independent variables
Balance
between
Work and
Career
Development Life
Recognition
R2
.671 (B)
.285
.259
.220
(.139) (Std. Error)
(.050)
(.068)
(.069)
[.366]
[.299]
[.248]
.000
.000
.002
[4.821] (t)
.000 (sig)
.620
F
77.818
.000(sig)
Dependent variable: job satisfaction
6. Discussion
The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship among job satisfaction and its
variables of teaching sector in Pakistan. In general most teachers’ are satisfied with many aspects of
their jobs. But some reasons create dissatisfaction in their work that make them less concerned to their
teaching lifestyle.
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Proceedings of Applied International Business Conference 2008
In order to attract educated youth for the teaching sector, and retain their commitment & loyalty, the
career development of teachers’ needs to be increased significantly. Because the higher the career
development of a teacher, the more they will be concerned to satisfaction. Education itself explains
career development so a teacher himself or herself requires education to teach others’.
This research is based on the three independent variables (career development, balance between work
and life and recognition) and a dependent variable (job satisfaction), on the analysis of the teacher
questionnaire responses, many teachers gave importance to career development. The career is
developed with the passage of time when you accelerate in the practical field. Recognition is also
driven side by side with career development. Whereas, it may become difficult to manage the balance
between work and life when career is getting developed with fast pace as it need more attention and
time to justice with the recognition.
A country like Pakistan, teaching profession plays an important role. This profession leads to a
developmental change of their status by improving the quality of education as well as the level of
standard in which education is being taught. The university administration and internal environment
should be conducive as well as supportive towards senior teachers’ in general and junior teachers’ in
particular.
7. Implications and recommendations
The results of this study have important implications for job satisfaction along with its variables. The
result suggests that teachers’ will never influence to teaching as a profession if career development and
recognition is not good. A developing country involves professional development for every profession
so; corrective measures should take place in teaching sector to render teachers’ job satisfaction.
Therefore, more research is required on this topic which will help in understanding student’s
psychology and figuring it out the factors affecting students’ success.
Remedial measures should be taken by the university managements in the teaching sector to develop
and sustain teachers’ job satisfaction. A series of studies concerning teachers’ job satisfaction
devolving upon our educational levels and culture should be undertaken by all universities in the future.
Future studies concerning teachers’ job satisfaction will positively effect the environment & the culture
of the nation. It will create awareness to the teachers’ and will make them prominent to the society.
Betterment in academic activities will also influence the teaching profession positively. In conclusion,
in order to yield a qualitative edge, university managements should consider university teachers’ as
their customers’ for the purposes of hiring their services for imparting knowledge of superior quality.
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