The relationship between physical conditions of schools and organizational happiness

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between the physical conditions of schools and organizational happiness according to the perceptions of teachers working in public secondary schools. The research was conducted using descriptive and correlational survey model from quantitative research models. The universe of the study consists of 111 public secondary schools in the central districts of Diyarbakır Province (Sur, Yenişehir, Kayapınar, Bağlar) and 3678 teachers working in these schools in the 2023-2024 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 30 public secondary schools selected randomly from the universe and 465 teachers working in these schools. "School Buildings Scale" developed by Çağlayan and Yılmaz (2011) and "School Organizational Happiness Scale" developed by Bulut (2015) were used as data collection tools in the study. Some important findings of the research can be listed as follows: (1) The general average of teachers' perceptions about the physical conditions of schools is "partially adequate" (medium). In terms of dimensions, the highest mean was found to be "general appearance" dimension (quite adequate) and the lowest mean was found to be "areas allocated for students" dimension (inadequate). (2) A significant difference was found between teachers' perceptions of the physical conditions of their schools according to the variable of education level in the sub-dimensions of "areas allocated for students and teaching areas" and in the total scale, according to the variable of gender in all dimensions except "general appearance" dimension and in the total scale, according to the variable of marital status in the dimensions of "areas allocated for students and general appearance", and according to the variable of school size in the dimension of "teaching areas" and in the total scale. On the other hand, no significant difference was found between the perceptions of teachers according to the variable of professional seniority. (3) The general average of teachers' perceptions about the organizational happiness of their schools is at the level of "agree" (high). In terms of dimensions, the highest mean was found to be "professional attitude" dimension (strongly agree) and the lowest mean was found to be "economic conditions" dimension (agree). (4) No significant difference was found between teachers' perceptions of the organizational happiness of their schools according to their educational level, marital status and professional seniority variables. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the perceptions of teachers in the dimensions of "professional attitude" and "communication with stakeholders" of school organizational happiness according to the gender variable, and only in the dimension of "economic conditions" according to the size of the school. (5) According to the perceptions of teachers, there was a statistically moderate, positive and significant relationship between the physical conditions of schools and school organizational happiness. School buildings scale is a significant predictor of school organizational happiness scale. Physical conditions of schools explain 11% of teachers' perceptions of organizational happiness.