Participation in decision making and teacher morale in secondary education schools

ABSTRACTPARTICIPATION IN DECISION MAKING AND TEACHER MORALE INSECONDARY EDUCATION SCHOOLSOrhan AKSAYMaster ThesisDepartment of Education Management and SupervisionThesis Advisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Ayhan URALAugust 2005, xvii + 136 PagesIn this study, it is aimed to determine the level of participation in decisionmaking and morale of secondary education school teachers, to reveal whether theselevels have differences as regards to the personal varieties of teachers and whetherthere is a relationship between the level of participation in decision making and thelevel of teacher morale.The data was gathered from 282 secondary education school teachers who arerandomly selected by ?simple random sampling method? among 526 teachersworking at the secondary education schools in Bolu.The data which was necessary for the study was gathered by means of twodevices. The morale levels of teachers are determined by means of Purdue TeacherOpinionaire and the levels of participation in decision making were determined byDecision Involvement Analysis.The findings of the study are:1. The teachers are participating ?Generally? in educational decision makingand participating ?Rarely? in administrative decision making.2. There is a significant difference between the teachers? levels ofparticipation in educational and administrative decision making processes. Accordingto this, the teachers? level of participation in educational decision making is higherthan their level of participation in administrative decision making.3. There is not a significant difference in teachers? level of participation ineducational and administrative decision making in respect to the variables such asgender, degree of profession, the type of the school and the branches of the teachers.4. It is founded that the sub-morale levels of teachers such as ?the salarysatisfaction of the teacher?, ?problems related to the education program?, ?thesupport that the teacher gets from the society? are ?Generally Low? and the othersub-morale levels are ?Generally High?.5. There is a significant difference among teachers? levels of sub-moralecategories. The level of the sub-morale category named ?the professional satisfactionof teacher? of the teachers is founded at the highest; the level of the sub-moralecategory named ?the salary satisfaction of the teacher? of the teachers is founded atthe lowest level.6. There are significant differences at the levels of the sub-morale categoriesof the teachers as regards to the variables such as gender, degree of profession, thetype of the school and the branches of the teachers.7. There is a linear, positive relationship between the teachers? level ofparticipation in educational decision making and their levels of all sub-moralecategories. There is a linear, positive relationship between teachers? level ofparticipation in administrative decision making and their levels of all sub-moralecategories except ?the salary satisfaction of the teacher? sub-morale category.Key Words: Participation in Decision Making, Morale, Secondary EducationSchool Teacher.