AN EXAMINATION OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORK STRUCTURE AND PERCEPTIONS OF FAMILY AND WORK ENVIRONMENTS REPORTED BY TEACHERS.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine relationships between work structure and both work and family environments as perceived by teachers. Data were obtained from 39 teacher volunteers, from an eligible population of 160, all of whom were teachers of grades 4-12 in a single midwestern school district. The instruments used for data collection were the Work Environment Scale and the Family Environment Scale (Moos, 1974). Subscale scores for each instrument were correlated with one another to determine significant relationships, at the .05 level, between individual subscales as well as between individual subscales and the dimensions of work structure. Each subscale, 10 from the WES and eight from the FES, was measured by participants' responses to nine statements perceived to be true or false about their family and work environments. Correlation measures were reported for all participants and also by the demographic groupings of teacher age, sex, grade teaching assignment (4-6, 7-9, 10-12), years teaching experience (fewer than 16 or more than 16), and number of family dependents (fewer than two or more than two). Frequencies of significance, positive and negative, for each subscale were reported across all demographic groupings.;Four hypotheses were accepted in which significant relationships were described between work structure and work environment. Four hypotheses were rejected in which significant relationships were described between work structure and family environment. Significant correlations most frequently obtained were for the work structure subscale of Clarity and the work environment subscale of Task Orientation. Although not significant, an interesting correlation was reported between work structure Clarity and family environment Conflict. Recommendations for further research include (1) an examination of relationships between clarity and task orientation in the school work environment, and (2) research about other significant correlations reported in this study between teacher work structure and work environment.