This study aims to analyze the empowerment and job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to the organization types and director of public kindergartens. In addition, this study will contribute to the understanding of organizational cultural ...
This study aims to analyze the empowerment and job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to the organization types and director of public kindergartens. In addition, this study will contribute to the understanding of organizational cultural characteristics such as organizational type and full-time manager status among the factors affecting the empowerment and job satisfaction of public kindergarten kindergarten teachers, and to provide basic data that will be used as a reference for seeking directions for desirable supplementation and development of public kindergarten organizational culture. To achieve the purpose of this research, the research questions were set as follows:
Question 1. What is the level of empowerment and job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers in public kindergartens?
Question 2. How is the kindergarten teacher's empowerment according to the organization type of public kindergarten?
Question 3. How is the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to the organization types of public kindergartens?
Question 4. How is the the kindergarten teacher's empowerment according to whether they are early childhood education major directors of public kindergartens?
Question 5. How is the job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to whether they are early childhood education major directors of public kindergartens?
This study was conducted with 350 kindergarten teachers working in public kindergartens. As a scale to analyze kindergarten teachers' empowerment and job satisfaction, Empowerment used a scale developed by Short and Rinehart (1992) and supplemented by Jeong-hee Kim(2007) to be more suitable for kindergarten teachers. The job satisfaction scale was based on the Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire developed by Jong Hee Noh(2001) and modifed more appropriately by I-Seul Kim(2020) for kindergarten teachers. Frequency and percentage were calculated to understand the general characteristics of the study subjects. In addition, descriptive statistical analysis was conducted to examine the mean and standard deviation of the main variables. To verify the reliability of the research tool, Cronbach's α coefficient was calculated. One-way ANOVA was conducted to analyze the kindergarten teacher's empowerment and job satisfaction according to the organizational type of the public kindergarten, and the kindergarten teacher's empowerment and job satisfaction according to the early childhood education major directors of the public kindergarten, If it was statistically significant, the Scheffé test was used for post-hoc analysis.
The results of this study are as follows.
First, the average empowerment of public kindergarten teachers was 3.78 (SD=.58), and the average job satisfaction was 3.50 (SD=.61).
Second, as a result of analyzing the difference in kindergarten teacher empowerment according to the organizational type of public kindergarten, a statistically significant difference was found, and in the lower areas, there were significant differences in decision-making, professionalism, and influence.
Third, as a result of analyzing the difference in job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to the organizational type of public kindergarten, a statistically significant difference was found, and in the lower areas, there were significant differences in external factors.
Fourth, as a result of analyzing the difference in kindergarten teacher empowerment according to whether they are early childhood education major directors, a statistically significant difference was found, and in the lower areas, there were significant differences in decision-making, professionalism, status, autonomy and influence.
Fifth, as a result of analyzing the difference in job satisfaction of kindergarten teachers according to whether they are early childhood education major directors, a statistically significant difference was found, and in the lower areas, there were significant differences in external factors.
In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that members of public kindergartens should work together to form a positive organizational culture in which all members of the organization empower each other and increase job satisfaction for the macroscopic purpose of ‘realizing high quality national early childhood education’ regardless of organizational type or full-time manager. In addition, it is meaningful to suggest that various institutional support and support should be sought to improve the empowerment and job satisfaction of public kindergarten kindergarten teachers.