Role of Demographic Variables in the Relationship between Work Environment and Job Satisfaction in Damascus Islamic Schools

الملخص

This quantitative study examines the moderating effects of demographic variables in the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction of teachers at the Islamic Schools in Damascus, Syria. The problem of this study is that these schools have policy, ideology, principles, objectives, and vision different from those of public and private schools, and not enough is known about the moderating effect of the Demographic Variables on the relationship between factors of work environment and job satisfaction, while this matter has been well established in traditional profit making organizations.

This quantitative correlational design study included two surveys to collect the data from the respondents. The Employee Environment Diagnostic Survey (EEDS) and the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) are used; the demographic items sought data about the teachers’ gender, age, highest level of education, and years of teaching experience. The total number of questionnaire was 720 of which only 565 questionnaires were actually usable. Results show that the gender did not moderate the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction among teachers in Islamic Schools in Damascus (z-score = 0.946, and p-value for both males and females was 0.000). Moreover, the results show that years of experience item moderates the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction for less than 5 years’ experience (z-score = 2.013, and p-value for less than 5 years’ experience was 0.000 while p-value for more than 5 years’ experience was 0.721). Also, the analysis shows that the level of education moderates the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction for undergraduate level. (z-score = 3.929, and p-value for undergraduate was 0.000, and postgraduate  was 0.518). Finally, the analysis shows that age moderates the relationship between work environment and job satisfaction for less than 39 years (z-score = 3.535, and p-value for less than 39 years  was 0.027, and 39 years and above was 0.396). Gaining this knowledge will contribute to the field of education and this study will increase the body of knowledge in the field of work environment and teachers’ job satisfaction.

Keywords: job satisfaction, work environment, moderating, demographic.