Dissertation Abstract

Organizational Climate and Job Satisfaction as Reported by Florida Community College Health Occupations Program Directors.

The purpose of this study was to determine the aspects of organizational climate that promote and enhance job satisfaction, to determine the degree of job satisfaction among health occupations program directors in Florida community colleges, and to recommend changes that community college senior administrators can make to improve job satisfaction and performance of health occupations program directors. Program directors completed a questionnaire that included six institutional and five position characteristics by rating and ranking the characteristics as to their general importance, their personal satisfaction with them, and need for improvement on their own campuses. The questionnaire was mailed to all 130 health occupations program directors in Florida community colleges with two or more health occupations programs with a 71 percent rate of return.

Health occupations program directors in Florida community colleges were middle level administrators of a diverse array of programs and number of faculty members supervised. The average respondent was female, white, between 40 and 49 years of age, and held a master's degree. Internal communication was the institutional characteristic rated most important and second only to political climate in need for improvement. Among the position characteristics, participation in decision making was rated most important followed by professional effectiveness. Salary and benefits and autonomy, power and control were most in need of improvement. Overall, the health occupations program directors were satisfied with their positions and campuses.

Pearson correlations showed moderate to strong relationships among the variables concerned with importance and satisfaction separately, but not between them. ANCOVA and ANOVA analyses using four demographic variables of gender, educational background, length of time in current position, and number of faculty members supervised, show no statistically significant relationships between any individual variable and satisfaction. There was statistical significance in two of the models indicating a joint effect.

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