Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and demographic characteristics among teachers in Turkey: Younger is better?

This paper investigates the relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment and evaluates whether teachers' age moderates the relationship between their job satisfaction and organizational commitment in Turkey case. All constructs were measured using instruments sourced from the extant literature and the questionnaire used in this study is designed to examine the relationships between job satisfaction, organizational commitment and age among teachers. The study specifically targeted teachers in secondary schools. In all, 432 copies of the questionnaire were distributed; 173 were returned and sixteen of them were excluded because they were incomplete; giving a response rate of 36%, which was deemed acceptable. The results of this study have some important implications for school managers and teachers. Organizational commitment positively correlated with job satisfaction. We suggest that age differences among teachers have moderating effect on relationships between their job satisfaction and organizational commitment and these relationships are nonlinear. The role of age in relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment is worth investigating further. Our findings highlight the need to consider differences of teachers' age and school authorities need to develop strategies to deal with the needs of those teachers who experience less job satisfaction and commitment. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer review under responsibility of Prof. Dr. Huseyin Uzunboylu