A Study on Teacher Morale at a Selected Secondary School.

The intent of the study was to investigate the morale of teachers in a selected south Louisiana secondary school. Four null hypotheses were proposed and tested to identify the effect of a change of facility upon the entire group of teachers; male and female teachers; teachers under the age of thirty-seven and those who were thirty-seven years of age or older; and teachers having bachelors degrees and teachers with higher degrees that moved to a new school plant. All forty-three teachers (N = 43) employed at a selected secondary school participated in the experiment. Of that total, nineteen teachers moved to a new facility and twenty-four remained at the existing facility. There were no changes in teacher assignments, classloads, or teaching materials as a result of the change in school plants. The Purdue Teacher Opinionaire, a one hundred item instrument, was administered to each group in the fall of 1977 and the spring of 1978. The experimental group moved to the new facility in February of 1978. An analysis of covariance was computed for each of the four null hypotheses. Each hypotheses was tested at the .05 level of significance. This research found that none of the four null hypotheses were statistically significant. The F-tests did not approach the .05 level of significance. Furthermore, neither sex, age, nor level of education affected the morale scores of teachers that changed schools. There were slight, yet not significant, changes in the raw pretest and posttest scores for the experimental group. The study concluded that the assumption that a new school plant will positively affect teacher morale cannot be substantiated. The author recommended that further study with consideration for short and long term effects of a change in school plant upon teacher morale be undertaken. School board members and school administrators should recognize that greater teacher morale is not a natural consequence of improved physical surroundings