Psychological Factors Affecting Work Motivation of Development Agents: The Case of Wolaita Zone, Southern Nation Nationalities and Peoples Regional State, Ethiopia

Motivation is one of the most key theories in human resource management. It explain what organizations can do to encourage people to apply their efforts and abilities in ways that will go forward to the achievement of the organization’s goals as well as satisfying their own needs. This study was designed to identify the level and the most significant psychological factors that affect work motivation of Development Agents (DAs). For this study, two woredas with a total sample size of 150 DAs were included as the sample respondents. Respondents were selected in a simple random sampling technique following probability proportional sampling procedures. A structured survey questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interview were used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. In analyzing the Primary and secondary data type, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The ordinal logistic regression model was employed to determine the most significant variables affecting DAs motivation to work. The study found that 55.3% of DAs had medium level of work motivation, followed by 33.3% and 11.3% low and high level of work motivation, respectively. The overall mean of motivational score was 2.58 on a 1 to 5 point likert type scale. This indicates that work motivation level of DAs was almost in medium level and need efforts to improve it. Keywords: psychological factors, Development Agents, Level of Work motivation, Work motivation , and ordinal logistic regression mode