Participation in decision making and its effect on job satisfaction and role stress of staff in child development agencies in the United States

This study examined the relationship of staff participation and desire to participate in the decision-making process of an organization to perceived job satisfaction and role ambiguity and overload of teachers in child development agencies. The study also included an investigation of the methods of decision making most often used by child development agencies to determine if there was a significant relationship between the teachers’ level of satisfaction in participating in decision making and the mode of decision making used in their organizations. Two hundred thirteen teachers from seventy-six child development programs completed questionnaires indicating how frequently they participated in each of the twelve itemized decision issues, how frequently they thought they should participate, and by what method these decisions were made in their organizations. They were also requested to rate their perceptions of job satisfaction and role stress. These data were analyzed using SAS computer programs to obtain the Pearson correlations, one-way analysis of variance, and chi square tests of significance. The probability level of all tests of the hypotheses was predetermined at .05. From the statistical analysis of the data, it was concluded that a majority of teachers in child development programs were satisfied with the degree of participation they experienced in the decision-making process of their organizations. Of the few teachers who were not as involved in making decisions as they wanted to be, more were dissatisfied with their lack of participation in managerial type decisions than in decisions concerning program or instruction. Teachers who were satisfied with their participation in decision making also perceived greater intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction and less role ambiguity and overload than teachers who were not as involved as they wanted to be in making decisions. It was also found that a majority of the teachers in these child development programs were not involved in the decision-making process to any greater degree of participation than providing input to the administrator, who then made the decision. Decisions concerning programs were most often made after consultation with teachers, and most managerial decisions were made autocratically