Impact of a School-Based Workplace Health Promotion Program on Morale of Inner-City Teachers John P. Allegrante, John L. Michela
ABSTRACT: Results from an evaluation study designed to assess the impact of a school-based, workplace health promotion program on the morale of inner-city school teachers are reported. Teachers in 10 schools completed a questionnaire measuring components of morale prior to and following the opportunity to participate in a series of health promotion programs. Programs included stress management, nutrition education, healthy back, fitness, weight control, and recreational activities. Data also were collected on teachersfrom a comparison group of schools in the same district. Measures of teachers’ pretest and posttest perceptions of the school environment, particularly in terms of perceived control over work activities and participation (ie, empowerment, p c .05) at posttest, indicated morale was enhanced in schools that implemented the program. (J Sch Health 1990;60(1):25-28)
0
ne of the benefits believed to accrue from workplace health promotion programs is the improvement in morale among employees who participate in such programs. I However, no empirical evidence exists to support the notion that teachers as an occupational group who are exposed to such programs demonstrate improved morale or job satisfaction as a result of their participation. The concept was examined in this study of a community school district in New York City where a workplace health promotion program was implemented for teachers and staff in 10 of the district’s 15 schools. As short-term goals, the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) sought to improve the morale and job satisfaction of teachers and to reduce absenteeism. A long-term program goal was to improve the physical and mental health of the school district’s professional staff. These goals were pursued by providing schoolbased orientation and self-assessment activities, lecture presentations, and programmatic intervention modeled after successful corporate workplace health promotion programs. This paper reports the results from an evaluation to assess the impact of the HEP on teacher morale as measured by job satisfaction and perceptions of the overall quality and specific organizational climate features of their schools. The study also examined data on the impact of the program on teacher absenteeism. John P. Allegrante, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Center for Health Promotion, Teachers College, and Associate Professor, Clinical Public Health in Sociomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, Columbia University, 525 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027; and John L. Michela, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3GI. This work was performed at the Center for Health Promotion, Teachers College, Columbia University, under a contract from Community School District Six, New York City Board of Education, and was supported by a grant from Group Health Incorporated, New York City. The authors thank Mr. Paul Viboch. former director of the Health Enhancement Program, and the teachers and staff of District Six for their cooperation in conducting the evaluation study; Barbara Bronson, Mollit, DeLozier, and especially Marlene Lukaszewski, for their assktance in data collection and analysk; and Dr. Charles E. Basch, Dept. of Health Education, Teachers College, for contributing valuable suggestions throughout the project. This article was submitted June 19, 1989, and revised and accepted for publication November 13, 1989.
METHOD The evaluation used a quasiexperimental design that allowed posttest-only comparisons of nonequivalent groups and pretest/posttest comparisons within the intervention group. Ten schools in the district receiving at least one of the HEP programs comprised the intervention schools; five remaining schools in the district received no special programming and served as comparison schools. Assignment of schools to conditions was random in the sense that schools in the two groups were assumed, apriori, to be equivalent, and no criteria such as willingness to participate were used in selecting the intervention schools. Subjects
Potential eligible participants included 758 teachers and other personnel in 10 schools (eight elementary and two junior high) comprising the intervention sites, and 469 teachers in five comparison schools (three elementary and two junior high) from Community School District Six of the New York City Board of Education. The district, located in the northern-most section of Manhattan, serves the children of many low-income and ethnically diverse inner-city residents. Instrumentation
A questionnaire administered during surveys conducted in both the intervention and comparison schools was used to collect data on organizational climate and job satisfaction. At the end of the school year, personal interviews yielded anecdotal data regarding morale among program participants in intervention schools and nonparticipants in comparison schools. The Litwin and StringerZsurvey instrument, which produces ratings of the work environment through agreement-disagreement statements, was used to measure organizational climate. The instrument was adapted for teachers, avoiding use of words that would seem inappropriate in the school context, such as “management.” It also instructed teachers to describe the climate for the “teachers in your school with whom you work most closely - your work unit,” such as a department defined by academic topic or grade level.
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
25
Though virtually impossible to assess validity of climate measures directly because climate has been defined as people’s subjective experiences of their environm e n t ~ some , ~ indication of validity for the data can be inferred from other studies‘ that have examined whether people in different environments provide different reports about those environments in their ratings of environmental features such as social support, achievement, and empowerment climate. For example, statistically significant differences in ratings usually are seen as a function of the work group to which a worker belongs, corresponding to the department or school membership of a teacher. These differences have been seen in analyses of the Litwin and Stringer instrument and other instruments used in industry. The slight adaptation of the Litwin and Stringer instrument was analyzed for differences among schools that would be consistent with the notion of the validity of the measures. The authors obtained essentially the same magnitudes of differences among environments with this data set as were observed in the previous work of others. The adapted questionnaire contained 10 items rated on six-point scales. Factor analysis of these items yielded three factors: 1) social support, or reports of whether others take a personal interest in the teacher and whether trust and warmth exist among people; 2) achievement support, or reports of whether performance standards are high, organizational policies are clearly understood, and pride in the school is felt; and 3) empowerment, or whether teachers believe they are involved in decisions that affect them, have opportunity for influence, I eceive encouragement to initiate their own projects, and are asked for their opinions. Three composite variables corresponding to these factors were constructed for use in group comparisons. Internal consistency reliabilities for the variables at the two administrations were .65 and .52 for social support (affiliation climate), .85 and .87 for achievement support, and .72 and .71 for empowerment, respectively. Job satisfaction and perceived quality of one’s school were measured by questionnaire items taken from the Harris/Metropolitan Life poll of American teachers.’ Copies of the instruments and further details about data collection are reported elsewhere.6 Procedures
The intervention program was organized into four components that used multiple educational strategies. The first component included an orientation session conducted during the opening school faculty assembly at which time eligible participants received information about behavioral risk factors and were recruited to participate in the HEP. Teachers and staff attending these assemblies completed both the questionnaire measuring morale and the New York State form of the standard Centers for Disease Control Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) at that time. Approximately 700 teachers attended the orientation sessions, and 600 teachers completed the HFL4 and other questionnaires. In the second component, a HEP-sponsored health fair, teachers and staff in the intervention schools could voluntarily undergo a comprehensive series of diagnostic
26
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
medical screenings. Two hundred seventeen participants were screened during the fair. The third component involved a follow-up group session during which participants who had completed HRAs received interpretative feedback about risk factors and results from their analyzed questionnaires. Persons attending the sessions also received advice about HEP programs in which they might participate. The eight intervention programs, the fourth component, included stress management, nutrition education, healthy back, fitness, weight control, smoking cessation, recreational activities such as team volleyball, and a daily salad delivery service. Intervention programs were selected for initial implementation based on the prevalence of population-wide risk factors measured on the initial HRA, such as fitness, together with expressed needs or interests, such as the salad delivery service, communicated informally and individually to the HEP director. Programs were phased into five intervention schools during December and January and into the remaining five schools during February and March of the school year. More than 20% of school staff (n = 140 employees) participated in one or more intervention programs, and about 50 teachers participated in a recreational volleyball league organized by the HEP. Of 140 program participants, 85 participated in the fitness program, 24 in the healthy back program, 14 in the stress management program, and 17 in the weight control program. During the intervention period, an average of 110 teachers and staff each day participated in the salad delivery service program, and more than 700 teachers and staff attended the nutrition education program sponsored by the HEP. Due to lack of enrollment, the smoking cessation program was not offered.
RESULTS Measures of job satisfaction, perceived quality of schools, organizational climate, and absenteeism were all conceptualized as bearing on the level of morale of teachers and staff. Data for the analyses reported were gathered from four sources: 1) responses to survey questions in the autumn term (pretest) by 223 teachers in intervention schools, 2) responses to these same questions in the following spring term (posttest) by 104 teachers in intervention schools, 3) responses to these questions in the spring term (posttest) by 66 teachers in Figure 1 Satisfaction with Job as a Teacher in Communitv School District Six
Somewhat Satlsfled 46
I
Dlssatlslled 17
In Percentages
comparison schools, and 4) school district office records of teacher absences. Job Satisfuction. Responses to the question from the Harris/Met Life poll about job satisfaction as a teacher at posttest were similar to those given by teachers nationally. Figure 1 contains the proportions of teachers in Community School District Six according to their self-reported satisfaction with their jobs. The study also examined whether responses to the question about job satisfaction *ere significantly different between the HEP and comparison schools at posttest; no differences were detected. Perceived Quality of School. An additional item from the Harris/Met Life poll asked respondents to rate the overall quality of their school. The difference between answers from the HEP school teachers and comparison school teachers at posttest (spring term) were statistically significant (chi-square = 11.15, df = 3, p c .01). As illustrated in Figure 2, teachers in HEP schools compared with those in comparison schools more often rated their schools as “excellent,” and rarely rated their schools as “poor.” However, the difference between the HEP schools and comparison schools could not be viewed as conclusive evidence of the impact of the HEP on morale because pre-existing differences between schools could not be ruled out by this posttestonly analysis. Lacking data from comparison schools at pretest, the issue was further examined by comparing pretest to posttest changes within the HEP schools. Differences between the two times on ratings of school quality were miniscule, and results of a t-test consequently were nonsignificant (t = 0.54, df = 141, n.s.). However, lack of an available comparison with non-HEP schools allows for the possibility that maintenance of morale across the school year was a positive effect of the HEP, Figure 2 Ratings of Perceived School Pualitv at Posttest Percent Choosing Response
50
if one assumes morale otherwise declines from the outset of the school year (when pretest data were obtained) to near the end (posttest). This assumption is plausible, though not directly supported, especially given the finding for absenteeism. Absenteeism. Data were collected and analyzed from school district records of teachers absent from each school on each day of the school year. Data were aggregated to produce a description of the total number of teacher absences for each month of the school year for each school. The suggestion of a general decline in morale between the pretest and posttest is consistent with the monthly pattern of absences. Approximately 20 absences were reported per month per school, except in September and June when the fewest absences occurred. Almost one-half as many absences were reported in September as in other months, and some of the apparent reduction in June was due to ending of the school year during that month. Repeated measures analysis of variance did not, however, reveal any differences between the HEP schools and comparison schools. Organizational Climate. Analyses of several remaining survey items, which dealt with perceptions of the work environment encompassed by the construct “organizational climate, ’’ provided the best available evidence that the HEP may have fostered higher morale among teachers in intervention schools. A factor analysis of data from the larger autumn sample, indicated three aspects of the work environment were assessed by: 1) social support, 2) achievement support, and 3) empowerment. As the data in Table 1 indicate, t-test comparisons of the HEP schools and comparison schools at posttest yielded significant results on all three work environment variables. However, the differences are subject to the same criticism as the differences in quality of school ratings - pre-existing differences might be responsible. Consequently, pretest to posttest comparisons within the intervention schools were conducted. These analyses revealed a significant improvement in teachers’ sense of empowerment after HEP programs were implemented. Mean ratings on empowerment increased from 3.78 to 3.99 on the six-point scale (t = 1.70, df = 241, p < .05, one-tailed).
M
40
DISCU SSI0 N Results from this study suggest that the HEP had a significant impact on the morale of teachers. Teachers
30
Table 1 Perceptions of the School Environment in HEP and Comparison Schools at Posttest
20 Variable
Comparison School HEP School Mean Mean
T-Value
df
Probability (one-tilled)
Social
10
4.21
4.60
1.94
128
,027
support
3.82
4.24
1.90
131
.030
Empowerment
3.19
3.99
3.58
130
,001
support Achievement
0 Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Quality of School Rating Optlons ~ c o r n o a r i a a n~ c n o o ~ a~
H
E Program P Schoolr
Note: Ratings were made on 6-point scales. ltems that comprise the compos/te variables are described in the text. Posttest data were collected in June 1985, at the end of the schwl year.
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
27
gave more favorable ratings of school quality and climate following implementation of the HEP programs. Specifically, teacher ratings of school quality and of three organizational climate dimensions were most favorable in schools that implemented the HEP programs, and teachers in these intervention schools rated an aspect of organizational climate, empowerment, more favorably after the HEP implementation than before. Perhaps some aspects of the social support and achievement support dimensions of climate, such as trust and pride, were affected directly by participation in program activities, especially activities that involved enjoyable interaction among employees. However, bccause the HEP did not directly involve the empowerment dimension including participation in decisionmaking encouragement of self-initiated projects, and so forth, the findings for empowerment are especially intriguing. Concern for teachers’ health that was displayed through the HEP may have produced positive attitudes toward the school and fostered a sense of involvement in the workplace as opposed to “alienation” from it. This sense may constitute an essential element of “morale.” Moreover, the use of organizational climate dimensions as indicators of morale is consistent with the analysk of these concepts as described in Beckhard and Harris. Suggesting I hat health promotion programs may improve teachers’ morale does not imply that this is a preferred or optimal intervention for organizational problems that lead to or foster low morale in America’s inner-city schools. Though several effects of the HEP demonstrated in the study were statistically significant, the magnilude of these differences was small. Moreover, any concliisions from the study are limited by the inability to obtain pretest data from the comparison group and to raiidomly assign a large number of schools to each group. In addition, although the study assumed essential equivalence of schools in both groups, one cannot be certain this was the case. Finally, whether effects seen in this study would generalize to other school systems or to other work settings remains an open, empirical question. Anecdotal comments from teachers were consistent with prior expecta-
tions that their environments are stressful and, in some cases, threatening, depressing, or defeating. Thus, any effects of the intervention on morale may be limited to stressful settings. At the same time, the similarity of this sample’s job satisfaction ratings to national norms suggests that these schools were not so atypical that no generalizability could be expected.
CONCLUSION This study provided empirical support for the potential that school-based workplace health promotion programs have to enhance morale, improve individual and organizational well-being, and help to meet healthrelated needs of teachers and others who work in schools. This finding may be particularly important to inner-city schools where occupational demands placed on teachers and staff are considered prodigious. Resources usually available in schools such as gymnasiums, classrooms, skilled instructors, and equipment, combined with the compelling work-generated needs of teachers and staff in s c h o o l ~ make , ~ ~ ~schools uniquely suitable for offering such programs. References 1 . Sloan RP, Gruman JC, Allegrante JP. fnvesting in Employee Health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; 1987. 2. Litwin GH, Stringer RA. Motivation and Organizational Climate. Boston: Harvard University Press; 1968. 3. James LR. Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement. J Appl Psych. 1982;67:219-229. 4. James LR, Sells SB. Psychological climate: Theoretical perspectives and empirical research. In: Magnusson D, ed. Toward a Psychology of Situations: A n Interactional Perspective. Hillsdale, N J: Erlbaum; 1981:275-295. 5 . The American Teacher. Harris/Met Life Poll. New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Co; 1984. 6. Michela JL, Allegrante JP. A n Evaluafion o j t h e Impact and Process of a School-Based Workplace Health Promotion Program for Inner-City Teachers (Tech Rep. 86-1). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, Center for Health Promotion; 1986. 7. Beckhard R , Harris RT. Organizational Transitions. 2nd ed. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley; 1987. 8. Cedoline AJ. Job Burnout in Public Education: Symptoms, Causes, and Survival Skills. New York: Teachers College Press; 1982. 9. D’Arienzo RV, Moracco JC, Krajewski R J . Stress in Teaching. Washington, DC: University Press of America; 1982. ~~~
~
Smokeless Tobacco Monograph - The National Cancer Institute has issued a monograph that contains national and state estimates of the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use. The 13 papers in the monograph, entitled Smokeless Tobacco Use in the United States, explore the current problem of chewing tobacco and snuff use by youth. For a copy, contact: Supt. of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402; 202/783-3238. The order number is GPO-017-042-002255-9.Within the U.S., the cost is $5.50, outside the U.S. the cost is $6.88, including shipping. Statement of Purpose The lourml of 5chool Health an official publication of the American School Health Association, publishes material related to health promotion in school settings Iournd rf.adership includes administrators. educators, nurses, physicians, dentists. dental hygienists, psychologists. counselors, social workers, nutritionists. dieticians. and other health professionals. These individuals work cooperatively with parents and the community to achieve the common goal of providing children and adolescents with the programs, services, and environment necessary to promote health and to improve learning. Contributed manuscripfs are considered for publication in the following categories- general articles, research papers, commentaries, teaching techniques, and health service appkations. Primary consideration is given to manuscripts related to the health of children and adolescents, and to the health of employees, in public and private lire-schools and child day care centers. hindergartens, elementary schools, middle level schools. and senior high schools. Manuscripts related to college-age younq adults will be considered if the topic has implications for health programs in preschools through grade 12. Relevant international manuscripts also will be considt red. Prior to submit:rng a manuscript, prospective authors should review the most recent ”Guidelines for authors.^' The guidelines are printed periodically in the lournal. copies a h may be obtained from the lounral office, P.O. Box 708, Kent, OH 44240. I
28
Journal of School Health
January 1990. Vol. 60. No. 1
ABSTRACT: Results from an evaluation study designed to assess the impact of a school-based, workplace health promotion program on the morale of inner-city school teachers are reported. Teachers in 10 schools completed a questionnaire measuring components of morale prior to and following the opportunity to participate in a series of health promotion programs. Programs included stress management, nutrition education, healthy back, fitness, weight control, and recreational activities. Data also were collected on teachersfrom a comparison group of schools in the same district. Measures of teachers’ pretest and posttest perceptions of the school environment, particularly in terms of perceived control over work activities and participation (ie, empowerment, p c .05) at posttest, indicated morale was enhanced in schools that implemented the program. (J Sch Health 1990;60(1):25-28)
0
ne of the benefits believed to accrue from workplace health promotion programs is the improvement in morale among employees who participate in such programs. I However, no empirical evidence exists to support the notion that teachers as an occupational group who are exposed to such programs demonstrate improved morale or job satisfaction as a result of their participation. The concept was examined in this study of a community school district in New York City where a workplace health promotion program was implemented for teachers and staff in 10 of the district’s 15 schools. As short-term goals, the Health Enhancement Program (HEP) sought to improve the morale and job satisfaction of teachers and to reduce absenteeism. A long-term program goal was to improve the physical and mental health of the school district’s professional staff. These goals were pursued by providing schoolbased orientation and self-assessment activities, lecture presentations, and programmatic intervention modeled after successful corporate workplace health promotion programs. This paper reports the results from an evaluation to assess the impact of the HEP on teacher morale as measured by job satisfaction and perceptions of the overall quality and specific organizational climate features of their schools. The study also examined data on the impact of the program on teacher absenteeism. John P. Allegrante, PhD, Associate Professor and Director, Center for Health Promotion, Teachers College, and Associate Professor, Clinical Public Health in Sociomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, Columbia University, 525 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027; and John L. Michela, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3GI. This work was performed at the Center for Health Promotion, Teachers College, Columbia University, under a contract from Community School District Six, New York City Board of Education, and was supported by a grant from Group Health Incorporated, New York City. The authors thank Mr. Paul Viboch. former director of the Health Enhancement Program, and the teachers and staff of District Six for their cooperation in conducting the evaluation study; Barbara Bronson, Mollit, DeLozier, and especially Marlene Lukaszewski, for their assktance in data collection and analysk; and Dr. Charles E. Basch, Dept. of Health Education, Teachers College, for contributing valuable suggestions throughout the project. This article was submitted June 19, 1989, and revised and accepted for publication November 13, 1989.
METHOD The evaluation used a quasiexperimental design that allowed posttest-only comparisons of nonequivalent groups and pretest/posttest comparisons within the intervention group. Ten schools in the district receiving at least one of the HEP programs comprised the intervention schools; five remaining schools in the district received no special programming and served as comparison schools. Assignment of schools to conditions was random in the sense that schools in the two groups were assumed, apriori, to be equivalent, and no criteria such as willingness to participate were used in selecting the intervention schools. Subjects
Potential eligible participants included 758 teachers and other personnel in 10 schools (eight elementary and two junior high) comprising the intervention sites, and 469 teachers in five comparison schools (three elementary and two junior high) from Community School District Six of the New York City Board of Education. The district, located in the northern-most section of Manhattan, serves the children of many low-income and ethnically diverse inner-city residents. Instrumentation
A questionnaire administered during surveys conducted in both the intervention and comparison schools was used to collect data on organizational climate and job satisfaction. At the end of the school year, personal interviews yielded anecdotal data regarding morale among program participants in intervention schools and nonparticipants in comparison schools. The Litwin and StringerZsurvey instrument, which produces ratings of the work environment through agreement-disagreement statements, was used to measure organizational climate. The instrument was adapted for teachers, avoiding use of words that would seem inappropriate in the school context, such as “management.” It also instructed teachers to describe the climate for the “teachers in your school with whom you work most closely - your work unit,” such as a department defined by academic topic or grade level.
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
25
Though virtually impossible to assess validity of climate measures directly because climate has been defined as people’s subjective experiences of their environm e n t ~ some , ~ indication of validity for the data can be inferred from other studies‘ that have examined whether people in different environments provide different reports about those environments in their ratings of environmental features such as social support, achievement, and empowerment climate. For example, statistically significant differences in ratings usually are seen as a function of the work group to which a worker belongs, corresponding to the department or school membership of a teacher. These differences have been seen in analyses of the Litwin and Stringer instrument and other instruments used in industry. The slight adaptation of the Litwin and Stringer instrument was analyzed for differences among schools that would be consistent with the notion of the validity of the measures. The authors obtained essentially the same magnitudes of differences among environments with this data set as were observed in the previous work of others. The adapted questionnaire contained 10 items rated on six-point scales. Factor analysis of these items yielded three factors: 1) social support, or reports of whether others take a personal interest in the teacher and whether trust and warmth exist among people; 2) achievement support, or reports of whether performance standards are high, organizational policies are clearly understood, and pride in the school is felt; and 3) empowerment, or whether teachers believe they are involved in decisions that affect them, have opportunity for influence, I eceive encouragement to initiate their own projects, and are asked for their opinions. Three composite variables corresponding to these factors were constructed for use in group comparisons. Internal consistency reliabilities for the variables at the two administrations were .65 and .52 for social support (affiliation climate), .85 and .87 for achievement support, and .72 and .71 for empowerment, respectively. Job satisfaction and perceived quality of one’s school were measured by questionnaire items taken from the Harris/Metropolitan Life poll of American teachers.’ Copies of the instruments and further details about data collection are reported elsewhere.6 Procedures
The intervention program was organized into four components that used multiple educational strategies. The first component included an orientation session conducted during the opening school faculty assembly at which time eligible participants received information about behavioral risk factors and were recruited to participate in the HEP. Teachers and staff attending these assemblies completed both the questionnaire measuring morale and the New York State form of the standard Centers for Disease Control Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) at that time. Approximately 700 teachers attended the orientation sessions, and 600 teachers completed the HFL4 and other questionnaires. In the second component, a HEP-sponsored health fair, teachers and staff in the intervention schools could voluntarily undergo a comprehensive series of diagnostic
26
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
medical screenings. Two hundred seventeen participants were screened during the fair. The third component involved a follow-up group session during which participants who had completed HRAs received interpretative feedback about risk factors and results from their analyzed questionnaires. Persons attending the sessions also received advice about HEP programs in which they might participate. The eight intervention programs, the fourth component, included stress management, nutrition education, healthy back, fitness, weight control, smoking cessation, recreational activities such as team volleyball, and a daily salad delivery service. Intervention programs were selected for initial implementation based on the prevalence of population-wide risk factors measured on the initial HRA, such as fitness, together with expressed needs or interests, such as the salad delivery service, communicated informally and individually to the HEP director. Programs were phased into five intervention schools during December and January and into the remaining five schools during February and March of the school year. More than 20% of school staff (n = 140 employees) participated in one or more intervention programs, and about 50 teachers participated in a recreational volleyball league organized by the HEP. Of 140 program participants, 85 participated in the fitness program, 24 in the healthy back program, 14 in the stress management program, and 17 in the weight control program. During the intervention period, an average of 110 teachers and staff each day participated in the salad delivery service program, and more than 700 teachers and staff attended the nutrition education program sponsored by the HEP. Due to lack of enrollment, the smoking cessation program was not offered.
RESULTS Measures of job satisfaction, perceived quality of schools, organizational climate, and absenteeism were all conceptualized as bearing on the level of morale of teachers and staff. Data for the analyses reported were gathered from four sources: 1) responses to survey questions in the autumn term (pretest) by 223 teachers in intervention schools, 2) responses to these same questions in the following spring term (posttest) by 104 teachers in intervention schools, 3) responses to these questions in the spring term (posttest) by 66 teachers in Figure 1 Satisfaction with Job as a Teacher in Communitv School District Six
Somewhat Satlsfled 46
I
Dlssatlslled 17
In Percentages
comparison schools, and 4) school district office records of teacher absences. Job Satisfuction. Responses to the question from the Harris/Met Life poll about job satisfaction as a teacher at posttest were similar to those given by teachers nationally. Figure 1 contains the proportions of teachers in Community School District Six according to their self-reported satisfaction with their jobs. The study also examined whether responses to the question about job satisfaction *ere significantly different between the HEP and comparison schools at posttest; no differences were detected. Perceived Quality of School. An additional item from the Harris/Met Life poll asked respondents to rate the overall quality of their school. The difference between answers from the HEP school teachers and comparison school teachers at posttest (spring term) were statistically significant (chi-square = 11.15, df = 3, p c .01). As illustrated in Figure 2, teachers in HEP schools compared with those in comparison schools more often rated their schools as “excellent,” and rarely rated their schools as “poor.” However, the difference between the HEP schools and comparison schools could not be viewed as conclusive evidence of the impact of the HEP on morale because pre-existing differences between schools could not be ruled out by this posttestonly analysis. Lacking data from comparison schools at pretest, the issue was further examined by comparing pretest to posttest changes within the HEP schools. Differences between the two times on ratings of school quality were miniscule, and results of a t-test consequently were nonsignificant (t = 0.54, df = 141, n.s.). However, lack of an available comparison with non-HEP schools allows for the possibility that maintenance of morale across the school year was a positive effect of the HEP, Figure 2 Ratings of Perceived School Pualitv at Posttest Percent Choosing Response
50
if one assumes morale otherwise declines from the outset of the school year (when pretest data were obtained) to near the end (posttest). This assumption is plausible, though not directly supported, especially given the finding for absenteeism. Absenteeism. Data were collected and analyzed from school district records of teachers absent from each school on each day of the school year. Data were aggregated to produce a description of the total number of teacher absences for each month of the school year for each school. The suggestion of a general decline in morale between the pretest and posttest is consistent with the monthly pattern of absences. Approximately 20 absences were reported per month per school, except in September and June when the fewest absences occurred. Almost one-half as many absences were reported in September as in other months, and some of the apparent reduction in June was due to ending of the school year during that month. Repeated measures analysis of variance did not, however, reveal any differences between the HEP schools and comparison schools. Organizational Climate. Analyses of several remaining survey items, which dealt with perceptions of the work environment encompassed by the construct “organizational climate, ’’ provided the best available evidence that the HEP may have fostered higher morale among teachers in intervention schools. A factor analysis of data from the larger autumn sample, indicated three aspects of the work environment were assessed by: 1) social support, 2) achievement support, and 3) empowerment. As the data in Table 1 indicate, t-test comparisons of the HEP schools and comparison schools at posttest yielded significant results on all three work environment variables. However, the differences are subject to the same criticism as the differences in quality of school ratings - pre-existing differences might be responsible. Consequently, pretest to posttest comparisons within the intervention schools were conducted. These analyses revealed a significant improvement in teachers’ sense of empowerment after HEP programs were implemented. Mean ratings on empowerment increased from 3.78 to 3.99 on the six-point scale (t = 1.70, df = 241, p < .05, one-tailed).
M
40
DISCU SSI0 N Results from this study suggest that the HEP had a significant impact on the morale of teachers. Teachers
30
Table 1 Perceptions of the School Environment in HEP and Comparison Schools at Posttest
20 Variable
Comparison School HEP School Mean Mean
T-Value
df
Probability (one-tilled)
Social
10
4.21
4.60
1.94
128
,027
support
3.82
4.24
1.90
131
.030
Empowerment
3.19
3.99
3.58
130
,001
support Achievement
0 Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
Quality of School Rating Optlons ~ c o r n o a r i a a n~ c n o o ~ a~
H
E Program P Schoolr
Note: Ratings were made on 6-point scales. ltems that comprise the compos/te variables are described in the text. Posttest data were collected in June 1985, at the end of the schwl year.
Journal of School Health
January 1990, Vol. 60, No. 1
27
gave more favorable ratings of school quality and climate following implementation of the HEP programs. Specifically, teacher ratings of school quality and of three organizational climate dimensions were most favorable in schools that implemented the HEP programs, and teachers in these intervention schools rated an aspect of organizational climate, empowerment, more favorably after the HEP implementation than before. Perhaps some aspects of the social support and achievement support dimensions of climate, such as trust and pride, were affected directly by participation in program activities, especially activities that involved enjoyable interaction among employees. However, bccause the HEP did not directly involve the empowerment dimension including participation in decisionmaking encouragement of self-initiated projects, and so forth, the findings for empowerment are especially intriguing. Concern for teachers’ health that was displayed through the HEP may have produced positive attitudes toward the school and fostered a sense of involvement in the workplace as opposed to “alienation” from it. This sense may constitute an essential element of “morale.” Moreover, the use of organizational climate dimensions as indicators of morale is consistent with the analysk of these concepts as described in Beckhard and Harris. Suggesting I hat health promotion programs may improve teachers’ morale does not imply that this is a preferred or optimal intervention for organizational problems that lead to or foster low morale in America’s inner-city schools. Though several effects of the HEP demonstrated in the study were statistically significant, the magnilude of these differences was small. Moreover, any concliisions from the study are limited by the inability to obtain pretest data from the comparison group and to raiidomly assign a large number of schools to each group. In addition, although the study assumed essential equivalence of schools in both groups, one cannot be certain this was the case. Finally, whether effects seen in this study would generalize to other school systems or to other work settings remains an open, empirical question. Anecdotal comments from teachers were consistent with prior expecta-
tions that their environments are stressful and, in some cases, threatening, depressing, or defeating. Thus, any effects of the intervention on morale may be limited to stressful settings. At the same time, the similarity of this sample’s job satisfaction ratings to national norms suggests that these schools were not so atypical that no generalizability could be expected.
CONCLUSION This study provided empirical support for the potential that school-based workplace health promotion programs have to enhance morale, improve individual and organizational well-being, and help to meet healthrelated needs of teachers and others who work in schools. This finding may be particularly important to inner-city schools where occupational demands placed on teachers and staff are considered prodigious. Resources usually available in schools such as gymnasiums, classrooms, skilled instructors, and equipment, combined with the compelling work-generated needs of teachers and staff in s c h o o l ~ make , ~ ~ ~schools uniquely suitable for offering such programs. References 1 . Sloan RP, Gruman JC, Allegrante JP. fnvesting in Employee Health. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; 1987. 2. Litwin GH, Stringer RA. Motivation and Organizational Climate. Boston: Harvard University Press; 1968. 3. James LR. Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement. J Appl Psych. 1982;67:219-229. 4. James LR, Sells SB. Psychological climate: Theoretical perspectives and empirical research. In: Magnusson D, ed. Toward a Psychology of Situations: A n Interactional Perspective. Hillsdale, N J: Erlbaum; 1981:275-295. 5 . The American Teacher. Harris/Met Life Poll. New York: Metropolitan Life Insurance Co; 1984. 6. Michela JL, Allegrante JP. A n Evaluafion o j t h e Impact and Process of a School-Based Workplace Health Promotion Program for Inner-City Teachers (Tech Rep. 86-1). New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, Center for Health Promotion; 1986. 7. Beckhard R , Harris RT. Organizational Transitions. 2nd ed. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley; 1987. 8. Cedoline AJ. Job Burnout in Public Education: Symptoms, Causes, and Survival Skills. New York: Teachers College Press; 1982. 9. D’Arienzo RV, Moracco JC, Krajewski R J . Stress in Teaching. Washington, DC: University Press of America; 1982. ~~~
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Smokeless Tobacco Monograph - The National Cancer Institute has issued a monograph that contains national and state estimates of the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use. The 13 papers in the monograph, entitled Smokeless Tobacco Use in the United States, explore the current problem of chewing tobacco and snuff use by youth. For a copy, contact: Supt. of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402; 202/783-3238. The order number is GPO-017-042-002255-9.Within the U.S., the cost is $5.50, outside the U.S. the cost is $6.88, including shipping. Statement of Purpose The lourml of 5chool Health an official publication of the American School Health Association, publishes material related to health promotion in school settings Iournd rf.adership includes administrators. educators, nurses, physicians, dentists. dental hygienists, psychologists. counselors, social workers, nutritionists. dieticians. and other health professionals. These individuals work cooperatively with parents and the community to achieve the common goal of providing children and adolescents with the programs, services, and environment necessary to promote health and to improve learning. Contributed manuscripfs are considered for publication in the following categories- general articles, research papers, commentaries, teaching techniques, and health service appkations. Primary consideration is given to manuscripts related to the health of children and adolescents, and to the health of employees, in public and private lire-schools and child day care centers. hindergartens, elementary schools, middle level schools. and senior high schools. Manuscripts related to college-age younq adults will be considered if the topic has implications for health programs in preschools through grade 12. Relevant international manuscripts also will be considt red. Prior to submit:rng a manuscript, prospective authors should review the most recent ”Guidelines for authors.^' The guidelines are printed periodically in the lournal. copies a h may be obtained from the lounral office, P.O. Box 708, Kent, OH 44240. I
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