Teachers and School Administrators on Public Service Motivation and their Relationship with Work Ethic Attitudes

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the views of primary and secondary school teachers and school administrators from different generations related to public service motivation and work ethics attitudes in terms of various variables and the relationship between public service motivation and work ethics. The research was carried out with single and relational survey models, which are quantitative research methods. A total of 384 teachers and 370 school administrators were included in the two-sample stratified design. Data of the study was collected with the “Public Service Motivation Scale” and “Work Ethics Scale” developed by the researchers. The Public Service Motivation scale consists of three dimensions as "commitment to the public interest", "public awareness" and "responsibility towards society", while the Work Ethics scale consists of two subscales as "study orientation" and "pleasure orientation". According to the results, public school teachers and school administrators have a high level of public service motivation. In the teachers’ and school administrators’ work ethics attitudes, Work-oriented attitudes were more dominant than pleasure-oriented tendencies. Lastly, there is a relationship between the public service motivations of teachers and school administrators and their work ethics attitudes. According to this, as the teachers’ “being work-oriented” values strengthen, their “public service motivation” increases and as their “being pleasure-oriented” values strengthen, their public service motivations decrease. To this end, it would be useful to organize trainings for teachers and administrators to develop their awareness related to the values and obligations of public service. In addition, future study, which examines the views of public and private school teachers comparatively, can shed light on how education, which is a public service, resembles or differs from the principles of the public and private sector, which have their own rules.