Effective Factors in Enhancing School Manager's Job Motivation.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines the effective factors in enhancing school manager's job motivation from viewpoint of school mangers, teachers, education department managerial and staff experts in teaching, and also identifies and prioritizes each of these factors and indicators.
METHOD: For selecting a representative sample and increasing measurement precision, 587 people were selected using classified random sampling. The measurement tool was a 79-questionnaire made by the researcher. The questionnaire was collected using motivation theories and observing the findings of previous researches. Then, according to the three-stage Delphi technique, the questionnaire was sent to experts in education. The reliability of instruments was measured by calculating Cronbach's Alpha coefficient, and total reliability of the test was 0.99; the validity of the instrument was assessed by factor analysis (Construct Validity) and its load factor was 0.4 which was high.
RESULTS: The results from factor analysis shows that the effective factors in enhancing manager's job motivation are as follows: self- actualization (51%) including 28 indices; social factor (7/9%) including 22 indices; self-esteem (3.2%) including 17 indices; job desirable features (2.2%) including 4 indices; physiologic (1.8%) including 4 indices; and job richness (1.6%) including 4 indices.
CONCLUSIONS: The results show that the six mentioned factors determine 68% of the total variance of manager's motivation.

Motivation considerably contributes to perceptions, desires, drives, the environment interactions and performance of managers. Motivation is derived from the «Mover» root which means moving. In other words, motivation forces the human, according to his desire or despite his desire, to select a stimulus between different stimuli (1). Motivation can be defined as complex forces, drives, needs, stressful situations or other mechanisms that can be applied in individual activities to set, pursue, and achieve goals (2). Therefore, the first component is related to energy or strengthening the behavior. Peripheral symptoms or signs, memories and emotional responses that will lead the person to perform certain behaviors are of this component. The second component is related to the purpose or goal that conducts or directs a behavior. The third component considers survival and duration of the behavior and causes its continuation. The behavior will continue when environmental factors, strengthen the direction and intensity of individual's drives and needs (3).

More views on the subject of motivation reflect on the philosophical aspects derived from specific and pervasive patterns that solve the problems of education administrators and school officials. Therefore, understanding motivation and the factors that drive the human resources is one of the most complex areas of psychology, education, and management training (4).

Naeli (5) believes that the basis of motivation in education is in the emotional context of school administrators. Henri Pestalozzi,a great Swiss trainer in education, believes that basis of an education in a system is due to the school's managers and principals and believes that managers with high motivation interact with the learners based on mutual respect and affection and seek to understand and satisfy the needs of learners, teachers and school staff.(6)

Maslow, Herzberg, Alderfer, McClelland, Victor Vroom, Adams, and Winer’s research suggest that high motivation of school managers and education administrators result in job satisfaction and motivation of teachers, a more positive attitude of teachers and increase in academic success of students (7).

Motivation is the human movement engine.A motivated person has creativity, symbolic role and innovation, and creates the desire to drive himself and others, making the system dynamic, he is an entrepreneur. Therefore, school managers with no motivation frustrate the objectives of learning, decrease student's academic success and willingness to study,and eventually cause lack of motivation in teachers(8).

Given the importance of motivation in promoting an educational system, several studies have examined and explained the effective factors in promoting managers’ motivation. Shattuck and others (9) in a study concluded that the following seven factors are the main motivational factors: financial rewards; professional progress of work; continuing education; infrastructure of workplace; availability of resources; management; appreciation and gratitude. Based on their findings, they acknowledged that although financial incentives, professional development and management are in the center of these factors, appreciation, the existence of sufficient resources and adequate infrastructure can greatly increase staff motivation.

Schwaninger (10) in a study concluded that the level of job motivation along with supporting positive changes in the work environment is effective in motivating employees.

Celikoz (11) in his research on factors affecting job motivation in learning environments divided them into internal and external levels. Factors affecting intrinsic motivation involved personal reasons for selecting the job, priorities and expectations of the prospect of the job, ability to promote and achieve higher qualifications and the rapid growth based on individual efforts; and factors affecting the extrinsic motivation involved person's attitude toward the job, dignity and social sanctity of the work, income, work environment and good conditions, good benefits, safety, training and equipment efficiency.

Patterson (12) believes that factors affecting job motivation in the educational environment are influenced by a successful leader. Yang (13) in a study, points to satisfaction, job involvement and the job expectations as effective factors in motivation of the staff. He divided the job expectations into two parts: work and non-work expectations. He believes that non-work expectations leave a negative impact on employee's motivation.

Harder (14) in his study showed that although factors such as payroll, modern and suitable physical environment, rewards, entertainment, health, services, business opportunities, employment, adequate income and employment benefits are effective in job motivation, they do not always have effective satisfactory results. They may also cause dissatisfaction and the manager must ensure that salary and other maintenance factors are sufficient to keep the staff motivated. However, job enrichment, changes in job duties, delegation of responsibility, and increase in commitment, rapid impulses, responsibility, innovation and creation in job are simulating and motivating factors that make purposeful development and progress toward accountability, capacity and motivation in the job.

Noda (15) points out that reward and punishment, work and career progression, external expectations, cognitive interests, and educational opportunities are effective factors in job motivation in educational environments. He investigated them in the areas of knowledge, skills, comments and social network.

ERIC's findings (16) on the factors affecting job motivation are expressed as follows: 1) income; 2) job nature; 3) upgrades; 4) leadership and supervision; 5) relationships with colleagues; 6) job security; 7) participation in decision making; 8) Organizational Structure; 9) determined role; 10) physical conditions; 11) culture and organizational atmosphere; 12) personality factors;13) performance evaluation; 14) Mean treatment in the workplace; 15) thanks or appreciation; 16) Challenge; 17) Harmony; 18) flexibility; 19) innovation; 20) Equality; 21) Property; 22) support professional development; 23) organizational prestige; 24) purpose; 25) respect; 26) integration; 27) services; 28) relatedness, …

The main objectives of this study are to provide an appropriate response to the following questions:

1) What are the effective factors that improve the professional motivation of the managers?

2) What are the indicators for each of these factors?

Materials and Method

Research method in terms of objectives is developmental; in terms of data, it is quantitative; and in terms of study style, it is cross-sectional.

Statistical community of this study consisted of all school administrators, teachers, experts and managerial staff in Qom province and a professional in education and training (with a PHD degree). To select a representative sample, and also increase the accuracy of measuring the sample size, classified random sampling was used based on the following sample size formula (number of samples = number of questions × 15 or 20 and or at least 500) (17).Five hundred eighty seven persons constituted the sample. Demographic groups in the sample are given in Table 1.

Table 1

Demographic data of sample

		manager	teacher	expert staff	Educational professionals
		Number(%)	Number	Number	Number
Gender	Male	129(22%)	114(19.5%)	59(10%)	24(4%)
	Female	120(20.5%)	112(19%)	8(1.5%)	21(3.5%)
	BA	210(36%)	178(30.5%)	49(8.5%)	–
Education	MA	39(6.5%)	48(8%)	18(3%)	–
	PHD	–	–	–	45(7.5%)
years in service	<11 years	3(0.5%)	41(7%)	8(1.5%)	7(1%)
	11-20years	130(22%)	152(126%)	41(7%)	25(4%)
	>20 years	116(20%)	33(5.5%)	18(3%)	13(2.5%)

This research tool was a Researcher- made questionnaire, comprising 79 questions based on the findings of previous researches and theories on motivation. Then, by the Delphi technique, it was sent for the educational scholars in three stages. The continuum is between 1 to 7, with 1 showing the minimum, and 7 showing the maximum acceptance for any factor for the subjects.

: For data analysis, Liseral software from the statistical test known as exploratory factor analysis was utilized, a kind of analysis to principal component. To determine the statistical characteristics, common method of the descriptive statistics were used. Reliability of the instrument was calculated by means of Cronbach's Alpha coefficient that was equal to 0.99. The validity of the instrument was assessed by factor analysis (Construct Validity), and demonstrated a relatively high factor load and all items of the questionnaire was approved.

Results

Data description: statistical requirement is presented for 6 factors effecting the improvement of manager's motivation (Table 2).

Table 2

Factor score statistical features base on precedence(n=587)

factor	min	max	mean	variance	S.D	skewednees	kurtosis
Self- actualization	1	7	5/30	1/76	1/33	−1/10	0/87
Social factor	1	7	4/73	2/27	1/51	−0/41	−0/76
Self- esteem	1	7	5/39	1/54	1/24	−1/15	1/10
Job desirable features	1	7	5/09	2/13	1/46	−0/85	0/13
physiologic	1	7	4/12	3/76	1/49	0/01	−1/25
Job-richness	1	7	5/15	1/56	1/25	−0/84	0/53

We can point to the following from Table 2:

Comparing the six factors in terms of the overall sample groups shows that self- esteem, self-actualization, job-richness, job desirable features, social and psychological factors are effective in improving motivation.

Comparing standard deviation of factors based on sample group perspective indicates that diversity in social factor is more than other factors.

In terms of sample group, the lowest score for each factor was 1 and the maximum score was 7.

Positive skewedness showed that distribution is right -skewed; and positive Kurtosis shows that distribution is higher than Normal.

Data analysis: In order to confirm and extend results to the community factor analysis was used. Results are presented in the following tables respectively. It worth mentioning that a rather high correlation was observed between all 79 job motivation evaluation indices of managers; and no indices were eliminated.

For the factor analysis, to ensure the adequacy of sampling and being non-zero of the matrix of data correlation, the value of KMO was calculated as 0.981 and even the test of Sphericity of Bartlett at levels less than 0.001 was significant. Therefore, it can be concluded that the factor analysis is justified. To determine whether evaluation tools saturated with the 3 meaningful factors, we considered the following 3 indices: 1) Special Values; 2) determined variance proportion by each factor; and 3) rotated diagram of special Values and based on the above mentioned indicators, six factors were extracted. Its slope started by sixth factor and showed in Figure 1.

Figure 1

Scree diagram to determine effective factors on job motivation.

As demonstrated in Table 3, the first factor is distinguished with special value of 40/260; and about 51 percent of the total variance of the variables isvery impressive and quite distinct from other agents.

Table 3

factor analysis final features to elicit effective factors on job motivation

factor	Eigen value	Variance present	Compression persent
1	40/260	51/0	51/0
2	6/278	7/9	58/9
3	2/508	3/2	62/1
4	1/755	2/2	64/3
5	1/386	1/8	66/1
6	1/254	1/6	67/6

Final solution (after rotation): The non-rotated matrix and its factorial load do not get significant construction. Therefore, based on extracted factors, it was decided to use conventional methods by using Varimax rotation to be transferred to the new relatively simple and clearer materials that display the main lines of the solutions. Matrix of the factor created by Varimax rotation was demonstrated in Table 4.

Table 4

oriented factors matrices 79 question in vorimax method

question	Factor1	question	Factor2	question	Factor3	question	Factor4	question	Factor5	question	Factor6
79	0/761	17	0/800	29	29	54	0/523	1	0/664	48	0/726
76	0/749	15	0/798	35	35	51	0/473	2	0/663	41	0/594
71	0/742	11	0/788	33	33	45	0/460	3	0/658	46	0/461
73	0/742	23	0/753	39	39	50	0/446	4	0/605	47	0/436
65	0/735	19	0/751	30	30
74	0/730	20	0/747	36	36
70	0/729	9	0/737	37	37
58	0/722	16	0/735	28	28
77	0/716	10	0/725	27	27
64	0/709	12	0/715	31	31
75	0/704	7	0/711	34	34
72	0/704	8	0/675	32	32
56	0/676	13	0/675	44	44
59	0/676	24	0/658	40	40
62	0/675	6	0/653	38	38
67	0/674	26	0/648	43	43
66	0/673	22	0/641	42	42
78	0/671	18	0/628
61	0/665	21	0/625
55	0/665	14	0/610
69	0/664	25	0/577
60	0/658	5	0/507
68	0/655
57	0/646
63	0/593
52	0/485
49	0/424
53	0/423

With regard to recent analysis, the following factors were considered as criteria:

Variable size and nature in which elicited factors are the most important.

Considering glossary and terms in order to perceive the name, nature, perspective and the implicit implications of the variables.

Available theories and previous results.

Given the above criteria, the following six factors were named: First factor: self-actualization, including 28 indicators; second factor: social factors, including 22 indicators; third factor: self-esteem, including 17 indicators; fourth factor: job desirable features, including the four indicators; fifth factor: physiological, including 4 indicators; and sixth factor: job-richness comprising of four indicators.

Discussion

Data were collected by a researcher made questionnaire with 79 questions. The questionnaire was conducted on a sample group of 587 people. Exploratory factor analysis of principal components analysis was used to provide answers to the following questions: what forms executive's professional motivation; what is the priority of each of these factors; and these factors are composed of which indicators? The results of the test are as follows:

1) Generally, there are 79 indicators to measure the motivation of high school managers, all of which are adapted to religious, social, cultural, economic and social values.2) The six following factors are elicited to improve school manager's job motivation:

Self-actualization (51%); social factor (7/9%); self-esteem (3/2%); job desirable features (2/2%); physiological factor (1/8%); job-richness (1/6%). In general, these six factors, determine 68 percent of general variance in motivation of managers of high schools in city of Qom.

3) Based on the priorities emerged from the factor analysis, each of the six factors contains the following indicators:

First factor (self- actualization): 1) strengthening organizational of faith (belief in the philosophy); 2) strengthening ethics in the job; 3) development of (richness) occupation; 4) strengthening the requirements in job –perfectionism ideas; 6)determined goals and suitable behavior; 6) Being flexible and humane organizations; 7) distribute powers and responsibilities in the administrative hierarchy; 8) problem-solving skills in a job; 9) strengthening the accountability and responsibilities of the job and work ethic; 10) ideal targets in jobs; 11) spiritual rule in the organization 12); adapting results with task description; 13) innovation and job creation;14 strengthening the cultural aspect of the person in the job;15) attractive environment of the work; 16) the appropriate leadership style of the superiors; 17) tracking the job functions to achieve the desired result; 18) the incidence of occupational health-care; 19) ordering of the execution of the job functions; 20) the inner thoughts and developing talents; 21)Clear mandate and terms in acquiring the job; 22) possibility of participating in seminars and conferences and employment opportunities; etc., 23) scientific and ethical competence and skill and ... Supra; 24) facilitating the creation of jobs; 25) Clean and polished appearance of one's self and colleagues; 26)being fit with job training; 27) providing pleasurable opportunities; 28) matching education with occupation.

Second factor(social factor): 1) to support the person in charge of legal and professional problems; 2) equity in distribution of facilities and corporation in decision- making; 3) consistent and fair performance evaluation system; 4) the importance of comments and suggestions of the person in the organization; 5) having the expert advisers; 6) having in group norm in the organization(the group common value); 7) reasonable rules and regulations, policy and politics in the organization; 8) effective communication with the superintendent; 9)occupational, political, social, and economic security; 10) a positive organizational atmosphere; 11) having appropriate facilities in the organization; 12) having adequate benefits such as health insurance and retirement programs, compensation; 13) having mental health in the workplace; 14)observing rule of human relations in the organization; 15) easy access to scientific and technological resources;16) honoring the efforts of the elite colleagues and Subalterns; 17) paving the way for the feature opportunities of rapid growth in the career based on individual effort;18) to exchange information and collaborate sincerely and effectively with colleagues (subordinates, superiors and...); 19) dignity, high social status and sanctity of the occupation; 20) changing in job tasks (job displacement, vertical, horizontal, diagonal); 21) a priority of group interests to the personal interests in the organization; and 22) considering the physical environment, including lighting, equipment, ventilation, etc.

Third factor (self-confidence): 1)adapting job with personal interests; 2) having adequate mastery of the job; 3) job meaningfulness; 4) having a good feeling about the occupation; 5)having compliance with the orders of superiors and staff; 6) increasing organizational commitment; 7) the existence of psychological ownership; 8) strengthening respect for self and self-esteem on the job, 9) gaining supervisor's and colleagues’ trust; 10) delegating responsibility to the subordinates; 11) having freedom in developing the job; 12) sense of participation and belonging to the organization; 13) fitting job with the character of the person; 14) job facilitation, 15) creating positive outcomes and expectations; 16) existence of the dynamics at work; and 17) having emotional balance in the job.

Fourth factor (job desirable features): 1)being research –oriented about the job and having research facilities in the organization; 2) the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through training (In-service training, short, long, formal and informal); 3) the dynamic construction of the organization (flexible and reasonable rules and regulations); 4)the feeling of I will achieve what I can.

Fifth factor (physiologic): 1) matching rights and benefits with the job; 2) matching income with expenses; 3) matching income and advantages with duties compared with other organizations; 5) receiving rewards for out- task activities.

Sixth factor (job richness): 1) job with great responsibility; 2) matching the job experience with previous experiences; 3) to be challenged by the job; and 4) rapid impulse and philosophical power of reasoning at work.

These findings are in agreement with following studies. Atenal (18), McConnell(22), Shattuck (9), Suchwaningeer (10), celicoz (11), Kontodimopoulos (19), Patterson (12), Yang (13), Denis (20), Harder (14), Noda(15), Daugherty Phillingane (21), EriC(16).

Considering the following limitations, caution should be taken about generalizing the results of this study.

The sample group for this study was chosen exclusively from the educational system in Qom; therefore, the results of this study can not be extended to the entire study population; experimental data in this study were achieved through a scale of 79 questions on the motivation of school managers. Therefore, responses will be more accurate if larger scales with different themes are utilized; In this study due to some limitations, reliability and convergent validity of the six factors were not calculated. As a result, it is recommended to calculate the reliability and convergent validity of these six factors in another research; this study determined 68 percent of the variance of the managers’ motivation. Although this figure is high, we still need to determine the remaining 32 percent.

At the end, it is suggested that a study by researchers experienced in all levels of training, and by experienced psychologists be conducted on the importance of motivational factors in education, and employment. Furthermore, an education standard tool can be made for measuring motivation of administrators, teachers and calculating the convergent validity and credibility of the six discussed factors. Each province should establish a base on motivational indicators, as motivation is personal, situational, persistent, endless, varied, dynamic and very complex. Therefore, using these indicators at each position based on individual characteristics, environment, organization and motivation of individuals and groups can be useful for identifying motivating factors and using them in organizations.

In general, an instrument of 79 components has been obtained to measure the managers’ professional motivation. By utilizing this tool, education administrators may be able to measure the motivation of their managers, and may also be able to clarify the direction of school manager's activities in order to enhance their motivation.