The effects of principals’ humor on teachers’ job satisfaction

Abstract

Traditionally, education has been perceived as a most serious and disciplined undertaking. Schools have become so obsessed with discipline, standardized test scores, proper objectives, competence, and proficiency that they have turned into rather grim places. All too often teachers and students will say that school and learning are not enjoyable. This study was designed to investigate school principals’ overall frequency of humor use as perceived by teachers, and the relationship of principals’ humor use to teachers’ job satisfaction. This study also analyzed how teacher job satisfaction was influenced by principals’ frequency of humor use in different groups. Results of this study support the idea that principals who share humor in the workplace have teachers with higher job satisfaction than those principals who share very little or no humor in the workplace.

Keywords:

• Leadership
• Administration
• Humor
• Teacher job satisfaction