School Happiness: A Scale Development and Implementation Study

Abstract

Purpose: This research aimed to determine school happiness level of the teachers based on their opinions. For this purpose, 'School Happiness Scale' was developed by the researchers. The validity and reliability of the School Happiness Scale were tested. And then, the scale was applied to 484 teachers to determine their school happiness level.

Research Method: In the study, a quantitative research design was employed during the data collection and the analysis phases.

Results: The School Happiness Scale consists of 26 items and five sub-factors. The item-total correlations range from .54 to .86. The five factors explain 65.09% of the total variance. The results showed that teachers perceived moderate level of school happiness in some sub-dimensions such as 'physical equipment', and 'activities'. They also perceived high level of school happiness in 'collaboration', and 'school management' sub-themes. The scores varied according to the school type and teaching field variables.

Implications for Research and Practice: The results revealed that the school principals should encourage teachers, and display democratic and fair school management attitudes to increase school happiness. The top managers can elaborate to enhance the physical conditions of the schools. In order to increase school happiness of teachers, the collaboration can be improved among the members of school community. School Happiness Scale can be applied to different participants, and so the school happiness levels of the teachers as well as the validity and reliability scores of scale can be measured. (c) 2019 Ani Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved