Full Length Research Paper

Examining teachers' motivation level according to school principals' humor styles

Ergün Recepoğlu¹, Ali Çağatay Kilinç² and Osman Çepni³*

¹Faculty of Education, Kastamonu University, Kastamonu, Turkey.

²Faculty of Education, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.

³Geography Department, Faculty of Literature, Karabük University Karabuk, Turkey.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: cepni78@hotmail.com .

Accepted 15 September, 2011.

  Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the motivation level of teachers according to school principals' humor styles. The humor styles survey and job motivation scale were used to gather data from 305 randomly selected teachers employed in primary schools in Karabük. Results indicated that 141 of the teachers claimed school principal had producer style of humor, 76 of them said that the principal had appreciator style of humor and 18 of them reported that school principal had reproducer style of humor; on the other hand, 70 teachers said that school principal had a nonhumorous nonhumorous style. In addition to this, it was detected that the motivation level of the teachers who work with nonhumorous principals were lower than those working with principals who had producer, appreciator or reproducer humor styles.

Key words: Humor, job motivation, school principal, teacher.