A satisfaction survey of faculty members in the College of Technology, Saudi Arabia

The purpose of this study is to investigate and describe factors of job satisfaction of faculty members in colleges of technology in Saudi Arabia, with the ultimate goal of suggesting some remedies and ideas that may contribute to the enhancement of faculty performance.; For the researcher, this represents a comprehensive evaluation process that allows the people in administration to diagnose their own positive and negative practices. Such a diagnosis will be the first step toward developing and shaping the future of education in Saudi Arabia. The present study is the first of its kind that deals with job satisfaction and its impact on faculty members in those technical colleges. Furthermore, the present study can be a step forward in the ongoing educational revolution in Saudi Arabia that gives priority to the development of faculty members for higher education in that country.; It is also hoped that the present study will be able to investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and certain demographic variables, namely, academic position, years of experience, field of specialization, and nationality. The proposed study is significant because of several contributions it can make to the body of research on higher education development in Saudi Arabia. It will be useful to apply the results to that development because it tries to explore institutional, social, and work-related variables influencing faculty members' satisfaction with their job. Moreover, the study will offer administrators and decision-makers in GOTEVOT some indication of the level of faculty members' job satisfaction. This information can be a basis for these decision-makers to resolve most faculty problems and consequently contribute to the enhancement of faculty academic performance.; A survey research methodology was used to collect data from faculty members in CTR. An instrument composed of three parts was developed to measure the job satisfaction of the faculty members in this study (see Appendix A). The first part included four closed-ended demographic questions: citizenship, academic department, academic rank, and years of experience. The second part included 69 closed-ended items to measure job satisfaction, while the third part had four open-ended questions that measured the general level of job satisfaction. Forty-five of the 69 items were used to measure institutional-related variables; ten items measured social relationship variables and 14 items were used to measure work-related variables.; The overall mean (2.68) of the institution-related variables showed that faculty members are satisfied with the institution. The highest level of satisfaction was with the current system of holidays and vacations (M = 2.91) followed by the “fairness” of the department chair (M = 2.88). The highest dissatisfaction was with the availability of educational services to the families of the faculty members (M = 1.68), followed by “the opportunities to attend international conferences” (M = 1.83). The overall percentage of faculty members who were satisfied and very satisfied with institution-related variables was 67.9%, while the percentage of those dissatisfied was 34.1%. And the overall percentage of faculty members who were satisfied and very satisfied with the social-related variables was 88.4%, while only 11.6% felt dissatisfied with the same variables.; In summary, 85.4% of Riyadh College of Technology faculty members showed satisfaction with their jobs. The highest satisfaction was with work-related variables (100%) followed by the social-related variables (88.4%), and institution-related variables (67.9%).