| Law enforcement officers earn a college degree to enhance job skills, and earn assignments to specialty positions or promotions. Proponents of higher education suggest that college-educated officers have higher job satisfaction rates than non-college-educated officers. Critics assert that college-educated officers face higher risk of job dissatisfaction than non-college-educated officers. Promotional opportunities and specialty assignments are limited in law enforcement, leaving many who aspire to higher positions behind. College-educated officers who gain no benefit through promotions or specialty assignments may become dissatisfied more than non-college-educated officers. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the difference in levels of job satisfaction, as put forth through Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory, based upon the education level of non-supervisory and supervisory law enforcement officers, taking promotional issues into consideration. Herzberg theorized that job satisfaction is experienced on two levels: Hygiene factors; the work environment, and Motivator factors; the aspects of the job. 229 Central-Florida law-enforcement officers completed a job satisfaction survey designed specifically for law enforcement. Knowing the causes of job dissatisfaction is the first step to improving morale among law-enforcement officers. Failure of administrators to recognize and address factors that cause job dissatisfaction may cause long-term harm to the agency. Understanding the variability in job satisfaction by Herzberg's theory across education and supervisory level will help law enforcement administrators understand how higher education affects job satisfaction. Principal Component Analysis was run to explore whether there was a correlation between survey questions and Herzberg's hygiene-motivator constructs to which they were assigned by the researcher. Kruskal-Wallis tests were conduct to examine the job satisfaction mean rank values as they apply to Herzberg's Hygiene-Motivator theory. There was no significant difference in hygiene factor, or motivator scores across the four levels of education for all officers, for supervisory versus non-supervisory officers, or for overall job satisfaction. However, line charts depicting mean rank scores of job satisfaction rates showed a consistent trend suggesting that officers with some college but no degree were less satisfied than all other officers surveyed. This information should aid law-enforcement administrators with a deeper understanding for development of policies that promote a satisfied workforce. |
