Psychological states and responses to work among part time event staff in intercollegiate athletics

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] The study of satisfaction, motivations and various responses to work in and of itself is not a new area of research, however examining how it can be applied to part-time laborers with irregular hours is not an area that has been widely examined. The researcher used a modified version of the Job Diagnostic Survey developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham (1975) to examine employees internal work motivation, knowledge of results and general satisfaction. The modified instrument was distributed to members of a part-time event staff during two mandatory training sessions. Individuals who wished to participate were required to complete the survey and submit it anonymously at the end of the meeting. In addition to completing questions pertaining to the categories being measured by the Job Diagnostic Survey, participants were asked to complete demographic information including age, gender and education level. The researcher collected 94 usable surveys out of the 103 employees who attended the two sessions. The information collected yielded significant relationships between general satisfaction and internal work motivation as well as between general satisfaction and knowledge of results. Additionally a significant relationship was found in that participants with a college degree scored higher in internal work motivation than individuals who did not have a college degree.