The Relationship of Perceived Organizational Support and Psychological Capital: An Investigation among High School Teachers

Abstract

The current study primarily focused on the relationship of public high school teachers’ perceived organizational support and psychological capital levels. Further, this relationship was investigated in relation to participants’ gender, education, type of high school, tenure, marital status and membership to an education union. The study group of the study consists of 337 high school teachers from eight public high schools located in Ankara. The data were analyzed by utilizing t test, ANOVA, Pearson Momentum Correlation Coefficient, and multiple linear regression. The main findings are as follows; teachers perceive moderate levels of organizational support; the overall psychological capital level of teachers is relatively high; married teachers have higher levels of hope than single teachers; members of education unions have higher levels of hope and self-efficacy than non-member teachers; teachers working in vocational high schools have higher levels of resilience than teachers working in Anatolian high schools; and, teachers with bachelor’s degree have higher levels of optimism than teachers with graduate education degree. In addition, there is a moderate, positive and statistically significant relationship between teachers’ perceived organizational support level and overall psychological capital level. Furthermore, it was found that perceived organizational support together predict 20% of the total variance in overall psychological capital level of teachers, and perceived organizational support is a statistically significant predictor of psychological capital.