Public and private schoolteachers' differences in terms of job attitudes in Albania

In the present study, the attitudinal differences between public and private schoolteachers in Albania were investigated. Since the type of the organization varies, one would expect different climates for the emergence of job attitudes--mainly job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment, the most frequently studied job attitudes in the industrial and organizational psychology literature. It was hypothesized that the private schoolteachers would be more satisfied than public schoolteachers, especially due to high levels of payment and other desirable conditions. However, the public schoolteachers will be more involved than the private schoolteachers since they have to justify their continued work under the undesirable conditions. The commitment level of the private schoolteachers will be higher than the public schoolteachers since there is usually high correlation between job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Data were gathered from a total of 429 teachers working in public (n = 254) and private (n = 175) schools in Albania, in high and middle schools. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance with age as a covariate. The results indicated that the private schoolteachers were more satisfied, as expected, revealed a weaker job involvement and were more committed to their school than their colleagues in the public sector. The results were found to be in line with previous studies conducted in the west. However, this study is believed to have a potential contribution to the literature in general, and to the Albanian local literature in particular. To the knowledge of the authors, there has been no similar study in Albania. Discussion is provided along with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.