The Role of Personality in Job Satisfaction Among Collegiate Athletic Trainers

Abstract

Context:The degree to which an individual likes his or her job is known as job satisfaction. A person with higher job satisfaction is less likely to depart from a profession than a person with lower job satisfaction. Researchers studying job satisfaction among other allied health professionals suggest a personality component could explain why the reasons for departure can be so individual.Setting: Collegiate institutions. Objective: To determine the relationship between job satisfaction and personality among collegiate athletic trainers (ATs).Patients or Other Participants: A total of 202 ATs (68 [33.7%] men and 134 [66.3%] women), were recruited using the National Athletic Trainers' Association e-mail database. We excluded any AT from this study who worked outside of the collegiate setting. The response rate was 20.2%.Intervention(s): Data were collected using a Web-based survey instrument consisting of 3 sections: (1) demographics, (2) job satisfaction survey, and (3) Big Five Personality Inventory.Main Outcome Measure(s): Independent t tests were run to determine sex differences, and correlations were run to evaluate relationships between demographics and job satisfaction and between job satisfaction and personality.Results: Women reported higher levels of neuroticism than men. Extroversion and conscientiousness showed a weak positive relationship with job satisfaction. A moderate positive relationship was found between agreeableness and job satisfaction. A moderate negative relationship was noted between neuroticism and job satisfaction.Conclusions: Based on our findings, head ATs or other organizational leaders may consider using personality assessments during interview processes, or athletic training program directors may be able to better guide students interested in athletic training based on knowledge of their personalities.

Personality, lifestyle and job satisfaction: causal association between neuroticism and job satisfaction using Mendelian randomisation in the UK biobank cohort

“…Our results confirm that high neuroticism scores lead to low job satisfaction, which has been suggested in previous observational studies [45][46][47] . A key contribution of this study is the investigation of neuroticism and job satisfaction in a large representative sample of white European population, in contrast to the small observational studies that have investigated this relationship in smaller subgroups such as among bank employees (N = 126) 48 , athletic trainers (N = 202) 47 , government sector employees (N = 399) 45 and nurses (N = 140) 46 . The results from the MVMR analyses highlight that increasing neuroticism decreases job satisfaction.…”

Changes in job satisfaction among doctors in Norway from 2010 to 2017: a study based on repeated surveys

“…However, it was suggested to include other job-specific items in the scale, especially for doctors having employee status or working in organisational settings 45. Because job satisfaction varies with personality,67 well-being,7 8 mental and physical health status,3–5 40 it is also important to include these co-variates in future analyses.…”

Development of the Referee Retention Scale

“…A validity check of the RRS revealed a strong correlation (0.63, p < 0.01) between the RRS and job satisfaction which was expected since research has shown that individuals with higher job satisfaction are less likely to depart from the profession than those with less job satisfaction (Eason, Mazerolle, Monsma, & Mensch, 2015). Since the RSS was correlated with job satisfaction and the literature provides strong evidence that job satisfaction is a core predictor of turnover intention (Boswell, Boudreau, & Tichy, 2005;Griffeth, Horn, & Gaertner, 2000;Tschopp, Grote, & Gerber, 2014), it was not surprising that several factors from the RSS were cultivating a strong sense of community, appealing to the intrinsic motives that attract individuals to officiating (i.e., enjoyment of competition and staying involved with a sport), and taking measures to reduce the occurrence of stressful situations for referees.…”