Analyzing the Psychological Unsafety in Schools in Terms of Individual and Institutional Variables

Abstract

This study focused on finding out the “psychological unsafety perceptions” of administrators, teachers and other staff in Turkish schools and examining how it is affected by their personal and organizational variables.  Psychological unsafety is a phenomenon that its nature must be understood for organizational development and organizational effectiveness. Psychological unsafety in work environment is defined as the level of perception about risky work environment hindering employee to speak out what they think and to behave in comfort because of possible negative consequences. The study was implemented on totally 557 school stuff randomly selected from the schools located in different regions and provinces of Turkey. Data were gathered by “the psychological unsafety scale” and analysed by logistic regression analysis. At the end of the study, we found that a medium level of psychological unsafety is experienced at Turkish schools and gender as one of the personal variables and school size as one of the organizational variables significantly affect the psychological unsafety. Female stuff and those who work in small size schools experience much more psychological unsafety. Based on discussion of the findings, we developed suggestions for macro and micro level educational administration. When we consider the scarcity of the study focused on the psychological un/safety, we argue that the study makes a significant contribution in understanding of the phenomenon.